Today I am working at home. To be honest it started as a way of not riding my bike to the office in the rain! I have been committed to using the day productively so began to develop more of the programme for the leadership day I am running for New Wine Cymru and what used to be known as the Flames of Fire conference  (www.flamesoffire.co.uk)  The purpose of the day is to prepare the young leadership team for the hectic week in August.

A lot of the great modern thinkers on this subject have been encouraged and developed by the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership develpoped by Robert K. Greenleaf. (1904-1990)

It was 7th July 1985 at Roundhay Park Leeds that I first saw Bruce Springsteen in Concert. It was part of the "Born In the USA tour and he was on amazing form. In fact if you watch the live video of "Born to Run" and you knew where to look at the right time, you might see me in the audience. Next time out was the in 1988 on "The Tunnel of Love" tour. This was September 7th 1988. It was a good concert but not a patch on the one before. He even did "Born to Run" Acoustically. what's all that about? So hearing he would be playing in the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, I knew I would buy a ticket but would he be any good?

It was a great night out. He seems to be loved by men and women alike, which is pretty unique. There is no doubt that from a live persective, he is "The Boss". However, I must admit I sometimes question the idolisation of stars, when for me, Jesus is the boss. However, these lyrics are quite profound:

One of our priorities at Ignite (www.igniteme.org) is to develop leaders, particularly young leaders. We run a Leadership Academy and we prioritise having young people as interns in the organisation. In recent weeks we have appointed Chloe Roberts as our new Training Manager. At 26, she will bring a dynamism to this role. She will work to develop the academy, Inspire, Offensive and the training of our interns. This an exciting time for the organisation and I am delighted she is joining us. Leadership is a subject that has fascinated me for quite a while now. I think it is the subject that I read about most and along with being a man of God, a good dad and a good husband occupies a lot of my thinking. This is probably because I am confronted with the reality of it on a daily basis. Being the Executive Director is both a privilege and a huge responsibility. I know some days I have a good day and some days a lousy day. Simply my aim must be to have more good days this week than I had last week! I am currently reading "Developing the Leaders Around You" by John Maxwell.  He has a great gift of making this subject very readable and achievable. One quote of his that I know to be true is this: "A person can impress potential leaders from a distance, but only from close up can he impact them". Of course this a double edged sword. The impact you have can either be positive or negative depending on the values, commitment and integrity that you bring to the relationship. There is no doubt about it, there is no substitute to investing quality time in to developing leaders and for that matter developing relationships. Also there is personal example. By being committed to being the best leader there is potential to inspire others to greatness. Roger Bannister achieved what all the experts said was impossible. He ran a mile in under 4 minutes. He believed it was possible and he committed himself to doing it. He was the first but now, any decent mile runner can beat the 4 minute barrier. The reason for this is simple. He initially raised the bar but in doing so, he set the standard by which other runners would be measured. What is the standard I want to set as a leader?