I developed and direct The Leadership Center, a network empowering new leaders and growing local ministries through internships, mentoring and scholarship. This leadership network began when I surveyed the up-and-coming leaders in my own denominational region over a ten-year period and found only two percent were being equipped and placed in positions within the churches of the area. The rest either opted out or were not placed because there was nowhere for them to serve. Thus, our region had no vision for future leaders and so we had no need to train those who sensed a call into ministry. To me this was backward thinking. Through initiating The Leadership Center I began to create a pipeline of low-risk high reward opportunities by offering mentoring and internship opportunities to new leaders while giving our local church ministers a glimpse at what could be if they were willing to mentor the young leaders in their midst. I had a leadership theory and was given the space to put it into practice.<\/p>\n
After reading the above, one could easily conclude being given an assigned text on leadership theory and practice is exciting to me. Developing young leaders is my thing. I have worked inside and outside my denomination as well as with the academy to identify, train and place potential leaders with existing leaders. As I read Nohria and Khurana\u2019s introductory chapter to Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em> I found myself in out-loud agreement to statements such as \u201cthere is little serious scholarship and research on leadership\u201d in higher education[1]<\/a> and \u201cthe world is crying out for better leadership.\u201d[2]<\/a> In my experience, their statements are not only true for business and organizational leadership fields but also to religious non-profits, especially the church.<\/p>\n Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana have compiled twenty-six chapters of presented research submitted by colleagues on varying aspects of organizational leadership. As concisely and aptly reviewed, \u201cThe premise of this book, based on the HBS Centennial Colloquium, \u2018Leadership: Advancing an Intellectual Discipline,\u2019 is that while there is an abundance of written works on the subject of leadership, there is very little systematic empirical research on leadership as an intellectual discipline.\u201d Within the five sections of their text; the impact of leadership, the theory of leadership, the variability of leadership, the practice of leadership, and the development of leaders, topics are examined with an academic focus from fourty-four experts in the field \u201ceach of which is conceptually sound and intellectually rigorous while drawing practical implications for researchers.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n What\u2019s important to know about Nohria and Khurana\u2019s edited volume is, while it may be over 800 pages in length, the experts are just beginning the research on leadership with many remaining gaps to be filled and depths plumbed. The definition of leadership is not certain from chapter to chapter and the methods for success in the varying definitions also waver. This may seem overwhelming and disappointing to some but their purpose is to begin the work of determining leadership. The handbook is opening up a conversation and revealing areas of leadership to be further researched and developed beyond the popular perspective that prevail in bookstores and conferences. The text is not religiously focused, leaving additional space for the church to have a voice into the foundations for meaning making in leadership and the process of its development.<\/p>\n Within the important aspects of the text rise its limitations. Leadership Handbook<\/em> is not the final work on leadership. As mentioned above, the research is an initiative toward continued scholarship. One particular instance Nohria admits to limitation is, \u201cAlthough none of the papers in section [five] focuses in depth on how role models, mentors, coaches, and other relationships can influence the development of leaders, the importance of these relationships cannot be overstated\u201d (from section five on leadership development).[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Because of my work with the Leadership Center in focusing on developing future leaders for the kingdom, I found the final section on \u2018Developing Leaders\u2019 of particular interest. The primary focus of section five is the knowing, being and doing of leadership and the leader\u2019s growth over time. Although no base definition for the character or outcomes of leaders was given in any of the four chapters in the section, each anchored their work in the reality that leaders possess a particular identity, a set of life experiences with educational outcomes, and have navigated significant leadership transitions. From chapter 26 titled \u2018Adult Development and Organizational Leadership\u2019, the author notes an important missing link in leadership development practice:<\/p>\n \u201cIs it possible that the field of “leadership development” has over-attended to leadership and under attended to development? An endless stream of books declares one or another characteristic crucial to leadership success, and then sets out to help you master it. The various attributes called for in a leader make claims on cognitive, Here authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey sum up a major reason for my choosing to do a doctorate in Leadership and Global Perspectives: to research the operating system, or the development, which makes a leader a leader and then to put into practice methods to grow and reproduce leaders. I intend to research and find at least a few answers to the major gaps in development in leadership in the church toward helping fill them for the current and especially next generation of leaders.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Nohria, Nitin and Rakesh Khurana, eds.,\u00a0Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: an Hbs Centennial Colloquium On Advancing Leadership<\/em>. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2010, Location 85.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Nohria and Khurana, Kindle Loc 355-356.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Safferstone, MJ. Review of Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice: A Harvard Business School Colloquium. <\/em>Choice; Middletown\u00a0Vol.\u00a048,\u00a0Iss.\u00a01, (Sep 2010),147.<\/p>\n
\nemotional, and interpersonal regulation. Meanwhile, the underlying \u201coperating system\u201d itself\u2014which sets the terms on mastery; which shapes our thinking, feeling, and social relating\u2014goes unaddressed.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n