Starbucks CEO fails leadership test

Over on his blog manofdepravity.com , Tyler Braun states he was at the Global Leadership Summit last week when Willow Creek’s Bill Hybel’s announced that Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz canceled his appearance at the last minute because some 700 people had signed a petition stating that Willow Creek Community Church is anti-gay, which Hybels says is absolutely not true.

Oh. Brother.

See. This is where I part ways with the Gay agenda. I just don’t support bullying in any form — be it from the Church toward the Gays or visa-versa. When someone whines to me about how marginalized the LGBT community is these days, I remind them how much political and financial clout the Gay community has been able to marshall. I’m sorry. I get that Gays have been wrongfully mistreated but I don’t think the answer to correcting that is to then turn around and mistreat others and call it all fairness or equality.

As my wise mama used to say, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Hybels says something in his talk that echoes much truth, I think, especially in light of some of the discussions we’ve been having. Hybels says we’ve become a culture that “Throws stones first and asks questions later.

Morever, he said, “We see this in our political system and it’s rapidly making our country ungovernable. Jesus taught a better way.”

Now Hybels goes on to encourage people to buy Howard Schultz’s book on leadership titled Onward. I haven’t yet read it, so I can’t recommend it one way or another. Hybels, however, said he read it four times and is a better leader because of it.

But I wonder — how much leadership does a man display when he allows 700 people online to bully him into backing out of a contractual commitment?

Or 70,000, for that matter?

And where is the win in this for the LGBT community?

Bullying might change a person’s behavior but rarely does it change their convictions. You’d think if anyone would refuse to participate in bullying as a means of compulsion, it would be the LGBT community. Shame on everyone who signed that pathetic petition.

Shame on Shultz, too.

Instructing others on building a winning brand, Schultz advises: “Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t try to fit the system. If you do what’s expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect.”

Looks like he needs to take a page from his own playbook.

It would seem to me that Howard Schultz took the safe route, and in so doing, he failed to lead in this instance.

Your thoughts?