By: Graham English on December 5, 2024
Last summer my wife and I walked approximately 300 kms from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compestela, Spain. The ancient pilgrim path, known as the Camino, is easily completed by following the yellow arrows. One doesn’t even need a map. The yellow arrows are so prevalent that it’s nearly fool proof. Some do get lost,…
By: Jennifer Eckert on December 4, 2024
Early Days of Leadership Study In 2008, I began my academic journey in administrative leadership at the University of Oklahoma (OU), ultimately earning a master’s degree in 2010. At that time, leadership had emerged as a prominent field of study within academia. The program at OU was among the first to be offered online, designed…
By: Chad Warren on December 4, 2024
Greatness is something to which everyone aspires, especially when it comes to leadership. William Shakespeare wrote, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” This quote raises an essential question in the discussion about great leaders: Are they born with certain traits, or is great leadership something you…
By: Kari on December 4, 2024
“It is exhausting. I get phone calls at all hours of the night. The employees don’t want to think for themselves. They want me to fix everything.” I was at a Thanksgiving gathering of expatriates. This was the response from an exhausted leader when I asked him how his business was going. This is a…
By: Shela Sullivan on December 3, 2024
This week’s reading assignment is based on one of my favorite authors. He is best known for his influential work in the field of leadership studies. Peter G. Northouse, PhD, is a renowned expert in the field of leadership studies. He is Professor Emeritus of Communication in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University.…
By: Tim Clark on December 3, 2024
I’m sitting alone at my computer, shaking my head, and laughing. After 2 years of inspectionally reading books, I’m staring at a thick and dense volume that virtually defies me to engage it with the efficient approach I learned in this program. We’re not ending our semester—and our whole series of lead mentor classes—with a…
By: Ryan Thorson on December 3, 2024
Knowing that this post will put me on the hot seat has activated all the adrenaline and dopamine we’ve been talking about the past few weeks. It’s been a joy to reflect and learn together about leadership over the past few months with my colleagues, and finishing the term with Peter Northouse’s book, “Leadership Theory…
By: Adam Harris on December 2, 2024
About a year ago, I came across an article proclaiming Aayan Hirsi Ali as a Christian now. I only knew her as an outspoken ex-Muslim atheist from the books I had read. She has been considered the fifth horsemen of the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse. As I listened to her interview outlining her…
By: Diane Tuttle on December 2, 2024
I first looked at this book in relation to my NPO which is about empowering women to be able to advance their careers in the nonprofit sector. With that in mind, the first chapter of Leadership: Theory & Practice that caught my eye was the one on Gender and Leadership[1]. However, the chapter that resonated…
By: Russell Chun on December 2, 2024
Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono (Hawaiian) “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. – Hawaii state motto. Part 1 Introduction Part 2 What my peers are saying Part 3 What Holland Says Himself Part 4 What I learned Epilogue Part 1 Introduction In his book Dominion: The…
By: Kally Elliott on December 2, 2024
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing…
By: Dinka Utomo on December 2, 2024
When I was a teenager, I used to think that people outside of Christianity saw Christianity with only one face, namely, as a religion full of goodness. In the mind of a teenager like me at that time, I felt great pride because I believed that many people must think that Christianity is noble. After…
By: Jeff Styer on December 2, 2024
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”[1] This is the definition that Peter Northouse gives after discussing the previous 120 years of defining leadership and concluding that leadership scholars really cannot “come up with a common definition for leadership.”[2] Northouse said his definition consists of…
By: Jenny Dooley on December 2, 2024
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland, is a fitting book to end our extensive reading list. Holland writes a compelling and insightful history of how Christianity has influenced the world. He asserts that even those who reject the faith live out the unmistakable principles of Christianity. Conversely, he exposes the…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on December 2, 2024
Pierce and Abbey Lane How do you capture a portion of a book that tells such a comprehensive story? Well, you write about the subject that you are most interested in, drawn to. For me, it was a choice between two, The Apocalypse and Love. I know that sounds strange, well maybe not so strange…
By: Pam Lau on December 2, 2024
“When contemplating how the Wisdom of God had entered the womb of a woman, and been born a baby, and cried for milk, the paradox of it all was too much for even him,”[1] Abraham Kuyper was born in 1837 in the Dutch town of Maasluis and served as a minister in the Dutch National…
By: Debbie Owen on December 2, 2024
Two men attended an outdoor event where they heard a powerful speaker. Thousands of people from all over the region were at the event. They were all entranced by the eccentric man who held them spell-bound. The two men listened to the speaker for days, following what he said, learning from him, and being challenged…
By: Kim Sanford on December 2, 2024
Here goes, the last blog post of our LGP journey (calamari!) Knowing that Tom Holland’s Dominion was waiting for us at the end of this semester, I’ve noticed his name popping up seemingly everywhere I look for the past couple of months. First, I saw his book on a friend’s bookshelf. Then he was discussed…
By: Adam Cheney on December 2, 2024
What is a leader? Am I a leader? If I am a leader, what kind of leader am I? Am I a servant-leader like Jesus? Am I a coercive-dominating leader like the President-elect? In his very well laid out book on different styles and definitions of leadership, Peter Northouse exposits on a variety of leadership…
By: John Fehlen on December 2, 2024
A couple weeks ago I stood in the pulpit and made a confession: I absolutely hate playing board games. I’d rather have my teeth cleaned and drilled into, which I should know because I just had that done recently, for two hours straight, all because I hadn’t been to the dentist in over 4 years!…
