De Pree, Max. Leadership Is an Art<\/i>. New York: Currency, 2004.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n Though leadership is not a new topic, leadership is a more recent research topic within academic circles. One outcome of research on leadership, and in fact one that has often held up leadership research as an\u00a0academic discipline, is the inability to produce a definitive, definition of leadership. This is because leadership is a complex multi-layered process\u2014if it can even be defined as a process. It may be just one of those cultural mechanisms, like love and art, that defy definition. [1] That is why I was interested to read DePree\u2019s, Leadership is an Art. <\/i>Leadership may be more art than science.<\/p>\n By focusing on leadership as an art and not a science, De Pree captures the basis of some of the complex relationships that make up the leadership process. According to De Pree, leadership is about, \u201cliberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible.\u201d[2] Leadership is about relationships and the stewarding of those relationships with civility that is based on fundamental human values. [3] I find it interesting that he chooses to use words like \u201cliberation,\u201d \u201chumane,\u201d and \u201crelationship.\u201d At the time when De Pree first began to lead his company, these were not words often associate with leadership in successful capitalist ventures, where the bottom-line can quickly become more important to an organization than the people who help the organization move forward toward its financial goals.<\/p>\n One of the more insightful quotes into De Pree\u2019s Leadership is an Art\u00a0<\/i>speaks of the exclusiveness of capitalism. \u201cOne of the great problems of the capitalist system during its first couple of hundred years is that it has been primarily an exclusive system. It has been built primarily around contractual relationships, and it has excluded too many people from both its process and a generally equitable distribution of results.\u201d[4] This is not the talk of a classic capitalist; however, De Pree did grow and maintained a very successful furniture business! \u00a0De Pree brought heart to leadership, something that is sorely missing in many leadership models, even today. [5] That alone is reason to call the book valuable for any leader.<\/p>\n Application<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it is important to be realistic. Not everyone who practices De Pree\u2019s methods will be a successful chairperson and CEO or have a successful business or organization. The Art of Leadership<\/em> is not a book about successful business practices as much as it is about being a successful leader. The two are not necessarily synonymous.<\/p>\n I am reminded of the church growth literature of the 1980\u2019s and 1990\u2019s. I was pastoring at that time, and I remember full well the questions I asked myself when I compared my church to the churches of those authors who wrote the literature. If you take these steps, if you do these things, recite these words, walk this way and talk this way, your church will grow. They say, “it worked for me, and it will work for you.” Well\u2026it didn\u2019t work for me! Was there something wrong with me? In many of these cases\u2014and I don\u2019t have imperial evidence to back up this statement\u2014the only thing that grew was the author’s bank account! Because like leadership, church growth is too complex, and it too seems to defy definition.<\/p>\n However, De Pree is not giving the five simple steps or the ten things that make your organization grow or your business successful. He says, here is what has helped me lead this company, it may help you lead too. I frankly find that refreshing. De Pree seems to get to core principles that, in my estimation, are critical in leadership: having clear values which include the humane treatment of people, civility in our business transitions (of which labor is one), a moral compass and a heart. Not something for which the business world is known, even today. \u00a0If leadership is an art, it gives us all hope to know that, whether it is a natural gift or not, everyone can develop the leader within. It seems that more than ever we need good leaders in our family, communities, churches, organizations and businesses. Of course, I stated the title of this post “tongue and cheek.” However, I am with De Pree, these leaders will have clear values, will practice civil transactions;\u00a0they will possess a moral compass and a heart.<\/p>\n De Pree, Max. Leadership Is an Art. New York: Currency, 2004. Summary Though leadership is not a new topic, leadership is a more recent research topic within academic circles. One outcome of research on leadership, and in fact one that has often held up leadership research as an\u00a0academic discipline, is the inability to produce a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"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":[626,630],"class_list":["post-12512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-de-pree","tag-depree","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512","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\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n