{"id":10343,"date":"2016-11-17T03:57:28","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T11:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10343"},"modified":"2016-11-17T03:57:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T11:57:28","slug":"leadership-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leadership-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership matters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an anthology of 26 essays which brings together scholars from fields as diverse as psychology, sociology, economics, and history to take stock of what we know about leadership, and to consider areas for future research. The angle of this colloquium is to champion and outline academic research into leadership, as opposed to the breadth of popular material on the subject.<\/p>\n

The material is organized within five sections, each of which has a core assumption or theme.<\/p>\n

Section one: The impact of leadership<\/p>\n

Section two: The theory of leadership: personal attributes, functions and relationships<\/p>\n

Section three: The variability of leadership: what\u2019s core and contingent<\/p>\n

Section four: The practice of leadership<\/p>\n

Section five: The development of leaders<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As church leaders and pastors, it is interesting to read and consider secular leadership material of this kind, primarily from the business sector. Reflecting on the cult of leadership and its rise in the church over recent decades, Eugene Peterson says the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about leadership in the Christian church today: how to be a strong leader. I think a lot of that talk is misguided, taking its cues from the worlds of sports and big business. In those areas, a leader is someone who comes in and gets things done. That\u2019s appropriate in almost every other area of life\u2014but not for pastors in the church. As pastors, we\u2019re not trying to get something done. We\u2019re not looking at people and thinking about what we can convince them to do. That\u2019s not the goal. As pastors, we\u2019re trying to pay attention to what\u2019s going on now, right here\u2014right now. We\u2019re trying to pay attention to what God is doing. And we\u2019re trying to share that in the community. If we get that idea turned around and focus on getting things accomplished, then we turn ourselves into congregations that have bought into this sports-business model. That\u2019s why so many pastors are depressed so much of the time. They try and try\u2014and keep trying\u2014to become these business-style leaders and they can\u2019t make it work in the church.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Leadership\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eugene Peterson\u2019s voice is always a welcome counterbalance to the plethora of voices that promote and champion secular leadership models in the church.<\/p>\n

Can we learn from big business and other sectors on how to be better church leaders? Hybels and many like him believe we can, and invite such leaders to speak at Willow Creek\u2019s Global Leadership Summit on the latest insights from their various specialist fields. Their line of thought is that we should use the very best leadership thinking to enhance and further the kingdom of God and to build the church.<\/p>\n

Reviewing some of the material from this colloquium, I think there are indeed some interesting insights and views that are helpful in a church leadership context and that can inform good practice and thinking.<\/p>\n

As with most things that Peterson writes\/says, however, I welcome his red flag and his caveats when it comes to overly enthusiastic adaptation of much of this material into a church context.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Interview with Eugene Peterson: http:\/\/www.readthespirit.com\/explore\/eugene-peterson-has-a-message-for-pastors; accessed on 17.11.2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an anthology of 26 essays which brings together scholars from fields as diverse as psychology, sociology, economics, and history to take stock of what we know about leadership, and to consider areas for future research. The angle of this colloquium is to champion and outline academic research into leadership, as opposed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[730,410],"class_list":["post-10343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-handbook-of-leadership","tag-nohria-and-khurana","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}