Pretentious Leadership
Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: A Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium is an academic’s book about leadership. Many have written about leadership, some of whom have been good authors but not good practitioners, and so unintentionally and perhaps unknowingly they write a theory that does not ever find its place in reality. I think of the Bible college student who is assigned with the task to write a 10-year plan for a church plant: They might have an excellent theory, but this “thorough” paper has no value on the first Sunday when everything that happens, happens. There was a disconnect between theory and application.
And so the Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice attempts to remedy this disconnect by bringing in experts in different fields who can bring in the best of the best teachings. However, this still isn’t perfect because many of the fields are academic in nature and so what is produced is a leadership book that is attractive to academics. The book itself claims that this is a collection of writing from “scholars”. Unfortunately, the best leaders have often not been the been the best scholars and so the book has already limited itself in it’s scope by disqualifying excellent leaders by their lack of pedigree. I suppose that these voices are not in this book because they are not respected in academic’s world. After all, the description of the back cover of the book claimed it would elevate the conversation about leadership. Apparently, they assume that to “elevate” you must bring in a scholar. They assumed that to “elevate” the respect and credibility for leadership study we needed to hear it from the voice and tone of an academic.
I’ve known some pastors who have been marginalized because they don’t have the right letters after their name. While I know a pastor who led his church only to inevitably closing it’s doors permanently, and yet was accepted to be the “Director of Leadership Studies” at universities because he had Ph.D. in leadership.
Despite the constant whiff of academia that wafts out at the reader, this book does redeem itself. The benefit of it being academic is that it is heavy on the research and data. And this is a valuable commodity in the field of leadership. Empirical evidence from research and data help books take on a depth that is more significant than just the bite-sized John Maxwellian maxims of experiential leadership.
There is good study and research represented within this colloquium. (Colloquium…? Really?) The topics are brilliant and important to a leader’s life. Topics like, “What Makes Teams Of Leaders Leadable”, “Decision Making As A Leadership Foundation” and “Power And Leadership” are vastly important for a leader. And yet the way these are presented are not in the right language for a real practitioner. The MEDIUM affects the message! And the dialect of this book encrypts it to become inaccessible to many of it’s readers. It’s like giving a medical journal to a patient who really is just looking for a pamphlet on “How to Recognize Depression.” They don’t need the scientific findings and research notes that a doctor searches for. That’s what this book is, the scientific journal or the research papers of the leadership field. Important, yes. It has its place, yes. But it certainly is out of sight and out of mind to the masses.
Of course, there has already been lots of research and data-driven leadership books published. This is perhaps why Jim Collins’ Good to Great is often considered one of the best leadership book of all. It’s research driven. Many leaders attempt to write down their leadership that they have intuitively picked up, and hope it translates and edifies on the other side of the page. Jim Collins present data-driven findings of effective strategies over the course of decades.
The opposite of this pretentious colloquium would be the Tim Ferris’ brand new leadership compilation, Tools Of The Titans; The Tactics, Routines And Habits Of Billionaires, Icons, And World-Class Performers. This book, which is almost as thick of a book as Nohria and Khurana’s (707 pages) is a sporadic, disconnected and immature compilation of leadership, self-management and self-leadership tactics. I can see it now – the academics rolling their eyes at this book, writing it off as elementary, and suspecting the author of capitalizing off the fame of the vast numbers of celebrity-leaders interviewed and name-dropped in this book. They wouldn’t be wrong. And, yet, this book still has stuff that works. How’s that for academic? “Stuff that works.” Timothy Farris, instead of taking contributions from professors of Harvard, Boston College, and Princeton takes input from Arnold Schwarzenegger, B.J. Novak, Seth Godin, Paul Levesque (Triple H), Tony Robbins & Glenn Beck to name a few. Consider even the difference between the titles: Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice VS. Tools Of The Titans.
Theory vs. tools. Theory is important. Tools are imperative.
This split between academic and non-academic voices is part of what has caused, within my own tribe, to have a rejection of higher education. Within these Pentecostal churches, who emphasize the empowerment of the spirit of ministry, there is strong criticism toward spending our valuable resources of time and money on accredited education if there is not a track record of “empowerment for ministry”. Does higher education empower (well actually let’s use the word equip for risk of sounding like we are competing with the Holy Spirit)… Does higher education, equip us to do more effective ministry. Which of these two books, Tools of Titans or Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice will produce better leaders?
Of course, every tool whether it be a hammer, a screwdriver or air compressors, all of these tools started as a theory. But then it was proven.
To be honest I’m frustrated with both of the extremes represented by these two books, although I quickly will recognize they both have something to offer. My point is, there has to be a way to do both. Both will be best. And now I think I can see more clearly why Good to Great is one of the best leadership books of all time. Collins, after all, was referenced almost a dozen times in this book.
5 responses to “Pretentious Leadership”
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Kyle,
I always enjoy reading your perspective on the books we are assigned. As a leader from the younger generation, who grew up with different values and contexts than me, it is good to see how you interpret and analyze these academic theories and scholarly narratives. Ph.D. means “piled higher and deeper” according to a good friend of mine who is a Ph.D. that I worked with while on furlough from the mission field. We worked in a research lab trying to come up with treatments for potatoes that would help them last longer in storage. He was brilliant academically, but his social skills and adaptability to the real world was challenging. He was not a leader, but a good researcher who came up with creative ways to improve the life of a potato.
Collins is a solid leadership author with exceptional insights into leadership. In particular, How the Mighty Fall is a must read for anyone who thinks they have the leadership equation figured out! 1 I agree with the authors, there is not one leadership style that fits every situation. So, at best, we must learn the ones that fit us and our ministry context and personalize it for God’s use and glory.
Stand firm,
M. Webb
1 Jim Collins and James Charles Collins. How the mighty fall: And why some companies never give in. Random House, 2009.
Kyle, great perspectives as well as offering a nice comparison on the spectrum of leadership reading materials. I am often surprised by what passes as good literature some days, and fear that it is more of advertising than quality. Though I found some good points in the reading, I still believe that there is no generic or even master list to leadership skills. Every job, every market, every ministry, and every circumstance may lead the need for a different kind of leader. I have had the benefit…or curse…of working so many different types of jobs outside of ministry that I have seen too many different types of leaders to believe we can use a cookie cutter to manufacture leaders today. I mean just looking at our class breakdown, there are so many different types of leaders and yet, it seems many if not all have been successful in their fields. How does any one book try to classify us all, and still expect it to be accurate?
Thought provoking!
Hi Kyle,
I have had the privilege of hearing Jim Collins at several national conferences and have appreciated it every time. After I read a couple of his books, I appreciate him even more. Thanks for highlighting his work and for your great quote, “And now I think I can see more clearly why Good to Great is one of the best leadership books of all time.”
Kyle,
I have always tried to be one that speak the language of regular people. There are times listening to a speaker (or a pastor) wondering why they needed to use the words they used; Ego, status?
I appreciate that this semester is almost done and that there are practical ministry workers within our cohort. This has allowed us to have discussion that are not only theory but real life and messy when thinking and talking about how ministry functions for each of us in our separate contexts. There definitely is tension between tools and theory. Thanks for your observations and challenges. We share in this struggle and ongoing tension.
Hey Kyle,
Thanks for your post on this and the way that you honestly wrestle out the points you want to make. I can hear your voice in it! I also see your perspective as a practitioner, a person “in the field” doing your work, and trying to figure out how to bridge this academic/action divide. I suspect we will always need “translators”, people who can speak both languages and who go between to help others understand things they otherwise wouldn’t. That could be you!