Why I Bring My Leadership Team to the GLS

Alan Petelinsek is a husband, father, business leader and an elder at Cross Point Church. As the owner of a company called Power Test, he uses The Global Leadership Summit to develop his leadership skills and those of his team. Watch and read how the Summit is impacting him and his company:

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If we think about our careers, we get whatever education we get. Then we enter the workforce and often sit stagnant—we don’t grow. But a leader is a person who always strives to grow.

My father started this business [Power Test] in 1976, and I was his first full time employee. As far as leadership development, I didn’t have a whole lot going on. I could see what my father was doing, but all I could do was read books and find people of influence to try to emulate. Over time, my career advanced, and our company is up to nearly 100 people. I’m the leader, but it really has been a development process.

…I can create a positive influence on my employees that will trickle back to their families.

The Global Leadership Summit is a place where I get to see leaders way beyond what I normally get to see. They inspire me, encourage me and give me a skill set. The GLS has shaped me personally by exposing to me what God really has going on in my life. Sitting in an auditorium and being coached to think differently, and really see our potential speaks to me.

I believe that business can be the big C church.

We go to our places of worship on the weekends, and there we capture whatever messages we get, and we walk away. We can choose to either bury those messages, or we can elect to share those messages through our leadership and our influence in our business. I am God’s embodiment in the workplace, where people pay attention to what I’m doing and where I can create a positive influence on my employees that will trickle back to their families. How spectacular is that?

The GLS has been really powerful for our company.

I walk away from the GLS full of ideas and inspired to be a better leader.

We take our full senior leadership team to the Summit. We take individuals from fabrication, machining, assembly, purchasing and traditional management who are given this opportunity to go see speakers who generally have amazing ideas, and most have messages that have to do with our faith. This really stretches each of us, especially me as a business owner. I’m rolling the dice and taking my crew there, hoping I’m not overstepping my bounds. But each of them has walked away with different ideas that can help them get better. It opens dialogue between us having to do with our faith, and that’s a great opportunity as well.

Being a leader is not something I ever wanted to do. It’s a learned trait. The GLS provides me with some of the best thought leaders, and some of the most visionary leaders you could imagine seeing in two days. I walk away from the GLS full of ideas and inspired to be a better leader.