Bill Hybels serves as the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and chairman of the board for the Willow Creek Association, a not-for-profit organization that serves more than 12,000 member churches worldwide. Additionally, he remains a strong advocate both for The Leadership Summit, held every August and attended by more than 100,000 leaders at more than 200 host church sites in North America, and for the Global Leadership Summit, which this year will reach dedicated church leaders in 20 countries such as Brazil, Germany, Ukraine, and South Africa. A best-selling author, mentor to senior pastors, and highly sought after conference speaker on issues related to Christian leadership, Hybels is blessed with plentiful opportunities to have significant impact in the world around him.

With such a full plate of responsibilities, you’d expect to find him perpetually hooked up to a leadership development IV capable of pumping massive doses of strategic thinking and execution savvy into his system. On his leadership growth chart, you’d expect to see “quantum leaps” in his learning almost daily, all for the sake of staying sharp in the face of such immense challenges. But Hybels offers a different slant on what’s required of anyone who strives to “lead with all diligence,” as the apostle Paul encourages.

 “Leaders all experience quantum leaps in their development from time to time. And don’t get me wrong, those dramatic spikes are not only stimulating, but also necessary for leadership effectiveness. But I’ve come to believe it’s the steady, sustainable steps of escalation—gained even five percent at a time—that can make the real difference,” Hybels explains. “After more than three decades, I realize that, while I have to make meaningful and consistent progress, I don’t have to have a quantum-leap leadership experience every single year.”

The realization came to him on the heels of a small mentoring meeting in Canada. After eight solid hours holed away with a group of senior pastors, one of the participants was curious whether Bill thought the event had gone well. “What was your expectation for today?” the pastor asked.

Hybels’ reply came straight from his gut: “Five percent. My expectation for today was five percent. If each leader here could just get five percent better as a result of being part of this gathering, then I was going to rule it a whopping success.”

The meeting was a success, and although he hadn’t put much thought into it, his reflexive answer revealed Hybels’ deep belief that when church pastors get better, the church as a whole can get better. When pastors’ personal leadership improves—even in increments of five percent—it has a direct, corollary effect on the congregation’s proneness toward improvement, too.

“If a leader gets five percent better every year, year after year after year, the end result is a significant growth curve. Think about it: if you’re running a business and you get five percent better, your market share might increase a little, your return on investment might improve, and your stock prices might see a bump. But take that same five percent increase, apply it to church work, and the result is eternal, transformational life change!”

Hybels’ travels take him to remote parts of the world where it is often easier to see the impact of incremental growth. Earlier this year, he visited a group of 500 pastors in India to talk about the possibility of bringing the Global Leadership Summit to host sites in their area. The contrasts Hybels noted were mind-blowing: searing poverty within a hundred yards of a Mercedes dealership; city buses packed full with so many people that children rode the fenders and hung onto the doors while auto rickshaws flew by with mere inches to spare; traffic delays in downtown Mumbai because meandering cows—protected under Hindu tradition, mind you—couldn’t choose which side of the road they preferred.

More stirring still was the realization that the caste system—alive and quite well in most parts of India—had relegated 250 million people to a life of permanent poverty and oppression just for being born on the wrong side of the tracks.

Despite unthinkable challenges, limited finances, and deeply ingrained traditions, evangelical leaders there describe it as the most exciting era of outreach and growth that has ever swept through India. They have big dreams. They have big faith. And they are willing to do whatever it takes to bring people to Christ.

Hybels himself remembers what it was like to be vision-heavy and resource-light. As the 23-year-old head of Willow in the early days, he sold tomatoes door to door so that a little band of three dozen devoted Creekers could make the $250-a-week rental payment to the theater where weekend worship services were held. On top of organizing services, writing talks, helping to lead worship, and facilitating twice-nightly home meetings in order to raise funds for a permanent meeting spot, Bill Hybels was moonlighting as a salesman for his dad’s produce company to cover his own family’s expenses. Just like his current-day comrades in India, though, his belief that God was up to something big compelled him to seize every opportunity to log another five percent gain. Books, sermon tapes, conversations with seasoned leaders—he’d accept leadership inspiration wherever he found it. By all accounts, his dedication has paid off.

Upon completing his recent work in India, Hybels found himself stricken with a huge case of faith-based optimism regarding God’s plans for India. From there, it was on to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, where he would be introduced to still more leaders who “get” what five percent growth spurts can yield: “Think of what those gains actually translate to over time!” he notes. “A couple more conversions a quarter? A few more small groups? Another batch of under-resourced men and women getting help from a local church? Every time we get five percent better, friends, it translates immediately into kingdom help for needy lives.”

An accomplished leader himself, Hybels is simply in awe of church leaders who find ways to stretch their minds, broaden their horizons, expand their hearts, and refuse to stay the same year after year. The best leaders he knows are incurable learners, he says. “The ones who are utterly committed to getting better all the time,” he admits, “ … they are the reason I stay fired up!”

In the not-too-distant future, Hybels envisions masses of people in places like Delhi and Bangalore and Mumbai surrendering their lives to Christ. “I have to wonder how many of those freshly-converted people will attribute their salvation to having crossed paths with a pastor right there in India who chose to get just five percent better by coming to the Global Leadership Summit.”

His ponderings seem to beg the question of leaders everywhere: Whose lives will be eternally changed because of your five-percent commitment this year?