Episode Description:
Sometimes, our long-term plans change, and we must adapt to leading by capturing opportunities that come our way. This week, Bobby welcomes, Dr. Roger Parrott, the president of Belhaven University and author of Opportunity Leadership: Stop Planning and Start Getting Results. Roger shares his insights from 34 years of his role as a president in higher education in order to help us as leaders capture opportunities and trust in God’s plan. As Christians, we are called to steward the opportunities, resources, and people that come our way. This is something that takes patience. We may have to learn the skill of anticipatory waiting in the moment as we trust God for the future. This paradigm-shifting conversation will challenge and encourage you undoubtedly in what may be a new way of leadership for many of us.
In this episode, Roger and Bobby will discuss:
- How “Opportunity Leadership” is Biblical and powerful.
- How Belhaven University shifted from long-range planning so that they can focus on opportunities.
- Trust in God’s plan and timing because it will bring us to the destinations he has prepared for us.
- Shifting from long-range planning conversely does not abdicate operational planning.
- Learning how to adapt to capture opportunity.
- Learning how to be patient in the process.
- The importance of empowering your people.
- Belhaven University’s commitment to walking in truth and grace.
About the guest:
Dr. Roger Parrott is one of America’s most experienced university presidents. Leading Belhaven University, a doctoral-level institution. It is highly regarded as one of only 36 schools in the world working at the highest level of collegiate Arts programs. Belhaven was named in 2021 “Best University to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Roger was recognized as one of the “10 Most Visionary Education Leaders of 2021” by Education Magazine.
For a quarter-century, he served in board leadership roles with Lausanne Movement and The Mission America Coalition. He was chairman of the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization. He is the author of Opportunity Leadership: Stop Planning and Start Getting Results, and The Longview: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders.
Roger has been a sought-after consultant to over 100 different ministries and has experience serving on boards of international, national, and local ministries and non-profits, as well as higher education leadership organizations.
About the host:
Following a successful career as CEO, Bobby sold his business to a publicly-traded company. In what he calls his “second half of life,” Bobby seeks to pour Biblically-based principles into growth-minded business, church, and non-profit leaders.
Through Values-Driven Leadership, Bobby serves as an Executive Coach and Training Consultant for organizations. He shares many of his principles and practices through a weekly blog, the True North Leader podcast, and through three books he has authored:
- Principled Profits: Outward Success Is an Inside Job
- True North Business: A Leader’s Guide to Extraordinary Growth and Impact
- The Freedom Paradox: Is Unbridled Freedom Dividing America?
Pause and Reflect: Leading by Capturing Opportunities
- How are you learning to adapt to create opportunity?