{"id":516,"date":"2013-11-20T20:51:26","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T20:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=516"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:06:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:06:24","slug":"if-you-hide-it-it-will-pull-you-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/if-you-hide-it-it-will-pull-you-down\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Hide It, It Will Pull You Down!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I really liked the author\u2019s opening statement about the purpose of her book, \u201cOpen Leadership is about how leaders must let go to succeed.\u201d \u00a0(Kindle Loc 179). \u00a0I particularly liked her stress on being strategic about how a leader, in conjunction with others, will put together a plan that identifies the objectives and boundaries of openness. Li makes a strong case for the inevitable openness due to technological advance and then she eases the concerns of leadership by assisting them to manage and plan an openness strategy.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The ten elements of openness and the four arenas of decision making are good practical input. \u00a0The author emphasized the need to develop a strategy that is consistent with the organization\u2019s objectives and then to identify the objectives of the openness strategy itself. \u00a0I found this to be encouraging. \u00a0She made it clear that she is not making a case for a \u2018tell all\u2019 kind of openness. \u00a0Though she develops a very structured argument for developing an openness strategy she then balances that structure with a strong emphasis on the leadership\u2019s relationships and the culture of relationships being leveraged to realize the benefits of openness.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The best two parts of the book for me were her comments on attitude and failure. \u00a0Li writes about two attitudes or mind sets: people and success. \u00a0She writes, \u201cIn my research and interviews, there are two mind-sets that define and determine how open you are as a leader. The first is your view of people\u2014in general, are you optimistic or pessimistic about people\u2019s intentions? (Kindle Loc. 2575) \u00a0The second mind-set is your view of your successes: as either coming primarily from your efforts as an individual or stemming from the efforts of a team.\u201d (Kindle Loc. 2583). \u00a0These two comments are profound because of their simplicity, concreteness, and directness. \u00a0She is right on! \u00a0Of course, if she were to be writing from a Christian world view she would have certainly grounded her views in a Biblical anthropological perspective and the plurality of leadership view. \u00a0She finishes her chapter with a refreshing bit on humility, a subject not always given space in the context of leadership. \u00a0She writes, \u201cin the context of open leadership, humility plays a special role\u2014it allows open leaders to accept that their views on something may need to shift because of what their curious explorations expose.\u201d (Kindle Loc. 2651). \u00a0I believe the vulnerability that is the product of humility is very valuable to leadership and facilitates ownership and team attitude.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The chapter on failure was my favorite. \u00a0I agree with her that being able to forgive failure and also building trust by admitting failure are both powerful leadership traits. \u00a0I thought about this in terms of disciple making. \u00a0I remember teaching about discipleship and talking about how Jesus treated Peter\u2019s failure. \u00a0One of the students asked me, \u201ccan you tell us about one of your failures and how you learned from that experience.\u201d \u00a0I was not prepared for the question. \u00a0But, I took my time, trusting God that he would prompt me, and he did. \u00a0I then shared about something I did when I was in my first pastorate. \u00a0I made a policy decision about parking without thinking much about it. \u00a0At the next board meeting one of the elders asked my about it and the rationale for the policy. \u00a0I really did not have any rationale! \u00a0The elders all talked about alternative ways to handle the parking problem and none of them were like my way! \u00a0I soon realized they were giving me ample opportunity to repent! \u00a0I did! \u00a0Soon we were all laughing about my stupid policy! \u00a0It was hard at first and then funny. \u00a0And I learned an important lesson. \u00a0Never make a policy quickly, and never make it alone!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is not good to hide one\u2019s failure. \u00a0You will not learn from it and it will only pull you down in the long run.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I enjoyed Li\u2019s book.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I really liked the author\u2019s opening statement about the purpose of her book, \u201cOpen Leadership is about how leaders must let go to succeed.\u201d \u00a0(Kindle Loc 179). \u00a0I particularly liked her stress on being strategic about how a leader, in conjunction with others, will put together a plan that identifies the objectives and boundaries of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"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":[2,220],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-li","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}