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Dozens of local business and civic leaders gathered on the campus of Bluefield College, May 4, for the Chick-fil-A Leadercast, a professional development opportunity featuring simulcast speeches from the likes of CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, the NFL’s Tim Tebow, leadership expert John Maxwell, and other internationally known leaders and speakers.

Chris Shoemaker

May 8, 2012

	Dozens of local business and civic leaders gathered on campus, May 4, for the Chick-fil-A Leadercast, a professional development opportunity featuring simulcast speeches from the likes of CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, the NFL’s Tim Tebow, leadership expert John Maxwell, and other internationally known leaders and speakers.

Sponsored by Chick-fil-A and broadcast live from Atlanta, Georgia, to more than 125,000 leaders at 600 venues around the world, including Bluefield College, the Leadercast was designed to inspire local business, civic and family leaders to make better choices and to be leaders of leaders.

“This was a wonderful opportunity for the college to partner with Chick-fil-A to present exceptional speakers and leaders for professional development,” said BC president, Dr. David Olive. “And, there is no other business organization I know of that emphasizes leadership development like Chick-fil-A. Our hope is that every participant takes with them today new ideas, new concepts, and a renewed sense of energy to be leaders of leaders in our community.”
 

The daylong conference “for every leader at every level” offered life-changing insights from world-renowned speakers on the choices we make as managers and how those choices impact our organization, family, community, and beyond.
 

Headlining the lectures: O’Brien, an anchor and special correspondent for CNN, who has reported breaking news from around the globe and produced award-winning documentaries on the most important stories facing the world today; Tebow, one of the most accomplished players in college football history and a two-time winner of the NCAA National Football Championship, whose inspirational memoir, “Through my Eyes,” was a New York Times bestseller; and Maxwell, an internationally renowned leadership expert, coach and author, who has sold more than 20 million books and trained more than five million managers.
 

One of the largest events of its kind, the Chick-fil-A Leadercast also featured remarks from onetime college football Coach of the Year and two-time BCS National Champion Urban Meyer; best-selling author and president of The Table Group Patrick Lencioni; strength strategist and best-selling author and researcher Marcus Buckingham; chief executive officer of Burberry outerwear Angela Ahrendts; professor of economics at Harvard and CEO of the Education Innovation Laboratory Roland Fryer; author of “The Art of Choosing” and world-renowned expert on choice Sheena Iyengar; and best-selling leadership author and communicator Andy Stanley.
 

“I loved all the speakers, but Andy Stanley, John Maxwell and Patrick Lencioni really spoke to me as a leader,” said Leadercast participant Mike Wade, owner and operator of the Chick-fil-A at Mercer Mall. “I think throughout the webcast three items, for me anyway, kept coming up, and they were ‘trust,’ ‘vulnerability,’ and ‘growth.’ The past three years for me have been working on building trust with my team, working on my life plan or growth plan, and showing my team that I may not have all the answers, but together we can figure it out.”
 

Stanley encouraged Leadercast listeners not to sacrifice family for a career and to become “leaders worth following.” Tebow challenged listeners to “worry about only the things you can control.” He also encouraged participants to “impact lives by bringing faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day.”
 

“It’s the ‘knowing-doing’ gap,” said participant Bill Gilmer, president of Wordsprint printing company. “We all know what we need to do to be successful leaders; we just don’t do it. What I liked about the Leadercast was the attention focused on this gap and how to overcome it. Whether it was Patrick Lencioni talking about organization health, Marcus Buckingham showing us how to focus on strengths, or even Tim Tebow reminding us to pay attention to only the things we can control -- all of these and the other speakers gave us practical, take-home instructions for implementing these principles in our daily lives.”
 

Brought to local business, civic and family leaders in part by the generosity of Chick-fil-A Mercer Mall, Consol Energy, Tazewell County, WISE (Women in Search of Empowerment), and Wordsprint, the BC Chick-fil-A Leadercast is an annual event For more information or to sign up or serve as a co-sponsor next year, contact the BC Office of Public Relations by e-mail at or by phone at 276.326.4212.
 

“Many thanks to Bluefield College for sponsoring this event,” said Gilmer. “Wordsprint will be back again, in force, next year.”

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