INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
Upon reading Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, it makes me wonder if we need another leadership book.\u00a0 Taken from a collection of leadership essays, the editors, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khuruna, do such a splendid job at gathering the insights from some of the best leadership minds, that it does beg the question.<\/p>\n
SUMMARY<\/p>\n
How does one really summarize a book on leadership that is so vast\u00a0in its scope?\u00a0 Divided into five pivotal sections, \u00a0this book guides the reader through various ideas, theoretical concepts, studies, and charts in what seems to be an attempt to be the “Bible” of leadership.\u00a0This book is not something that can be digested quickly, but there are many concepts that must marinate before they are actually realized and practiced.<\/p>\n
This book is art imitating life.\u00a0 A quick search on leadership with Amazon.com will render over 173k book titles.\u00a0 We are inundated with leadership ideas, concepts, opinions and theories.\u00a0 It almost seems like you do not have any street cred in ministry if\u00a0you have not written a leadership book.\u00a0 We are told that Jesus was a CEO, and that if you structure your organization in a certain way, then you can be the next GE of the church world.\u00a0 While all of these ideas are useful, so many times leading is not a complex set of theories or walking out the latest fad, it is simply getting your hands dirty and getting engaged in the leadership process.<\/p>\n
ANALYSES<\/p>\n
In the past 3 weeks, I have had a face to face encounter with leadership.\u00a0 As most know, I have transitioned from a ministry life being a number two leader to now sitting in the first chair.\u00a0 In other words, every decision that I am making on a daily basis can potentially make or break the church.\u00a0 In my previous position, I sat under a covering.\u00a0 While there was spiritual warfare, it was not as intense.\u00a0 While I had to make decisions previously, the weight of decisions I make now impact people’s lives, their insurance policies, where they can afford to live, what they can potentially buy their kids for Christmas, and a host of other things.\u00a0 Every decision must be measured, weighed, and made with precision.<\/p>\n
So when I came to chapter entitled, Decision Making as Leadership Foundation<\/em>, I was certainly hooked.\u00a0 Michael Useem, the author of the article, says this, “Making good and timely leadership decisions on behalf of the organization has long been recognized by some scholars and practitioners as a defining aspect of leadership….Jack Welch singled out his ability to make fast decisions without regrets as a defining quality of his own leadership at GE (p.510).”\u00a0\u00a0 Useem further points out that making no decision is in itself a decision as well.<\/p>\n Now, it is not the mundane decision that Useem is speaking of, but rather it is the decisions that are being made that will move the organization forward or grind it to a halt.\u00a0 In other words, it is the decision that only the leader or group of leaders can make at times.\u00a0 This is a sobering reality.\u00a0 For many, they cannot live with this pressure and will only make a decision if it is perfect, but those types of\u00a0decisions never happen for a leader.<\/p>\n So if leadership decisions that we make are not always guaranteed for 100% success, how do we lead?\u00a0 Useem points out the 70% rule that is employed in military service.\u00a0 If the decision can get into a 70% chance of effectiveness, then the decision should be made with confidence.\u00a0 This paralyzes some, but for a true leader, they can confidently make the decision.\u00a0 How?<\/p>\n Buried deep in Useem’s work is this quote, “Underpreparation is a major source of suboptimal leadership decisions (p.512).”\u00a0 If a leader is unprepared in his development as a leader, if he does not prepare the organization, or his character is not prepared, then the decisions will be poor.\u00a0 Here’s why.\u00a0 A leader that prepares is preparing for the decision, he is thinking two steps ahead of a successful decision, and he has prepared his character to be able to stand by the decision without passing the buck when the decision failed.\u00a0 A prepared life will lead to good decision making.\u00a0 A prepared organization will lead to good decision making as well.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/p>\n I have read many leadership books.\u00a0 I have always seen good leaders as being men and women who have a high risk tolerance.\u00a0 They are willing to take a risk that others are not.\u00a0 Perhaps the reason they can take a risk is because they are prepared for both the sunshine or the rain.\u00a0 This one contribution in this book is worth its weight in gold to me in my context right now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" INTRODUCTION Upon reading Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, it makes me wonder if we need another leadership book.\u00a0 Taken from a collection of leadership essays, the editors, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khuruna, do such a splendid job at gathering the insights from some of the best leadership minds, that it does beg the question. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"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":[35,195],"class_list":["post-6342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-leadership","tag-nohria","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342","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\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6343,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions\/6343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}