By: Travis Vaughn on February 19, 2024
In Rare Leadership, Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder point to the brain’s “fast track system” as that part of the brain which “controls how we regulate emotions, how we remember who we are, who our people are, and how it is like us to act (that is, acting like the self God gave us).”[1] The…
By: Kally Elliott on February 19, 2024
Taylor Swift for president 2024! Hear me out. T-Swift is a RARE leader. And, as the mother of a twelve-year-old daughter who is hungry for women role models, I endorse my daughter’s obsession with Taylor Swift. According to authors, Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, a RARE leader has “emotional intelligence” or EQ. Their thesis in…
By: Jennifer Vernam on February 19, 2024
Interestingly, in their first book Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead,[1] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder state that RARE leaders need to combat the tendency to be ‘sandbox leaders’; in other words, leaders who deal with conflict like children would in a playground situation- reactively,…
By: Tim Clark on February 19, 2024
I honestly couldn’t tell you how many hours of church leadership conferences and trainings I’ve listened to live, and online…. and on DVD, CD, and, yes, even cassette tapes. I do know that for nearly 40 years I’ve had thousands of hours of exposure to the best church leaders alive. However, I can tell you…
By: Jeff Styer on February 19, 2024
Life is all about perspective, how each person sees and understands something. Have you read or heard the Indian parable about the six blind men and the elephant? James Baldwin retells the story, The Blind Men and the Elephant. In the short story he describes six blind men’s encounter with an elephant. As each blind…
By: Noel Liemam on February 18, 2024
About three years ago, I had an uncle (I will call him Steve) that I knew very well that had a stroke. Since then, he decided to confine himself to his home even though he could be mobile with the aid of his wheelchair. His wife is now staying home taking care of him full-time.…
By: Joel Zantingh on February 16, 2024
Two years ago, I started consulting with churches and mission organizations. The one church asked me to become their Interim Pastor, but my gut instinct told me I could simply offer to be their Transitional Coach for 10 hours a week, and rely on the gifted staff team they had, and get them just as…
By: Akwese on February 16, 2024
There are many ways to view leadership, and various types, models, methods, and frameworks have been created to help us explore our understanding of it. When it comes to developing a theology of leadership, it seems as though what’s often being explored is the model of servant leadership or some variation of it. Jesus…
By: Scott Dickie on February 15, 2024
Personal Truth #1: The content of this booked helped me. Personal Truth #2: The helpful content could have been communicated in 5-7 pages. As a result of the two truths above, I find writing a review of Exploring Wicked Problems (1) by Bentley and Toth a bit of a problem—thankfully a tame one and not…
By: Julie O'Hara on February 15, 2024
We began the dive just in time to catch some slack water between the tides. It wasn’t very long before my buddy approached and knelt right in front of me in the cold, green water. Behind him, the kelp leaned and swayed in the increasing current. He looked me in the eye and made a…
By: Russell Chun on February 15, 2024
складні проблеми – Wicked Problems (in Ukrainian) Introduction Part 1 GoodSports Ukraine Part 2 Immigration Epilogue Introduction Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth, Exploring Wicked Problem: What They are and Why They are Important.[1] Casts a simple framework over a world filled with problems. The use of the term WICKED (like the witch?) brings initial confusion…
By: Chad Warren on February 15, 2024
It was early morning, hours before sunrise, when we realized we had forgotten a box of supplies in the office just a few miles away. We were setting up for an outreach event a few miles from our church office, and Dawson, our newest and youngest team member, volunteered to drive back and get…
By: Chris Blackman on February 15, 2024
When I was 3 years old, my family was coming home from a vacation in Portland, OR, to Los Angeles. As we approached Bakersfield, a city about 90 miles from Los Angeles, my dad was pulling off the highway so we could rest. Sadly, a semi-truck was behind us, and the driver was drunk. He…
By: Elysse Burns on February 15, 2024
This month marks the three-year anniversary of my arrival in Mauritania. My experiences in this country have pushed me further than I thought possible and made me grow more than I could have imagined. Reflecting on Poole’s list of Critical Incidents [1], I couldn’t help but think back to those early days in Mauritania and…
By: Nancy Blackman on February 15, 2024
I would never have connected the dots between leadership and blacksmithing so it’s fascinating how Dr. Eve Poole did that in her book, Leadersmithing. After watching her TEDx talk, I appreciated her metaphor of “pearls” and “peril,” both offering a sense of grit. The pearl is created through peril when the oyster thinks it’s going…
By: Daren Jaime on February 15, 2024
I can remember vividly sitting at our first lecture at Christ Church Oxford listening intently as Dr. Jason was presenting and introducing us to Oxford, describing what the DLGP journey would feel like. As I was taking in the moment, looking out the window to the green surroundings, inhaling England’s crisp air and basking in…
By: Kari on February 15, 2024
“Stop!” “Louder, with more authority. He needs to know you mean it.” “StOp!” “Say it like your life depends on it because it does.” “STOOOOOP!” “Excellent. Again.” “STOOOOOP!” “Again.” “STOOOOOP!” Our self-defense instructor encouraged us, “Practice this in the car, your room, wherever, keep practicing. You need to develop that muscle memory. Practice this so…
By: Jana Dluehosh on February 14, 2024
“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.” -Reinhold Niebuhr Problems are a problem. We have problems. We always have had problems; we always will have…you guessed it…problems. Many of us humans honestly spend most of…
By: Shela Sullivan on February 14, 2024
In the book, [1] “Leader-smithing, Revealing The Trade Secrets of Leadership,” Eve Poole uses the metaphor of blacksmithing to explore leadership, suggesting that leaders can be shaped and perfected like metal. To me, it meant people can be trained, shaped and transformed potentially to take on leadership positions. Poole validates my assumption in her book.…
By: Diane Tuttle on February 14, 2024
I felt as though I was at home when reading Leadersmithing by Eve Poole[1]. The concepts in the book easily relate to the profession I have been practicing for the last 24 years. The concepts, language, and exercises were familiar. We use variations of many of the exercises in our leadership in-service training classes. In…
