By: Cathy Glei on February 15, 2024
“In order to find what the problems are one must drill down to the level of individual cases: people who are sexually assaulted and those who do the assaulting both have problems, an unemployed person does have a problem, a binge-drinker who cannot stay sober through a weekend has a problem. But when you collapse…
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: Jonita Fair-Payton on February 15, 2024
“Every wicked problem is a discrepancy between a present state, and a future, more desirable state.”[1] So Wicked This week’s reading could not have been more timely for me. I faced the most wicked problem that I could have imagined. In my role as Interim CEO, I have been tasked with making leadership decisions that…
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…
By: Jennifer Eckert on February 14, 2024
In her book, Leader-Smithing, author Eve Poole uses quirky wit and humor to put a new spin on the idea of leadership as a craft to build muscle memory or templates [1] for how to handle things through real-time on-the-job training. While the topic of leadership is non-novel, Poole labels it a movement bearing responsibility…
By: Todd E Henley on February 14, 2024
MY NPO “Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thought processes with a view to improving them.”1 Three results of a well-cultivated critical thinker: She raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely She thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought She is scrupulously careful not to misrepresent or distort…
By: Jenny Dooley on February 14, 2024
Better Together I like solving problems. Unless they’re mathematical! Those problems are best managed by someone more qualified. Actually, there are quite a few problems which I do not have the expertise to tackle and it would be foolish and potentially dangerous to attempt to do so on my own. However, that does not relieve…
By: Graham English on February 14, 2024
“Leadersmithing” by Eve Poole follows a refreshingly practical approach to leader development. I didn’t grow up in the church. I became a follower of Jesus when I was 19. After sensing a call to ministry a few years later my wife, Wendy, and I moved our family from Vancouver to Regina to attend Bible…
By: Mathieu Yuill on February 14, 2024
I had a conversation the other day with a friend of mine who had just been promoted to the position of principle in an elementary school (in my area, that means Kindergarten to grade 8). She had previously served as a vice-principle and before that a teacher in various elementary grades. Only a week in…
By: Adam Cheney on February 14, 2024
Ca. Richard Smith is a no-nonsense kind of fire captain. He is tough but fair. The kind of fire captain who will take his crew out at 2am to drill if there was some sort of mishap on a 911 call earlier that day. His crew was straightlaced, polished and always striving to be the…
By: Debbie Owen on February 14, 2024
My violin teacher threw a pencil at me. I grabbed it in mid-air. “Nope. You caught it. Try to catch it.” I was confused. “But I did catch it,” I protested. “I want you to TRY to catch it,” she repeated. She threw the pencil at me again. It twisted through the air as it…
By: Pam Lau on February 13, 2024
“The Tendency to avoid problems is the primary basis of all human illness.”[1] M. Scott Peck I started this doctoral program with many questions. One particular question on my mind was, what, if anything, about the way I lead with my voice today needs to change for me to be my most vulnerable, courageous self…
By: Glyn Barrett on February 13, 2024
I spent much longer reading Leadersmithing by Eve Poole than I had initially planned. Not that I was not intrigued by the book’s title, but that my time commitments were severely restricted due to travel, sermon preparation, leadership teaching sessions, and Conference attendance. However, once I began my elementary and inspectional reading, I had to…
By: Kim Sanford on February 13, 2024
Parenting. There is perhaps no better example of living life on autopilot, trudging along in survival mode, foolishly trying the same solutions to problems but hoping for miraculously different results. I guess we’ve all been there. I certainly saw parenting problems on every single page of Joseph Bentley’s book Exploring Wicked Problems: What They Are…
By: Esther Edwards on February 12, 2024
“Wicked problems are ill-defined, ambiguous, complicated, interconnected situations packed with potential conflict.”[1] For many years, our church housed those without a home for one week each year. This began in our city after three people died of hypothermia in 2005. A church decided to open its doors and soon they had more people seeking shelter…
