Inside Out Leadership: Part II
More Together: Why Wichita's Heroes Can't Win Alone
Over the last year, I've spent a significant amount of time conducting formal and informal listening sessions with leaders across Wichita.
To be completely transparent, I didn't have to.
I've spent years working alongside leaders in our city. Through City-to-City delegation trips, board service, nonprofit partnerships, leadership initiatives, and countless conversations over coffee, I've had a front-row seat to many of the people and organizations shaping Wichita's future. More than a few people questioned why I was dedicating so much time to listening when I already knew many of the players and the landscape.
The answer is that I had a hunch.
I couldn't fully articulate it at first, but I could feel it. No matter where the conversation happened, there seemed to be a common refrain. Whether I was talking with business leaders, pastors, educators, nonprofit executives, philanthropists, civic leaders, or engaged citizens, I kept hearing some version of the same thing:
We need more.
More volunteers. More resources. More leaders. More programs. More engagement. More people willing to step up and carry responsibility.
The needs being described were real. Wichita is not lacking challenges worthy of our attention, nor opportunities for people to make a difference. But the more I heard the refrain, the more I found myself becoming suspicious of it.
Not because I disagreed with it.
Because I wasn't convinced it was telling the whole story.
The assumption embedded within "more" is that scarcity is our primary problem. If we could simply recruit enough volunteers, raise enough money, launch enough programs, or find enough leaders, then perhaps the challenges in front of us would begin to resolve themselves.
But as I looked around Wichita, I wasn't sure scarcity was the only issue. In fact, in many cases I saw remarkable abundance.
I saw talented leaders.
I saw generous people.
I saw thriving organizations.
I saw countless examples of sacrificial service and deep commitment to the common good.
What I wasn't sure I saw was enough connection between them.
As the months went on, my original hunch slowly evolved into something more concrete. I've started to wonder if "more" is the wrong prayer for Wichita.
Not because we don't need more people engaged in the work. We absolutely do.
But because what we may need even more is to become more together.
Heroes Everywhere—And Running Hard
One of the greatest encouragements from this season of listening has been the reminder that Wichita is filled with people who care deeply about this city.
I met leaders who have quietly dedicated decades to serving others without seeking recognition. Entrepreneurs creating jobs and reinvesting in their communities. Educators helping students discover possibility. Nonprofit leaders carrying responsibilities that would make most people reconsider their calling. Pastors, volunteers, board members, philanthropists, and civic leaders who consistently choose service over comfort.
These are the people who see a gap and move toward it.
When they encounter a problem, they don't spend much time wondering whose responsibility it is. They start something. Build something. Fund something. Lead something.
In many ways, Wichita has an abundance of heroes.
And yet one of the most consistent themes I encountered wasn't optimism.
It was exhaustion.
Not the kind of exhaustion that causes someone to walk away. Something maybe worse than that.
The kind of exhaustion that settles into leaders who continue carrying responsibility because they care too much to stop. The kind that rarely announces itself publicly because the work still gets done. Programs continue. Events happen. Commitments are fulfilled. From the outside, everything appears healthy.
But underneath, many leaders are operating with less margin than they once had.
And that's not merely a personal concern. It's a civic concern.
Because the first thing depletion steals is rarely productivity.
It's curiosity.
It's creativity.
It's the willingness to explore the edges of a problem and imagine new possibilities.
When leaders become depleted, they naturally focus on what is urgent and necessary. They protect the mission. They maintain the programs. They fulfill the commitments they've already made.
What becomes harder is experimentation.
What becomes harder is innovation.
What becomes harder is lifting your eyes above the immediate demands of your work long enough to notice who else is wrestling with a similar challenge or where opportunities for collaboration might exist.
In other words, depletion narrows our field of vision. And as I stated when I first took this role, “innovation happens at the fringes”.
And if there is one thing Wichita needs right now, it is leaders with enough margin to see beyond their individual organizations and toward the larger ecosystem they are part of.
As I listened, another pattern began to emerge. Many of our leaders aren't simply carrying heavy loads. They're carrying those loads within disconnected networks.
Across every sector, remarkable work is happening. Yet much of it happens in parallel. Organizations pursue similar goals without knowing one another well. Leaders solve problems others have already solved. Volunteers struggle to find the right opportunities while organizations compete for the same limited pool of support.
None of this happens because people are selfish or territorial.
Most of the time it happens because everyone is busy doing the work.
The irony is that the very people most committed to helping Wichita flourish often have the least amount of margin to build the relationships that could make their efforts even more effective.
And that led me to one of the clearest conclusions from this season of listening:
Connection replenishes what isolation depletes.
