By: Becca Hald on October 3, 2022
Nelson Mandela has a gift of story telling. For the most part, I have enjoyed listening to his autobiography on Audible. Until I got to the part where he described prison life on Robben Island. I was tired, still recovering from my vaccines in preparation for Cape Town, and my emotional resilience was low. I…
By: Laura Fleetwood on October 1, 2022
Walking the same streets as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu was an experience I will never forget. Before reading their auto-biographies, I did not know a great deal of knowledge about either man, but I now view them as primary examples of differentiated leaders as we are studying this semester. Edwin Friedman describes the following…
By: Chad McSwain on September 29, 2022
Horns of a dilemma. That is the term in philosophy to describe the logical fallacy of only being offered two positions, with both being the worst possible outcome. That is what I think of when reflecting on the position of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission is caught between ignoring the damage of…
By: Mary Kamau on September 19, 2022
“Unless you know the road you’ve come from, you cannot know where you’re going,” an African proverbial saying that underscores the default recourse to history to predict the future or to find an explanation for current phenomena, came to mind as I read the book, Global Leadership Perspectives. by Simon Western and Eric – Jean…
By: Shonell Dillon on September 19, 2022
Have you ever been in a place that felt like home, a place you never thought you would ever leave? Have you had to leave unwillingly? I will raise my own hands to these questions. Unfortunately, this was not my home that I had to leave. I had to leave a church. A holy place,…
By: Chad McSwain on September 16, 2022
“I would like feedback more often. In fact, I like it, at the end of staff meeting, when you go around to each person and ask us the most important thing we have to do this week.” That was feedback I recently received while going an evaluation for a new employee. I was more clued…
By: Kristy Newport on September 15, 2022
It is rare for a leader of magnanimous character to emerge on the world’s stage but when one does, their example does not fade from sight quickly. After reading Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, I was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who may be heralded as a leader equal in character. Nelson Mandela…
By: Jenny Steinbrenner Hale on September 15, 2022
I am finding it difficult to write and reflect upon the works of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, as these two individuals seem superhuman to me. Rather than offering my thoughts on their ideas and experiences, my preference would be to absorb their words, listen to their hearts as reflected in their stories, and…
By: Jonathan Lee on September 15, 2022
Global Leadership Perspectives was written by Simon Western and Eric-Jean Garcia. The book is split into two parts: Part 1 – presentation of various leadership from 20 countries all over the globe and Part 2 – Critical analysis of leadership and conclusion. This book offers great insights into the history and cultural context of understanding…
By: Denise Johnson on September 15, 2022
This week’s post is coming to you from the perspective of cross-cultural sojourner, whose identity is in flux due to all the adaptations. There is a special tension that exists between the person you are that has God given purpose and the servant that humbly steps into another’s country (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). The questions rise,…
By: Nicole Richardson on September 15, 2022
This week we found ourselves in the waters of Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr as a response to an open letter by 8 white Christian Pastors, A Call to Unity , that was published in the Birmingham News. A Call to Unity was an attempt to reign in the…
By: David Beavis on September 15, 2022
When we think of people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, we admire who they are and their contribution to the world. Therefore, we are not surprised at the magnanimity by which people hold them. How did they become so admired by the world? What did they do to capture the world’s respect? In…
By: Elmarie Parker on September 15, 2022
Simon Western and Éric-Jean Garcia have facilitated a fascinating collection of leadership voices along with critical analysis that allows the reader to not only more deeply understand the themes that have emerged in Western research and practice on leadership, but to hear the ways leadership is practiced around this diverse globe—listening for both the places…
By: Roy Gruber on September 15, 2022
My research for my project necessitated me to articulate a definition of leadership. That task proved challenging because there are thousands of definitions. The sheer number of definitions makes it obvious that leadership cannot be reduced or simplified. Beyond trying to define it, leadership also gets applied in real and diverse ways. Leadership never takes…
By: Michael O'Neill on September 15, 2022
A “Long Walk” to Freedom is an understatement for Nelson Mandela. His autobiography escorts the reader on a journey through the extraordinary life of a passionate man who stood for equality and justice like no other. Mandela’s story of a humble Xhosa boy that transforms into an iconic freedom fighter is nothing short of exhilarating.…
By: Jean de Dieu Ndahiriwe on September 15, 2022
The heroic acts that led South Africa to freedom have paved a way to many other African countries seeking a way to freedom and stability for their citizens. Even after many years of struggle and attempts for such a freedom destination, countless of Africans still suffer from bondages than one can care count and the…
By: Troy Rappold on September 15, 2022
In reading chapter seventeen of Simon Western and Eric-Jean Garcia’s book, “Global Leadership Perspectives,” I learned there are three leadership issues in South Africa that are most pressing to confront. The first is to de-politicize leadership; that is, to remove the infighting of different factions and put the well being of all to the forefront.…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on September 14, 2022
Four days prior to the writing of Letter from Birmingham Jail, on April 12, Martin Luther King, Jr. and nearly 50 other protestors and civil rights leaders had been arrested after leading a Good Friday demonstration as part of the Birmingham Campaign, designed to bring national attention to the brutal, racist treatment suffered by blacks…
By: Henry Gwani on September 14, 2022
The two books I focus on this week are written in the spirit of The Danger of a Single Story. In the 19-minute Ted Talk, rated as one of the 25 most popular of all time[1], Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie cautions about the folly of building a worldview on the basis of a single…
By: Michael Simmons on September 14, 2022
This week’s reading beautifully displays perspectives spanning the continuum of both subjective and objective historical viewpoints while centering leadership in its most honest, visceral, and human forms. MLK Jr’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail provided an intimate, incarnate, and soul wrenching glimpse into the imprisonment black Americans experienced from our nation’s inception through Civil Rights…
