{"id":40347,"date":"2025-01-30T16:40:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T00:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40347"},"modified":"2025-01-30T16:40:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T00:40:44","slug":"does-the-world-need-more-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/does-the-world-need-more-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the world need more leaders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, I was reading the \u201cFuture of Jobs Report 2025, by the World Economic Forum<\/a> (WEC) which provides highlights on skills that will be required for the future. Of course, Generative AI featured as a disruptor in different sectors, but I was mostly intrigued by leadership and social influence as a skill that will be in high demand for the future. [1]<\/a> Furthermore, and picking up from the reflections last week, the world seems to be short of solid leadership given all that is going on (or not). But the term \u201cleadership\u201d can be quite broad, contextual, personality and style driven. The American Leadership University<\/a> lists the main known styles of leadership from an organization standpoint, though I think the styles are applicable in different settings\u00a0 as well. These are: 1) Autocratic style <\/strong>\u2013 make decisions on their own maintaining strict control over their teams 2) Democratic style<\/strong> \u2013 involve team members in decision making and foster collaboration and inclusivity 3) Laissez-Fairez<\/strong> \u2013 provide a hands-off approach and autonomy to teams and 4) Transformational<\/strong> style<\/strong> \u2013 leaders inspire and motivate teams to exceed expectations by focusing on vision and innovation. Transactional, servant leadership, situational leadership and charismatic leadership are listed as other styles.[2]<\/a> Today, I resonate with the idea of servant leadership drawing a parallel to Camacho\u2019s book, \u201cMining for Gold.\u201d Just like in the WEC 2025 report, Camacho, also saw the need for (and identifying leaders) at the time of writing his book. So, leadership has always been needed but the quest is, what types of leaders are required and have a chance of being effective in a rapidly changing world?<\/p>\n

Tom Camacho shares his personal journey in the corporate world and his call into coaching leaders (the mining for Gold). He reminds us of the biblical story of Samuel at Jesse\u2019s house, while looking for the next king of Israel. In that scene, it turns out that the individuals whom his natural eyes thought \u201chere\u2019s the anointed one!\u201d weren\u2019t. It was not until a humble young man, who would have been easily dismissed if only looking at outward appearance, strolled into the homestead, and Samuel\u2019s eyes were opened: standing before him was the future King of Israel. Samuel goes on to anoint David and we know how the story evolves. Camacho shares two key lessons from this story that I think informs how we should think of developing \u201cfuture proof\u201d leaders. The first is, \u201cIn order to see the gold God has placed in a person, we need to see them with the eyes of the Spirit. To draw out someone\u2019s true potential, we need to cooperate with the Spirit of God<\/em>.\u201d In my view this approach provides a \u201ctried and tested\u201d approach to leadership selection. Secondly, \u201cGod is looking for Samuels, leaders who will see the gold in people by the Spirit and draw out those riches for his purposes.\u201d [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Our ultimate prototype of a servant leader is Jesus Christ. He was spoke and taught with authority and dismantled existing orders and paradigms by the power of the Holy Spirit. He equally had a posture of service and care evidenced by the washing of the disciple\u2019s feet during the last supper (John 13: 1-17) and care and concern for hungry multitudes who had followed him in Mathew 14:13-21. Jesus took the time to \u201cMine for Gold\u201d among his disciples and they went on to change the world as they knew it then and form the early church as we read in the book of Acts.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> World Economic Forum: Future of Jobs Report 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> American Leadership University<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Camacho, Tom, Mining for Gold. <\/em>London: IVP, 2019 [Amazon]<\/a> [GFU Library eBook<\/a> | Request Print via ILL<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, I was reading the \u201cFuture of Jobs Report 2025, by the World Economic Forum (WEC) which provides highlights on skills that will be required for the future. Of course, Generative AI featured as a disruptor in different sectors, but I was mostly intrigued by leadership and social influence as a skill that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[3419],"class_list":["post-40347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp04-leadership","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40347","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\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40348,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40347\/revisions\/40348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}