We asked for prayer last month for a training that I and a few of our IGSL faculty are conducting this Spring for the Philippine Armed Forces Command College – for mostly Lieutenant Colonels and Commanders in terms of ranking, people that oversee anywhere between 300-1000 personnel typically. I taught two of the weeks (8 total hours of instruction) on Team Leadership.  Thank you for praying because I was pretty intimidated by this opportunity because of the high rankings involved and numbers, but after an hour of the first session I really settled in and had a lot of fun with it.  It might have helped I only had to look at one zoom screen at a time to avoid thinking of the five additional screens just like it!

         There were multiple opportunities for me to weave in my faith in Christ as I used research from Jim Collins’ Good to Great and Patrick Lencioni to discuss leadership humility and the call to look out for those around us and not just pursue our own advantage in organizations, often called “careerism.” There is a real value of teams in the PH AFP, but there often is a gap with the values or character “virtues” of the leaders and team members, so my task was to help these high-ranking leaders understand not just “why” teams are effective and needed, but “how” high-performance teams are cultivated and what it requires in the character of those on the team, especially the leader. 

          I have the opportunity to also communicate the gospel clearly as I will explore Monday – team conflict, conflict resolution, and reconciliation through confession and forgiveness. Please pray for life change and fruit, but also that our whole training would continue to have favor in the eyes of the AFP.  They recently asked IGSL to participate in reviewing and consulting on their entire officer’s leadership training curriculum!  Amazing!