By: Jer Swigart on October 29, 2019
Critical theory is a body of scholarship that examines how societies and cultures work. Differing from a descriptive approach, Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon, in Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide, explain how critical theory gets beneath the surface of culture and literature to unmask the largely invisible and unquestioned ideologies that shape them…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 28, 2019
I remember for the first four years my son was in school, I would enter the parent teacher conferences with one question for the teacher: How will you get my son to read books other than graphic novels? Comic books, manga, and other forms of graphic text were his favorites. It was near impossible for…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 28, 2019
Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon’s graphic book, Critical Theory, gave me an incredible opportunity this week to practice some of the most important innovative principles: postponing judgment and embracing being a beginner. Critical Theory and Decrustivism are blaring weak spots in my educational background, so this provided perfect grounds for training in these two…
By: John Muhanji on October 28, 2019
It is very encouraging and enriching to read from such a person full of leadership knowledge and I wonder where to classify him, either under the one who is full of wisdom or knowledge. His vast knowledge and leadership influence and writer of great materials in leadership reflects his great experience in leadership. Kets…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 27, 2019
As one of my precious Hospice patients was saying goodbye to earth recently, I told her that it was ok to let go and that God was waiting for her when she was ready. On one of the last days of her life, she looked at me in her nearly catatonic state and clearly spoke:…
By: Chris Pollock on October 27, 2019
There are things that I love to learn about. As a kid, it was nature. Like looking out across a field in the early morning at the sparkles of glistening dew on the glow of yellow, burnt grass-in-the-sun or stepping into the cool ocean, carefully over a rocky-barnacled bottom on a clear night and watching…
By: Mary Mims on October 26, 2019
Often students studying for their college entrance exams (SAT), review words they believe will have a likelihood of appearing on their exams. Many schools write the SAT Word of the Day on white boards for students to learn in preparation for the test. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries uses the word “obsequiousness” frequently, like…
By: Wallace Kamau on October 26, 2019
Manfred F. R. Kets De Vries[1], a distinguished Professor of Leadership and Development and organizational change, an economist, management expert and a psychoanalyst, takes us through the pathology of the everyday life of a leader and illustrates it so well using the analogy of the rabbit hole. It’s the journey that takes an unexpected fall…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on October 25, 2019
This post is late as I was leading a retreat that was the completion of an eighteen-month mentoring process with 45 high capacity leaders and I am reflecting as I write. Through experiencing these four days together, I was especially struck by my comrades’ vulnerable stories of adversity they had been encountering. As I listened…
By: Simon Bulimo on October 25, 2019
RESEARCH ON LEADERSHIP FOR INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE Leadership is a challenging issue in most institutions, organizations, Government offices, and Churches. Most institutions have come up with structures to be observed in leadership but the performance has not been achieved. For example, in churches membership is decreasing due to uncaring leadership. Many questions and cries have been…
By: Rhonda Davis on October 25, 2019
Growing up, I was always pretty unsettled by the story of Alice in Wonderland. My friends enjoyed reading the story and watching the movies about Alice’s unexpected trip into a strange land. They would talk about how fun it would be to fall down a rabbit hole. I thought it sounded terrible, and the story…
By: Sean Dean on October 25, 2019
I sat at the table across from the guidance counselor debating how to ask the question that was bouncing around my head. My friend Jessica was going through a rough time and I felt really sad. Not sad for her, but sad like she was sad – as if it were happening to me. This…
By: Digby Wilkinson on October 25, 2019
Why did I love Alice in Wonderland as a child and then as an adult? Well, if you want to know, then you must want to understand what it means to disappear down a rabbit hole. If you are so interested, then search Google for the metaphorical messages found in the book, Alice’s Adventures in…
By: Karen Rouggly on October 24, 2019
I’m not an official pastor. I’ve never been ordained or licensed, nor had “Pastor” in any aspect of any title I’ve held. I have worked for a church, and I was the children’s director, a long time ago. There are lots of places that I function in a pastoral role, however. I do it in…
By: Harry Edwards on October 24, 2019
Reading Manfred F.R. Kets De Vries’ Down the Rabbit Hole of Leadership was like embarking on a backpacking trip. One had to slog through the initial rough terrain, enduring steep switchbacks before reaching breathtaking mountain-top vistas. Except I thought this book’s trailhead started in the dumps. I was almost tempted to use my newly acquired…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 24, 2019
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries is the Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires based in Fontainebleau, France). He also was the first fly fisherman in Outer Magnolia (I am not sure how this was verified, but this declaration is critical to de Vries’ notable…
By: Jenn Burnett on October 24, 2019
Monday was a significant day for Canadians. Our federal elections revealed a considerable shift in party support across the nation over the last four years and deep differences determined by region. We elected a liberal minority government, maintaining a liberal prime minister, but have two provinces without a single liberal representative. The Bloc Québécois, a…
By: Andrea Lathrop on October 24, 2019
Kets de Vries has put together a variety of cautionary essays in Down the Rabbit Hole of Leadership. It was helpful to remember his admission that he has been greatly affected by dystopian literature.[1] He writes about the dark side of leadership and yet still maintains a sense of hope. Perhaps his goal is that…
By: Nancy Blackman on October 24, 2019
Thinking about leadership and what kind of a leader I have been and am currently today, and what has been modeled to me is causing me to take pause. There seems to be a theme for the awareness of globalization and how it affects leadership – good and bad. This is true for our business.…
By: Shermika Harvey on October 24, 2019
In reading Down the Rabbit Hole of Leadership: Leadership Pathology in Everyday Life by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, one can not help but contemplate the realities and effects of Christian leadership and influence in our great nation. It seems as, in our efforts to become enlightened, to find truth, to understand what’s happening…
