{"id":15169,"date":"2017-11-09T22:17:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T06:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15169"},"modified":"2017-11-09T22:17:35","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T06:17:35","slug":"new-favorite-leadership-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/new-favorite-leadership-book\/","title":{"rendered":"New Favorite Leadership Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heroic Leadership<\/em> has placed itself on the top of my list of favorite leadership books. It\u2019s a significant and unique read for leaders today because it writes about a people, the Jesuits, who lived a certain lifestyle that would not be considered leader-like by many standards today. Surely Chris Lowney, who pokes fun at the fa\u00e7ade of leadership literature understands that labeling his book \u201cleadership\u201d is an attempt to be relevant (or rather eye-catching) in the language of our culture today. Lowney is quick to point out some of the irony of this leadership industry. Today, what we call \u201cleadership\u201d is often just quick axioms, management tips, and self-development ideas, repackaged under the leadership buzz word. Much of it does not have to do with the science and art of mentoring and mobilizing people. We cannot poke fun at the industry and market of leadership too much since everyone in this discussion board has just spent tens of thousands of dollars to be enrolled in a leadership program, and personally speaking, I was grateful to be able to do so! Nonetheless, Lowney\u2019s, commentary on the leadership field was humorous and appreciated. Consider the description of the Jesuits from Lowney, it seems the Jesuits themselves would have not been very interested in \u201cleadership\u201d literature. They were, of course, more interested in a devotion to a way of life.<\/p>\n

Moving past this, Lowney presents us with the track record of the Jesuit success. This Jesuit \u201cbusiness\u201d is unparalleled in success and longevity and was almost impressive enough for me to pick up the Jesuit robes myself. (I\u2019m honestly looking into the Jesuit school nearby our house to see if it might be a good fit for my two sons in the future.) This track record of Jesuit success alone gives Lowney\u2019s credibility of some ancient principles and lifestyles that he is claiming as Heroic Leadership. Furthermore because of Lowney\u2019s JP Morgan experience sprinkled throughout the book we already have a glimpse of how these principles can impact our 21st-century world. These Jesuit ways of life are still relevant and just as powerful. I think a better word for \u201cleadership principles\u201d would be to call them virtues. Virtues don\u2019t expire. Lowney\u2019s thesis and I agree with him, is that if we train wisely in these Jesuit virtues we can emulate the spirit and heroic change they brought about in their lifetime. The Jesuit virtues \u201cto innovate, to remain flexible and adapt constantly, to set ambitious goals, to think global, to move quickly, to take risks\u201d, these are the virtues that could and should be applied to all our work.<\/p>\n

Personally, I can see how this could apply to the work I want to do in the higher education world. I see my dissertation project as an attempt to do those things for higher education. For instance, I see that many Universities don\u2019t really think globally except for when it\u2019s branding and marking up its own marketability to its own local demographic. AKA adding a \u201cstudy abroad\u201d program or an \u201cexposure missions trip to Mexico.\u201d How many universities are actually serving global markets and attempting to produce leaders who will serve global needs? (How many can?) There are many obstacles, and of course other countries have their own systems, but still, we can do something. Is it crazy to think that universities can impact some global needs by utilizing some of the platforms they already have? Can institutions split education away from their accreditation to provide their already packaged knowledge at 5% of the cost?<\/p>\n

Maybe you can call my enthusiasm millennial naivet\u00e9, since all of us millennials think that we are going to change the world. I\u2019d rather call my attitude, as Lowney calls it, \u201cheroism revisited.\u201d And I would like to be amongst those recruits all over the world who accepted the invitation to start \u201cbelieving and acting as if whatever they were doing was somehow the greatest enterprise in the world.\u201d Lowney follows up that this heroism takes equal parts \u201cdreamer and indefatigable pragmatist.\u201d<\/p>\n

So to be a dreamer, and revisit what heroism might look like in the higher education work I think through the Jesuit virtues again\u2026<\/p>\n

For ingenuity sake,<\/strong> let there be new ways to share and engage & educate the majority world populations\u2026<\/p>\n

For Heroism sake,<\/strong> let there be the ambition to reach remote and underserved areas with new ways to train leaders so they can advance the Gospel\u2026<\/p>\n

For Love\u2019s sake,<\/strong> let there be a realization of what higher education, and even more so solid biblical training, can bring to world populations\u2026<\/p>\n

For self-awareness\u2019s sake,<\/strong> let there be a mass surrender of institutional loyalties which maim the cumulative power of the body of Christ\u2026<\/p>\n

How many resources are being duplicated by every Presbyterian university offering an online program? How many Assemblies of God Universities online programs does the world really need? Does the Southwest Baptist Seminary really offer such a unique product as the Northwest Baptist Seminary?<\/p>\n

It seems that the Jesuits would be able to navigate problems like this through their four pillars. First and foremost, their self-awareness highlights to them their own ungodly attachment to buildings, budgets and other human markers of success. With this awareness can come a conscious decision to reject it. This is the Jesuit\u2019s core value of some indifference. Many people bleed out and die for their blue and gold alma mater, but Loyola taught the idea of \u201cliving with one foot raised\u201d (4136). It\u2019s the rejection of any attachment to possession, aversion to risk, prejudice, and the attitude of \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it this way.\u201d <\/em>It\u2019s the allowance for new imaginations to dream beyond what\u2019s currently possible because both feet are not buried in the name of your current institution, custom, or mascot.<\/p>\n

Not to take myself too seriously, but when aligning my work and my life with the virtues of Heroism, Love, Ingenuity, and Self-awareness I become inspired by my work<\/strong>. I become inspired to do more work! Not just the potential work of this dissertation, but my life work that God is calling me to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heroic Leadership has placed itself on the top of my list of favorite leadership books. It\u2019s a significant and unique read for leaders today because it writes about a people, the Jesuits, who lived a certain lifestyle that would not be considered leader-like by many standards today. Surely Chris Lowney, who pokes fun at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"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":[936,934,1017,933],"class_list":["post-15169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-lowney","tag-heroic-leadership","tag-lgp8","tag-lowney","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15169","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\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15170,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15169\/revisions\/15170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}