I don’t recommend being in Las Vegas on a Friday night. Overall, Vegas is a dumpster fire wrapped in a train wreck.<\/p>\n
That is, unless, you are in Las Vegas with your best friends, to see [arguably] the best band in the world, U2<\/a>, at the best venue currently in the world: The Sphere<\/a>. Google it, and you’ll see what 2.4 Billion dollars will get you. The Sphere and U2 is a spine-tingling convergence of audio, visual, songwriting, artistry, spirituality, camaraderie, architecture, and unity that was, dare I say, sublime<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sublime<\/strong>. Dr. Clark referred to sublime as “reaching towards something that would point us towards something bigger.” The sublime leads you and I to a place of wonder. The sublime is an encounter that leaves you with no words to explain it.<\/p>\n That Friday night in Las Vegas moved me to tears, to prayer, to worship, and to awe. It was sublime.<\/p>\n Music (and all that is connected to it visually and emotionally) has a way of doing that and making me feel that way, which is why I “resonated” with Glanzer and “The Sound of Leadership” in such a deep way. It was a right time, right place book for me, especially because of the musical notes it embedded, and the volume of questions<\/strong> it posed. One could not go a page or two in Glanzer without encountering a question to wrestle with and work out.<\/p>\n In leadership, especially that of the “undefended leader” (Simon Walker), the humility to not<\/strong> have all the answers, and the ability to ask good questions is vitally important. In musical parlance, questions are the way forward in discerning, listening, responding and harmonizing the sound of leadership.<\/p>\n Bono<\/strong>, of the band U2<\/strong> said it this way in the 1980 song 11 \u2018o clock Tick Tock<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n “We thought we had the answers. It was the questions we had wrong.”<\/em> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps this is why Bono’s life and influence, along with his band mates from the Northside of Dublin, has been so profound and widespread. Perhaps this is why so many, like myself, resonate with the music of U2. They readily admit that they thought<\/em> they had the right answers, that their questions may have been wrong, and therefore, their supposedly right answers were perhaps wrong as well.<\/p>\n This all sounds an awful (or better yet, awe-full) lot like humility<\/strong> to me.<\/p>\n Glanzer referenced a number of questions he asks of his team, one of which is: “What is one thing you would like me to do differently?” (Glanzer, 18). Leadership, which is often equated with bravado, self-centeredness, and pride, must, I repeat, must flow from humility. The art of asking good questions and NOT always having the answers, is a mark of humility.<\/p>\n I wonder what role that of humbly responding to criticism plays in the sound of leadership? Glanzer speaks about harmonizing voices (ie; people that are serving together on a team towards a preferred future), but what about dissenting voices? I am very interested in hearing more from Glanzer (perhaps on our Zoom call) about decisions he made that garnered criticism, and how he handled those questions, comments, concerns, and, perhaps even, hostility towards his leadership. I am also interested in asking him about “the one decision that received no criticism and had 100 percent support [that] ended up as arguably the worst decision of my entire tenure” (Glanzer, 16).<\/p>\n Questions.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Even in our recent Cohort Zoom, in discussing the war in the Middle East, we collectively didn’t have many (if any) answers. We just had a lot of questions. What’s going on? Why is this taking place? Who does this involve, really?<\/em> The day before my wife and I left for Las Vegas I received a call from a church staff member<\/a>. He was on speaker phone with three other staff members in their office. They wanted to ask me about the rising conflict in Israel.<\/p>\n Who or what is Hamas? What side should we be on? What are they fighting about? What does the Bible say about all this?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Questions<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I, humbly speaking, did not have many good answers, and frankly bumbled through the ones did I offer. In the end, I said, “Guys, I have been to the Middle East (ie: Israel, Jordan, Egypt) a number of times and I STILL don’t fully understand what’s going on? But, let’s try to figure it out. And let’s commit ourselves to praying and asking more questions.”<\/p>\n\n