Do you believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Are you the head of a company? If both answers are “Yes,” quickly examine how you’ve run that company. Think about how you’ve run every part of your life – your business, your marriage, your parenting, your relationship with God – and ask yourself this question: Have you consistently aligned every bit of your life with Christ and His priorities?
If your answer to that third question is “No, not always,” you’re not alone. As human beings, we sin. Possessions, accomplishments, success, work, and people can easily become idols for us and move us away from God and His priorities. Everything we do should be done to glorify God, and the best way to do that is to prioritize our lives through the lens of the Gospel.
When we turn to the Gospel, we can see that Christ loves us so much that He blesses us despite our sins and failures. I (Ryan) have seen this evident so many times in my life – even when I pursued the idol of financial security instead of getting my security from Him, He still showed me grace. Though there were consequences along the way, and I did not repent, He never left me, nor did He forsake me. Not until both businesses I ran were well established did I see how much good I had sacrificed along the way. I had given up my health, time with my family, true fellowship, and other essentials – all for an idol. Repentance then flowed.
1st Principle Leadership is founded to help you, as a Christian head of a company, prevent and correct these kinds of mistakes. We want to empower you to live by the truth that Christ should always be our First Principle, and by doing so, propel your relationship with Christ, your family, and your business forward. When we do this, God gets the glory that belongs to Him, and we thrive across our lives.
Our Process
Every step involved in our work with you is tailored to your particular needs, the needs of your family, and/or your company’s needs.
Step 1: The 1PL Foundation – Tell Your Story
We begin our time with you listening and seeking to understand you through your story. We tailor a plan directly to your unique goals and personality using what we learn from various assessments, including MBTI Step II (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Step II) and EQ-i 2.0 (emotional intelligence). We partner with you to ensure you receive the best we offer.
Step 2: Blended Sessions
Clients love that they can stay focused on one track and accomplish one goal at a time or jump around to different topics and mix coaching, counseling, and personal consulting to address the needs they want to be addressed in that session. Our clients don’t care what mode we use. What they want is results. We love nailing that for them.
Clients will sometimes bring a partner, spouse, another family member, or key company stakeholders and work through what they want to work through together. Sometimes, those engagements are completed in one session. Sometimes, it takes longer.
Step 3: Develop Your Team
We firmly believe that strong leaders and executives create strong teams, and strong teams execute the vision of an organization, and we’re here to ensure that you have every tool you need. Working with the top management team sets the stage for organizational effectiveness.
We tailor trainings, team coaching, group coaching, and we can even help with the hiring process of key employees. We create team maps that show a team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We then create individualized one-pagers where each team member knows how to work with each other successfully, what energizes each other, how to give feedback, etc.
Our Success Stories
“As a result of Ryan’s coaching, my business has grown 10-20% year after year. In addition, Ryan has helped me develop and implement tactics to achieve a greater work-life balance, which is very challenging given the amount of responsibility I have. In short, Ryan will give you and your leaders that critical edge to advance you and your team to the highest level.”
—Scott Pryor (Attorney & Managing Partner at Scott Pryor Law)
“Ryan helped my business immensely throughout what could have been a very tough transitional process, during which my entire management team was replaced by new investors in my company. His guidance and knowledge helped the transition to be virtually seamless. And his services before and during the transition have saved the new investors and the business tens of thousands of dollars! Finally, in 2012, when it came down to sell the company, we were able to sell it for 10% above asking price.”
—Dirk Tanis (CEO of Itani, LLC)
“Because of Ryan’s immense support and skill as a counselor, I was able to quickly get back on track again and continue to grow. It may sound exaggerated, but without his help, I honestly do not know where I would be today. I also would like to say that I have never met anyone with the same impeccable work ethic as Ryan Bailey. He will spend his last ounce of energy to produce the best quality of work. If Ryan sets his mind on something, he does it with all his heart.”
—Tommy Davidsson, Ph.D (Academic Dean, Norwegian School of Leadership & Theology)
“Ryan is a key catalyst to our business as we transform into a fast-growing, tech-enabled provider of services and technologies in the tax, accounting, and business services industries. During the time he’s worked with us, we’ve increased sales and income nearly 200% in 2 years. Ryan learns fast and facilitates change on multiple levels.
Through our growth, we’ve doubled our team size without reducing profit percentages. Ryan has helped us pick the best candidates in executive, IT, Sales, and Marketing positions – candidates who have integrated fast and become high performers. Ryan regularly works with our executives as we develop a high-performing team culture and position ourselves to grow even more.”
—Dale Stapler (Founder of AlphaResults and Certified Coach)
Overall, our goal is to help you embrace the importance and benefits of understanding your core beliefs and lead from a place of authenticity, and, as Colossians emphasizes so well, let Christ be our 1st Principle. We desire health for you in your relationship with Christ, as a business leader, involved parent, loving spouse, and prioritized, healthy, whole person.
Ready to jump in? Contact Ryan at ryan@1stprincipleleadership.com or contact us here, and let’s get started!
