Leadership Excellence with Glenn Cranfield

Glenn Cranfield is President and CEO at Nashville Rescue Mission, and Host of the Real Hope podcast. 

In this conversation, Glenn talks with me about four key values that guide his work and ministry at Nashville Rescue Mission, including:

1. Extravagant Faith – Sometimes we’re forced into situations where all we have is faith. Impossible situations where people think there’s no hope. 
2. Radical Hospitality – Understanding that the person who is with you in the moment is the most important person in the world, and treating them that way. Focusing on showing others love, dignity, and value. 
3. Excellence – We can’t ever be perfect, and we know that. But we can strive to be perfect, and in that, practice excellence in all we do. 
4. Culture of Honor – Imagine how amazing the world would be if we each individually would strive to put others above ourselves, and to show dignity, value, and worth to others. 

We also talked about conflict inside organizations. Unlike some leaders in our sector, Glenn’s perspective is that conflict is both good and necessary. In fact, he makes a key point by sharing that the popular scripture verse (Prov 27:17), “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the wits of another” requires conflict — because it’s only in coming into contact that two pieces of iron can sharpen each other. In the same way, it’s only in conflict that two people can sharpen one another. That’s not to say that every time we experience conflict we’ll come out agreeing. But healthy conflict means we’ll engage directly with one another, engage deeply to share and learn from one another, and come away with deeper understanding of the other’s perspective and a broader understanding of the situation in question. 

There’s a lot more to this episode and Glenn’s leadership insights. I hope you are as inspired by this discussion as I was!