{"id":532,"date":"2013-11-08T19:03:24","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T19:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=532"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:28:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:28:10","slug":"leadership-involves-plumbing-as-well-as-poetry-jim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leadership-involves-plumbing-as-well-as-poetry-jim\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry”- Jim March"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you pick up Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em> your fist though is \u201chow am I going to get through these 800 pages\u201d but as I started reading, I was slowly pulled into every article. There was something I could glean from every page and I felt as if I was not only affirmed as a leader, but also pushed to be better in the way that I lead my congregation. No, this book is not written from a church perspective, but I think that the church has a lot to learn about leadership from the business world.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start by defining what a leader is and what leadership looks like. We\u2019ve heard it said over and over again \u201cLeaders are agents of change.\u201d[1]<\/a> As broad and as clich\u00e9 this saying is, after reading through this book, I feel there is a lot of substance to that statement. Leaders are usually \u201cpersons whose acts affect other people more than other people\u2019s acts affect them\u201d[2]<\/a> I think about my leadership as a pastor. People share their burdens with me, and I walk with them through life\u2019s most difficult challenges, but I don\u2019t make their issues my own. I carry them, I pray for them and I weep with them, but at the end of the day, their issues don\u2019t change the way that I live and lead. I might be a little more sensitive and aware, but my core doesn\u2019t change based on what\u2019s going on around me. It sounds heartless, but it\u2019s not. Imagine feeling everything deeply and imagine attempting to alter my life based on church members circumstances. I would be of no use to anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe leader that always appeases is like someone who feeds crocodiles hoping that they\u2019ll eat him last.\u201d[3]<\/a> It\u2019s hard to stay strong and have a soft heart in leadership, but I think that we must live in the tension\u2026 For example, a pastor is a friend to those in the congregation, but they are not his friends\u2026 soo much of leadership is somewhat one sided. Leadership occurs when we are willing to live in that tension between being fully in and aware of everything that\u2019s happening in your congregation and having one foot out so that you might be able to be objective in the way you interact with people.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat leaders inspire people to move beyond personal, egotistic motives- to transcend themselves as it were- and as a result they get the best out of their people. In short, exemplary leadership makes a difference, whatever the context\u201d[4]<\/a> Leadership is leading by example. It\u2019s doing the dirty things so that others might be empowered when they see you work alongside them.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeadership involves plumbing as well as poetry.\u201d[5]<\/a> In the Korean community pastors are treated like royalty. They are put on a pedestal and are treated with an incredible amount of respect and admiration by the first generation. Sometimes I think that the pastor is up there with Jesus\u2026 but it\u2019s not the same with the second generation. They look at the pastor and can\u2019t understand why he is given soo much respect just because he is the pastor. The title alone earns you respect with one generation, and it means nothing to the second. It\u2019s pretty fascinating. I earned the respect of my congregation by doing the plumbing\u2026 and now they listen to my poetry. Poetry standing alone has no power, just like plumbing alone is just hard work. Leadership, when done right, it\u2019s a beautiful dance\u2026 it\u2019s plumbing and poetry dancing together.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Mary Ann Glynn and Rich DeJordy, \u201cLeadership Through an Organization Behavior Lens,\u201d in\u00a0Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em>, eds. Nitin Nohira and Rakesh Khurana (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2010), 121<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Ibid., 121<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> Manfred Kets de Vries and Elisabet Engellau, \u201cA Clinical Approach to the Dynamics of Leadership and Executive Transformation,\u201d in\u00a0Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em>, eds. Nitin Nohira and Rakesh Khurana (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2010), 199<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/a> Ibid., 192<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/a> Mary Ann Glynn and Rich DeJordy, \u201cLeadership Through an Organization Behavior Lens,\u201d in\u00a0Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice<\/em>, eds. Nitin Nohira and Rakesh Khurana (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2010), 141<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you pick up Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice your fist though is \u201chow am I going to get through these 800 pages\u201d but as I started reading, I was slowly pulled into every article. There was something I could glean from every page and I felt as if I was not only affirmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"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":[2,195],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-nohria","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1864,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions\/1864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}