Episode 167 | Own It! : Influencing Culture from Any Seat An Interview with Ed Ollie Jr.

It can be frustrating for a high capacity leader when you don’t find yourself in a chief decision making seat. It can be hard figuring out where to show up or how to affect culture. But the truth is culture always exists. You are always influencing culture and culture is always influencing you. However, if we do not become aware of the responsibility that comes with our seat of influence, within that culture, and learn how to calibrate that influence well, we can become passive in our leadership ultimately moving us into a victim mindset.  

In this week's episode, Jenni has a conversation with Ed Ollie Jr. about how we can effectively lead and affect culture from any seat of influence by asking the questions: “What is the current culture? What am I bringing to the culture? And How do we diagnose the culture to move forward together with clear mission, vision and values?”. Ed graduated with athletic and academic honors in Political Science and Sociology and holds a Masters of Public Administration. Ed enjoys serving on the international board of InterVarsity USA and MOPS and has served as chaplain for the Miami Hurricanes as well as other professional teams. In 1995 New Man Magazine named him one of the "Top Five Young Christian Leaders" in America. In 2020, Ed accepted the position of Campus Pastor of the historic Willow Creek Community Church’s North Shore Campus where he serves as part of the Senior Leadership and Teaching Team.

For any leader, it is important to take regular inventory of the lanes and roles you can control, in order to positively impact the culture and spaces in which you do have influence over. No matter what position we may hold we can always affect culture positively when we ask ourselves: “What is right? What is true? And What can I do?”

For a next step, we encourage you to REGISTER for the Culture Conference 2022 hosted by The 4Sight Group. Culture Conference is a FREE digital conference, taking place Aug 11th that will provide practical talks from today’s top leaders to help you continue to build thriving teams, cultivate inspiring workplaces, and achieve mission. 

Resources:

Thrivent

Connect with Ed:

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