{"id":1061,"date":"2012-10-26T00:25:49","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T00:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/leader-of-a-ship\/"},"modified":"2012-10-26T00:25:49","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T00:25:49","slug":"leader-of-a-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leader-of-a-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"“leader of a ship”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As I listened to a variety of leaders speak at a conference this week I was inspired by a few ideas that will hopefully prove productive in your own leadership contexts.<\/div>\n

First I want to look at a couple of quotes from our text, Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, and analyze these in the context of these points.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOne who serves in public leadership really has little choice as to telling his or her story of self.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t author our story, others will \u2013 and may tell our story in ways that we may not like.\u00a0 Not because they are malevolent, but because others try to make sense of who we are by drawing on their experience of people whom they consider to be like us.\u201d (p. 542)<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cHope is not to be found in lying about the facts, but in the meaning of the facts.\u00a0 In Shakespeare\u2019s version of his speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, King Henry V stirs hope in his men\u2019s hearts by offering them a different view of themselves.\u00a0 No longer are they a few bedraggled soldiers led by a young and inexperienced king in an obscure corner of France who are about to be wiped out by an overwhelming force.\u00a0 Now they are a \u201chappy few,\u201d united with their king in solidarity, holding an opportunity to grasp immortality in their hands, to become legends in their own time, a legacy for their children and grandchildren.\u00a0 This is their time!\u00a0 (p. 545)<\/p>\n

For this writing I propose that \u201cstory\u201d in these two quotes may also be termed \u201cvision\u201d when used in reference to an organization.\u00a0 Also, the metaphor of \u201cship\u201d refers to any type of organization including a business, church, university, etc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Assembled vs. Aligned:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leadership includes not only assembling of people but aligning them with vision.\u00a0 Just because there is an assembly of people does not mean that the people are aligned.\u00a0 King Henry V gave hope to his men by aligning their vision of themselves with his vision of them.\u00a0 They became \u201clegends in their own minds.\u201d\u00a0 The facts were not lies; the facts gained meaning and became reality.\u00a0 The men were assembled and then aligned by the leader.<\/p>\n

Just because a ship is assembled does not mean it is aligned.\u00a0 Ships have a center of gravity and a center of buoyancy.\u00a0 The center of buoyancy must be above the center of gravity for the ship to remain upright and the further these are apart the more stable the vessel is.\u00a0 If a ship is not \u201caligned\u201d properly and the weight evenly distributed it will lean to one side or another and cause difficulty in steering.\u00a0 When the storms come it is vulnerable to capsizing or even sinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Diversity does not have to mean Divided:<\/p>\n

Within leadership diversity of people does not mean that there is division.\u00a0 If everyone on a ship has the same skill the ship will not be as successful as it could be with a diversity of skilled individuals.\u00a0 Someone needs to be skilled in engineering, maintenance, radio operation, security, etc.\u00a0 The captain cannot run the ship by him\/herself; and the crew needs the captain.\u00a0 Someone needs to steer, check the gages, clean the deck, organize and secure the rigging, etc.\u00a0 Diversity is necessary; and with an aligned ship and vision the purpose can be accomplished.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Agreement vs. Intention:<\/p>\n

If the leader sets the vision, the crew is in alignment, then intentions can unify.\u00a0 If everyone on the ship has the same intentions there does not necessarily have to be agreement.\u00a0 In fact, disagreement is necessary in order to come to the best decision.\u00a0 The Titanic sunk not because it could not float, but because no one saw the danger of the iceberg in time.\u00a0 It is important for a leader to be confident enough to surround him\/herself with people who will voice their opinions and ideas even though ulltimately the leader will determine the course.<\/p>\n

4. Culture develops by design or by default:\u00a0<\/p>\n

A leader has a ship.\u00a0 The leader develops the culture of that ship by determining or designing the purpose of that ship, the destination of that ship, the course that ship will take, and the jobs of the shipmates.\u00a0 The leader is the visionary and the strategist.\u00a0 He\/she is not a leader if there is no one following.\u00a0 If the leader does not tell the story (vision) and set the course (strategy) there will be mutiny on the bounty; not always out of rebellion but out of necessity.\u00a0 A ship without direction and leadership is more vulnerable to being lost at sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I agree with the authors\u2019 statement that,\u201cThe story of now is that moment in which story (why) and strategy (how) overlap and in which, as poet Seamus Heaney writes, \u201cJustice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.\u201d (p. 545)<\/p>\n

Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana<\/p>\n

Special thanks to http:\/\/kevingerald.tv\/<\/a> who inspired this writing.<\/p>\n

#lgp3 #dminlgp #nohria #leadership<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

#lgp3<\/a> #dminlgp<\/a> #nohria<\/a> #leadership<\/a> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I listened to a variety of leaders speak at a conference this week I was inspired by a few ideas that will hopefully prove productive in your own leadership contexts. First I want to look at a couple of quotes from our text, Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"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":[2,35,195],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-leadership","tag-nohria","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}