PROVO — The choice boiled down to following the prophet or listening to an accountant.

In October 1998, President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke in the priesthood session of general conference of how volatile markets can be and to get out of debt.

Sheri Dew's father, who didn't like debt, called her that night and told her to take a look at the article.

In talking with a friend, they discussed the talk and what to do to get out of debt.

"My accountant said it was the dumbest thing that I could do," said Dew, CEO of Deseret Book, during her BYU Campus Education Week presentation on Friday, Aug. 20, in the Marriott Center.

Listen to the accountant or follow the prophet?

She and her friend, almost competitively, worked independently to pay off their debts. They did within a week of each other.

A decade later, in October 2008, the economy fell into a recession, and "it affected deeply the company I am leading and still does."

But she never worried about her personal situation. She had followed the prophet.

"Leadership by the spirit is the ultimate form of leadership," Dew said.

In that 1998 talk, "he tried to warn us," Dew said.

Righteous influence is a gift of the Spirit and shows the willingness to build up the kingdom of God more than others.

"We are here for a tiny speck of mortal time to see where our hearts really are," she said.

She shared two principles of the righteous influences of leaders.

The greatest leaders are devoted to a worthy cause.

Their hearts are fixed in a worthy cause, Dew said. Their ambitions are for something other than themselves and no cause is greater than building the kingdom of God, she added.

Building the kingdom of God takes work, and it happens every time a person is helped, served or mentored.

Take Eliza R. Snow, a poetess, author and Relief Society president. It took her five years to join the LDS Church after she first was introduced to the gospel.

When the Saints were forced to leave Missouri in the winter of 1838, Snow, her mother, father, brothers, including Lorenzo, a sister and niece were walking through the bitter cold and stopped at this tiny log home that was considered a halfway house of sorts. Eighty people spent the night in the 20-by-20-foot room, many of them standing. Despite their planning and packing, the Snows' food was frozen. Many of the men spent the night out in a shed.

But no one complained.

"But all in all that was a very merry night," Dew quoted Snow's record of that night. "None but the Saints can be happy in every circumstance."

Inspired leadership exceeds every other form of leadership.

"Ultimately, the Lord makes up the difference," Dew said. "It's always the Lord who works the miracle."

Like when President Hinckley counseled members of the LDS Church during that priesthood session to get out of debt and have their financial houses in order.

Or like when Brigham Young asked Emmeline B. Wells in 1876 to help the women store wheat against famine.

"They made every mistake on earth in growing, harvesting and storing it," said Dew, whose father is a wheat farmer.

They gleaned the fields and made handicrafts to buy wheat. They learned from their mistakes. They eventually built granaries to store it.

Still, no famines came.

It was in 1906 that there was an earthquake in San Francisco. The first shipment of milled flour and wheat came from Salt Lake City, Dew said.

After World War I broke out, there was drought in parts of the world that created famine in some parts of the world, which made it difficult for U.S. troops and their allies to get supplies.

At the request of the U.S. government, the Relief Society sold them 206,000 bushels of wheat.

A year later in 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson visited Utah and stopped by to thank Emmeline B. Wells.

"A woman followed the counsel of the prophet," Dew said. Countless lives around the world benefited.

At times, opportunities for leadership will be in the roles people have in business, in church or in their families.

Inspired leadership stems from listening to the Spirit and acting on the promptings.

"We don't always get it right," Dew said, especially as Satan tries to thwart us.

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"There isn't anything going on that Heavenly Father didn't know about," Dew said.

e-mail: rappleye@desnews.com

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