{"id":20304,"date":"2018-11-15T17:29:27","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T01:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=20304"},"modified":"2018-11-15T17:29:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T01:29:27","slug":"why-do-banks-make-churches-take-out-life-insurance-policies-on-lead-pastors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/why-do-banks-make-churches-take-out-life-insurance-policies-on-lead-pastors\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Banks Make Churches Take out Life Insurance Policies on Lead Pastors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my stewardship role, I was often surprised at lending institutions when they made churches going through building campaigns take out massive life insurance policies on the lead pastor. \u00a0The longer I am in leadership and financial circles, the more it makes sense. If something happens to the Lead Pastor, there is a high probability that the bank is going to get stuck with that loan. It seems Manfred F.R. Kets De Vries understands this well, when he writes in The Leadership Mystique: Leading\u00a0<\/em>Behavior in the Human Experience<\/i>,<\/p>\n

“Leaders do make a difference…Even the stock market pays close attention to corporate leadership, with share prices of any given organization influenced by the perceived effectiveness of the leader…” [1]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I first read around this book (thanks Adler), I noticed we had another Dutchman author, and a brilliant one at that. Being Dutch, I am perfectly fine with this author! Then I absolutely cracked up when learning about the author it was said, “He was the first fly fisherman in Outer Mongolia.” [2] Ha! My brother lived as a missionary in Outer Mongolia, and the locals there believe the fish are inhabited by bad spirits, so NO ONE FISHES in Outer Mongolia. My brother saw huge salmon who had never seen a single fisherman, so catching those fish would be like fishing in your bathtub. Even Dan Kreiss could catch a fish on a fly in Outer Mongolia (grin).<\/p>\n

Now to the meat of this book.<\/p>\n

“People who are emotionally intelligent are more likely to be effective as leaders.”<\/strong> [3]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wowza, I wondered what this so called “emotional intelligence” was? \u00a0I was relieved there was no silver bullet “quick fix” answer to that question (See, I did learn from last week’s author Friedman). He described emotional intelligence as a PROCESS, and an experiential one at that. Whew! I might have a chance then, especially with the assistance of a spouse, friend, colleague, leadership coach, therapist or other professional who can help make me aware of my blind spots and how I interact with others.<\/p>\n

I was impressed the author talked about potential dark sides of each of us, which reminded me of McIntosh in Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership.\u00a0<\/em>Evidently, of the ten “personality types” I am closest to the obsessive\/compulsive, which means while I am very conscientious, I could be preoccupied with orderliness, perfectionism, control and conformity. I also could be interpersonally respectful, but perhaps rigid and dogmatic. [4] Yep, the dark side of my leadership.<\/p>\n

Couple that with my predominant “defense reaction” of suppression, and I maybe should go take a different DMin program, one that is not associated with leadership. Of course, I am not going to do that–I am so glad to be in this program with exactly the people I get to be with. I also hope my competencies are improving, and my character is reliable.<\/p>\n

By the way, on several occasions during Zoom chats we have shown how we scored on the enneagram test. I have done multiple personality tests, but not this one, and I felt clueless and behind the times, so I finally took the enneagram this week (in my spare time), and scored as a 3. I am learning more what this means, and what the other scores mean. I remember several of us also scored a 3, so at least I am not weird, and definitely not Portland weird.<\/p>\n

\n

3 =\u00a0<\/a>T<\/a>HE ACHIEVER<\/a><\/h2>\n

The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious [5].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, the chapter from De Vries on change was a good one (don’t be the mussel in your organization), and the failure factor chapter was fascinating (we are all irrational), as was the chapter on the Dilbert phenomenon (don’t be a Dilbert), but the chapter I wanted to most read was the one on “Characteristics of Effective Leadership”, chapter 8.<\/p>\n

My take away from this key chapter is simply this–I have always been taught to be a SERVANT LEADER. Jesus was supposedly a servant leader. Scripture says, in three places, these powerful descriptors of Jesus,<\/p>\n

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.\u201d [6]\u00a0Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, John 13:1-17.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, I did not see this descriptor from our author. He talked much about competencies, of which I agree (surgency, sociability, receptivity, agreeableness, dependability, analytical intelligence, and emotional intelligence). [7] But, no mention of specific servant leadership. \u00a0The only thing I could find even closely related to this was in chapter 9, Leadership in a Global Context, where my brilliant Dutchman author recognized that leadership cultures must recognize “relationships” in our leadership styles, specifically, if we can be collectivistic and cooperative [8].<\/p>\n

In Christian circles, we would probably describe this part of relationships as being “servant” type leaders. Or maybe I should go back and read the title of this book again, which includes Mystique,\u00a0<\/em>which is implies to me that defining effective leadership is somewhat of a mystery…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>[9]
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Kets De Vries, Manfred F. R. The Leadership Mystique<\/i>. Fontainebleau, France: INSEAD, 1994. 2.<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid., ix.<\/p>\n

[3] Ibid., 6.<\/p>\n

[4] Ibid., 12.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Hudson, Russ. “The Nine Enneagram Type Descriptions.” The Enneagram Institute. 2017. Accessed November 16, 2018. https:\/\/www.enneagraminstitute.com\/.<\/p>\n

[6]\u00a0Barker, Kenneth L. Zondervan NIV Study Bible: New International Version<\/i>. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008.<\/p>\n

[7] Kets De Vries. 172-173.<\/p>\n

[8] Ibid., 177.<\/p>\n

[9] Haddleton, Guy. “What Is Servant Leadership?” Project Manager. 2018. Accessed November 16, 2018. https:\/\/www.projectmanager.com\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my stewardship role, I was often surprised at lending institutions when they made churches going through building campaigns take out massive life insurance policies on the lead pastor. \u00a0The longer I am in leadership and financial circles, the more it makes sense. If something happens to the Lead Pastor, there is a high probability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"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":[1074],"class_list":["post-20304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-de-vries","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20304","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\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20370,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20304\/revisions\/20370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}