{"id":237,"date":"2014-03-13T09:14:19","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T09:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=237"},"modified":"2014-08-12T17:07:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T17:07:31","slug":"gods-image-bearers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/gods-image-bearers\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Image Bearers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Communication and its contents play an important role in leadership.\u00a0 In the same seam, a leader\u2019s actions, the way they are perceived and their impact upon people has equal significance. The implications of whatever is said and done by a leader has positive or negative consequences.\u00a0 These are widely discussed leadership principles that are well known.\u00a0 Making Room For Leadership: Power, Space and Influence<\/em> by MaryKate Morse discusses and describes a lesser known, rarely discussed but important element of leadership: the leader\u2019s presence; not necessarily the leader\u2019s \u2018charisma\u2019 or personality, but just presence.\u00a0 Morse point out, \u201cPresence is intuitively perceived by a group.\u00a0 A person brings it with him or her into a group, and it is acknowledged by the group.\u00a0 Both elements are necessary.\u00a0 A person expects it or seeks it or cultivates it, and the group responds to it. People notice presence.\u201d\u00a0 Further quoting Marshall McLuhan , she goes on to add, \u201cThe medium is the message,\u201d but in leadership the body is the message \u00a0(Morse 2008, 81).\u201d<\/p>\n

Presence is an issue that I have often struggled with in groups \u00a0outside of my work and leadership context. Being a rather physically diminutive person and hailing from an eastern culture, passive, and introverted, I carry \u00a0elements that go against the grain of leadership from a popular standpoint. \u00a0MaryKate talks about \u2018shadows\u2019, people with almost no presence and \u2018sponges\u2019, people who soak up all the space in a room\u00a0(Morse 2008, 143); walking into an unfamiliar and new gathering, I would see myself leaning more toward being a shadow. Recently I was invited to a consultation along with Christian leaders from India and several other countries. I remember how difficult it was to find a few people to converse with, prior to the start of the meeting.\u00a0 Later when I was introduced and following my presentation, it changed with people approaching me to ask questions and to introduce themselves. This is not an unusual experience for me as it happens more often than not.<\/p>\n

MaryKate\u2019s\u00a0 presentation during the London Advance was the first time that I had heard anything indepth in relation to this dimension of leaderhip, and this reading provides more thoughts on how Christlike presence can be established and positioned as a leader s through which I have gleaned some understanding and practical guidelines.\u00a0 Some popular notions of presence and influence are challenged.<\/p>\n

We see the most poignant description of our Lord in the prophet Isaiah\u2019s narrative:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,<\/p>\n

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.<\/p>\n

He was despised and rejected by men,<\/p>\n

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.<\/p>\n

Like one from whom men hide their faces<\/p>\n

he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isa 53: 3-6 NIV).\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Jesus is the epitome and embodiment of leadership, power, space and influence.<\/p>\n

Morse\u2019s words are apposite: \u201cUltimately it doesn\u2019t matter what we look like.\u00a0 It matters how we handle ourselves in a group\u00a0(87)\u201d; it matters what our life is about, what we are committed and given to. As a follow up to this reading, I am trying to identify the visual markers I use to mentally evaluate and position people in various settings and also constantly bear in mind I am God\u2019s image-bearer first and foremost.<\/p>\n

Morse, MaryKate. Making Room For Leadership: Power, Space and Influence.<\/em> Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communication and its contents play an important role in leadership.\u00a0 In the same seam, a leader\u2019s actions, the way they are perceived and their impact upon people has equal significance. The implications of whatever is said and done by a leader has positive or negative consequences.\u00a0 These are widely discussed leadership principles that are well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"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":[2,8],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-morse","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}