I have followed the life and ministry of Gordon MacDonald for years. I recently came across an interview of Gordon by Carey Nieuwhof. Here are 15 leadership insights from the vantage point of being 80 years of age. I will post the link for this interview below.

1. Put the people you value most into your calendar first.
   • Pastors, your family is the Lord’s work. Live like it.
2. Never stop learning and growing!
   • If you want to do what you’re called to do, you need to keep growing.
3. Be more a priest and less a preacher to people.
   • A preacher is a one-way conversation, but a priest is a dialogue. Be more like a priest to the people in your life.
4. The time will come when you will have to relinquish titles and privileges and slip into obscurity. Ultimately the obscurity of death.
   • What kind of an old person do you want to be? Plan for it.
5. Prepare yourself for those occasions. When, you like most people, you will suffer, fail, fall into doubt, face conflict and experience loss.
   • Disappointments and doubts will come into your life. Sometimes Satan wins a battle, but he will never win the war.
6. Be trustworthy and dependable. A person who keeps his or her word. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
   • Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Your integrity relies upon it.
7. Be a spiritual mother or father to teachable people who may someday inherit your responsibilities.
   • The next generation needs what you have to offer. Don’t withhold it.
8. Live modestly, stay free of debt. Be generous, develop a financial strategy for your future, and be wary of those who try to buy your favor.
   • The way you handle your money is one of the ways your congregation judges you.
9. Expect to reorder your internal life once every 7-10 years.
   • Life goes through basic definitional changes in 10-year increments. The way you think about life will need to change with these things.
10. Receive compliments, criticism, and counsel with humility and appreciation. Avoid whining, complaining, self-pity. Assume that there is at least a grain of truth in the thing’s critics say about you and your work.
    • Always in a conversation, look for the grain of truth. Everybody has something God has planted in them for you.
11. Stay alert for the evils and temptations embedded in institutional life.
    • Every relationship has its flaws. And good leadership is “assuming that there are flaws in this organization, and I must always be aware of when they might show themselves and what I as a leader would do to bring it under control.”
12. Be quick to say with sincerity, “Thank you.” “Well done.” “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” And, “How can I help?”
    • These are the five inner core transactions in all relationships. None of them can be missing if you would like to have a healthy relationship. Always look for the thing you can find in another person that’s worth praising.
13. Always maintain a relationship with one or two mentors who can aid you in hearing God’s voice.
    • Over the course of a lifetime, aim to have had over 100 mentors that have left their wisdom with you.
14. Master the art of asking the penetrating questions that open someone’s heart.
    • You know that you are asking penetrating questions when you get responses like:
      “Boy, you really ask good questions.”
      “Wow. Nobody’s ever asked me that before.”
      Or, “I’ve never thought about that.”
    • When you get those kinds of responses, this person is welcoming you to a place that’s near to their heart.
15. Retreat to the cross regularly. Express your appreciations. Name your sins. Pray for the world. Listen to God’s call to do things that are bigger than you.
    • This point eclipses all other points on this list.

https://careynieuwhof.com/?s=Gordon+MacDonald