Recently I have been reading Bill Hybels book "Courageous Leadership". I
have found it very interesting. Bill seems to be another example of a man
of God who is willing to learn practical wisdom from whatever source he can
find.

It is possible for us to know all our biblical theology but end up building
nothing that is of substance or will last with our lives.

The bible is sufficient for the purposes for which it is intended to be
sufficient. Learning some of the common sense principles which will help
us in our leadership of both ourselves and others is perhaps not one of
them.

That isn't to say of course that biblical principles are not helpful to us
in leadership, but just that the practical wisdom that a man like Bill
Hybels obviously gathers from both Christian and Non-Christian sources is
also essential. Let's not forget that there is a good biblical precedent
in Moses for a leader of Gods people to take practical advice from a wise
unbeliever (in Moses case, his father-in-law)

Therefore, my conviction is that we need to listen more to men like Bill
Hybells, who clearly has been granted a measure of success in his
leadership.

It is possible to fall into two errors when faced with such men that are
equally dangerous. The first is to assume that because they are successful
everything they say is by definition suspect. The second is to be so
impressed by their success that we swallow everything they say and stop
listening to other Godly preachers. We have to learn discernment and how
to seek out the good in everyone we listen to.

In the rest of this post I will quote a couple of points that stood out to
me from Bill's Book:-

Bill described having three guiding principles that help him make decisions

1. Honor God in everything and he'll honor you
2. People matter to God
3. The local church is the hope of the world

He also said "Church work ought to be at its core the work of loving people
like God loves them"

Update
One of my commentators is concerned that I might be undermining the scripture in the above post. Just to clarify what I intended to say, I do of course believe that whatever practical wisdom we receive from any source needs to be weighed and tested against biblical principles. The bible is sufficient for all purposes for which God intended it to be used. The principles in it are actually often the insipiration for some modern management ideas, and where these ideas are not inconsistent with scripture then we should embrace them.

I love what one of my commentators said about it "It's not a matter of the Scriptures "falling short." It's a matter of their providing the normative basis by which we evaluate all other alleged knowledge or wisdom, of which there is much; and much of it is very useful."