{"id":6388,"date":"2015-11-05T21:10:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T05:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=6388"},"modified":"2015-11-05T21:10:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T05:10:46","slug":"the-whitmans-sampler-leadership-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-whitmans-sampler-leadership-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whitman’s Sampler Leadership Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Whitman<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cHandbook of Leadership Theory and Practice\u201d is like eating a box of Whitman\u2019s Sampler assorted chocolates. \u00a0As a child, my mother received at least one of these annually from my Dad.\u00a0 As an elementary aged, little boy who was beginning to read, the challenge and the discovery of the chocolate schematic inside the box pointing me to the chocolate of my dreams was the methodology for hope and chocolate bliss.<\/p>\n

Nohira and Khurana deliver the ultimate \u201cWhitman\u2019s Sampler Leadership\u201d box of great minds.\u00a0 As a DMin student embracing an impending dissertation, my goal was to use the \u201cschematic\u201d, otherwise known as the Contents page, to feed my hunger for information on intentional and transitional senior leadership handoffs.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I went with selfish motives.\u00a0\u00a0 As I went through the various works in the book I was being challenged in my present world of pastoral leadership.\u00a0 I wanted academic information but found principles that begin to convict and challenge me in my present role.\u00a0 Each chapter was like a morsel of Whitman\u2019s chocolate; I really wasn\u2019t sure what was inside, but I trusted the Contents page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHandbook of Leadership Theory and Practice\u201d is the reflection of Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium on Leadership.\u00a0 The amalgamation of various disciplines from economics, history, sociology, and psychology attempt to define what is known about leadership and what will the future of leadership look like.<\/p>\n

Nitin Nohira and Rakesh Khurana, editors of the book, said it best, \u201cWe hope that this volume creates a new future, that improving the research, practice and teaching of leadership allows us to develop better leaders and a better world.\u00a0 The world is crying out for better leadership.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 The book delivers a plethora of information that is both practical, scalable and useable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first great morsel of information was from Marshall Ganz.\u00a0\u00a0 He is a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.\u00a0 In 1964 he volunteered as a civil rights worker in Mississippi.\u00a0 In 1965 he joined Cesar Chavez, a fellow Arizonian, and the United Farm Workers to fight for equality for farm laborers in the Southwest.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Ganz paper on \u201cLeading Change\u201d intrigued my curiosity to find \u201cgold\u201d for my dissertation.<\/p>\n

Having just read Social Geographies, Space and Society <\/em>by Gill Valentine, my antennae for change to space and society was heightened.\u00a0 Valentine gave an interesting dialogue in the human ability to cluster or live in geographical frameworks.\u00a0 My thought was Ganz was going to be the voice of reason and change.\u00a0\u00a0 After navigating through civil rights and the equality of human labor surely Ganz was a voice of truth.\u00a0\u00a0 Ganz ever added the fine sugar topping by using Moses in his analogies on social movement leadership.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of \u201cgold\u201d for future use, Ganz convicts me with, \u201cLeading in social movements requires learning to manage the core tensions at the heart of what theologian Walter Breggermann calls the \u2018prophetic imagination\u2019:\u00a0 a combination of critically (experience of the world\u2019s pain) with hope (experience of the world\u2019s possibility), avoiding being numbed by despair or deluded by optimism.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 I wondered was Ganz a prophet or the son of a prophet?<\/p>\n

I just had my Executive Pastor tender his resignation in front of the entire staff.\u00a0 He then proceeded to unload his agenda, preferences, and point out my major weaknesses and shortcomings.\u00a0 Here I am reading a book to glean a blog, to ultimately give me information for my dissertation, and the writer is invading my private world.\u00a0\u00a0 I was not expecting this piece of chocolate to taste so well and deliver such an impact of help. \u00a0Doesn’t Ganz know that we have two building projects going on?<\/p>\n

My leadership is to \u201cmanage the core tensions between pain and possibility\u201d.\u00a0 Ganz lowered another nugget when he states, \u201cSocial movement leadership requires not only adapting to the rhythm of change, but also structuring the space in which effective leadership can grow.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Effective leadership must balance the tension of \u201cbeing numbed by despair or deluded by optimism\u201d.<\/p>\n

I was quite content with the fresh morsel from \u201cWhitman\u2019s Sampler Leadership\u201d box of great minds till the schematic led me to Bruce Avolio, professor at the University of Washington.\u00a0 Five books and over one hundred articles on leadership under his belt.\u00a0\u00a0 As I viewed the next potential morsel on the schematic, \u201cPursuing Authentic Leadership Development\u201d jumped out.\u00a0 Surely this is the golden, nutty, gooey almond interior piece I was looking for.<\/p>\n

Avolio\u2019s morsel proved again that this was more than a dissertation search.\u00a0 Avolio was meddling in my world again.\u00a0 His belief, \u201cLike many in the field of leadership, I concentrated a lot of my early attention on what the leader was like, what the leader did, and how the leader performed.\u00a0 So, inside my telescopic view was clearly one image that loomed large, and it covered most of the visual space.\u00a0 Only after a number of years of reflection did it become obvious to me that we also needed to pull back and look at the larger global context to see exactly where we were in explaining what constituted the range and depth of \u2018good\u2019 leadership.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

After the event with the staff member, I found myself concentrating on a myopic view of my present state of reality.\u00a0\u00a0 As Avolio points out we need \u201cpull back and look at the larger global context\u201d and understand what leadership needed to be now.\u00a0 Assessment was in order, both corporate and individual, but the next steps was to continue to develop through the crisis.<\/p>\n

Avolio even brought me back to a God-reflection on my leadership and on my present state of reality when he says, \u201cOne beneficial outcome of the globalization of our planet has been the clear sense that, like any organization, town, city, region, or country, the resources in this world are finite.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 As a staff we did analyze strengths, weaknesses, reality, uncalled for venting, possible next steps, and strategies to step forward.\u00a0 In the end we are infinite and need God desperately.\u00a0 After all it is His church, His Kingdom and His people.<\/p>\n

\"WhitmanSamplerI reflected back on those simple days of my mom\u2019s Whitman\u2019s Sampler assorted chocolates.\u00a0 I can still smell the aroma as the ornate box lid was pulled upward revealing the careful schematic and placement of the potential finds that were to be discovered.\u00a0 Sometimes I would get a jelly-filled interior and it would be ok.\u00a0\u00a0 But with careful detective work I could find the piece that
\nwould make my taste buds\u00a0stand at attention.\u00a0\u00a0 By the way, I also appreciate the morsels of truth that \u201cHandbook of Leadership Theory and Practice\u201d delivered.\u00a0 I needed it!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Nitin Nohira and Rakesh Khurana (editors), Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice <\/em>(Boston, MA:\u00a0 Harvard Business Press, 2010), 24.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 811.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 529-530.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 530.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 559.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 739.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 740.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction The \u201cHandbook of Leadership Theory and Practice\u201d is like eating a box of Whitman\u2019s Sampler assorted chocolates. \u00a0As a child, my mother received at least one of these annually from my Dad.\u00a0 As an elementary aged, little boy who was beginning to read, the challenge and the discovery of the chocolate schematic inside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"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":[730,195,729],"class_list":["post-6388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-handbook-of-leadership","tag-nohria","tag-whitman-sampler","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6391,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions\/6391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}