What My Hunch Became
Eventually I found language for what I had been sensing.
Wichita has extraordinary leaders operating within extraordinary organizations, but many of those leaders are functioning within disconnected networks while carrying increasing levels of depletion and without a common way to share learning, celebrate progress, or collectively respond to challenges.
That isn't a criticism of anyone.
It's a structural reality.
The issue isn't a lack of passion. If anything, passion is overflowing.
The issue isn't a lack of talent. Our city is full of capable leaders.
And while resources are always needed, I'm not convinced resources are the primary challenge either.
The gap, more often than not, is connection.
Heroes can accomplish extraordinary things on their own for a season. But cities are not transformed by isolated acts of heroism. Cities are transformed when trust becomes strong enough that ideas, resources, opportunities, and burdens begin flowing across networks rather than remaining trapped within them.
That's why I have become increasingly convinced that the future of Wichita will not be built by a person, a program, or a single institution.
It will be built by leaders who learn how to work together.
A Network of Networks
At Lead Wichita, that's what we mean when we talk about building a network of networks.
We don't believe transformation happens because one organization accumulates enough influence to solve every problem. We believe transformation happens when leaders become connected enough to see themselves as participants in something larger than their individual mission.
When trust grows between networks, collaboration becomes easier. When collaboration becomes easier, resources stretch further. Knowledge spreads faster. Innovation increases. Leaders become less isolated. And the collective capacity of a city begins to exceed the sum of its individual parts.
As I said earlier, connection replenishes what isolation depletes.
That's true for individual leaders, and it's true for cities.
Consider something as simple as mentorship.
Across Wichita, there are dozens of organizations investing in mentoring relationships. Most face similar challenges: recruiting volunteers, training them effectively, and helping them remain engaged over time.
What if those organizations didn't have to solve those challenges alone?
What if they shared best practices, coordinated training efforts, aligned volunteer pathways, and learned from one another's successes and failures?
The goal wouldn't be to eliminate individual programs.
The goal would be to strengthen every program.
That's what "more together" looks like.
Not uniformity.
Not consolidation.
Collaboration.
It's the recognition that the impact of our individual efforts grows when they become connected to a larger ecosystem of leaders pursuing the common good.
The GLS Is One of Those Spaces
The challenge, of course, is that collaboration doesn't happen automatically.
People need places where relationships can form, trust can grow, and leaders can step outside the urgency of their daily responsibilities long enough to reconnect with a larger vision.
That's one of the reasons I continue to believe so strongly in the Global Leadership Summit.
Yes, the content matters. Every year leaders are exposed to ideas, perspectives, and practical insights that challenge them to grow.
But I have become increasingly convinced that the greatest value of the Summit isn't simply what happens on the screens.
It's what happens around them.
For two days, leaders who normally operate within separate worlds find themselves sharing the same room. Business leaders sit alongside nonprofit leaders. Educators connect with entrepreneurs. Pastors meet civic leaders. Volunteers discover organizations they never knew existed.
The Summit becomes more than a conference.
It becomes a gathering place for Wichita's leadership ecosystem.
And that matters because transformation rarely begins with information alone.
More often, it begins with relationships.
This year, we're leaning even further into that idea through the Leadership Lobby, a curated gathering of local nonprofits and community organizations creating meaningful pathways for engagement.
Every year people leave the Summit inspired. They want to contribute. They want to serve. They want to become part of something larger than themselves.
At the same time, organizations across Wichita are looking for volunteers, mentors, advocates, board members, and partners.
The Leadership Lobby exists to help those two realities find each other.
It's an opportunity to move from inspiration to action, from connection to contribution, and from individual interest to collective impact.
And perhaps that's the clearest expression of what I've learned over the past year.
Wichita does not lack passionate people.
It does not lack capable leaders.
It does not lack organizations doing important work.
What we need is greater connection between the people already committed to helping our city flourish.
We need more opportunities to inspire one another, connect across sectors, and transform good intentions into meaningful action.
That's the work we're committed to at Lead Wichita.
And that's why I believe the Global Leadership Summit matters.
Not simply because of the speakers.
Not simply because of the content.
But because it creates a space where leaders can gather, learn, build relationships, and discover how their individual efforts fit into something larger.
Because connection replenishes what isolation depletes.
Whether you're leading an organization, serving on a board, mentoring a student, building a business, or simply looking for a meaningful way to invest in Wichita's future, I hope you'll join us.
Come be inspired.
Come get connected.
Come discover new ways to help transform Wichita.
Because Wichita's future won't be built by heroes working alone.
It will be built by leaders who learn how to do more together.
► Register for GLS 2026 — August 6 & 7
► Apply for the Leadership Lobby