{"id":9856,"date":"2016-10-27T08:59:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T15:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9856"},"modified":"2016-10-27T08:59:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T15:59:06","slug":"extraordinarily-ordinary-heroic-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/extraordinarily-ordinary-heroic-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Extraordinarily Ordinary: Heroic Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Who counts as a leader? How many lives must one influence to be considered a leader? (17) The Jesuit perspective finds leadership opportunities \u201cnot just at work but also in the ordinary activities of everyday life<\/em><\/strong>\u201d (15). And the ones that lead? It\u2019s not solely those with the leadership title (\u201cwhat you do\u201d), but those who identify their primary leadership tool to be themselves (\u201cwho you are\u201d) (19).<\/p>\n

Lowney reminds us that the Jesuit model of leadership is not usually a person \u201cin charge,\u201d or the possibility of producing immediate results or defining moments (92). Leadership is not even an act; it is a way of living (20). It is the ordinary life of ordinary people doing extraordinarily ordinary things for an extraordinary purpose<\/em>. Perhaps we can call it quotidian worship<\/em><\/strong>. If I understand that purpose (personally, at least) to be assimilation into the Kingdom of God, then it is aligning myself to God\u2019s mission and allowing the Holy Spirit to shape me into Christlikeness, with a view to compelling others to this posture as well. This is a fullness of worship. And this happens in the midst of real life, the daily<\/em>, the ordinary. Lowney writes,<\/p>\n

Leadership is not reserved for a few Pooh-Bahs sitting atop large companies, nor do leadership opportunities arise only \u201con stage\u201d at work. We can be leaders in everything we do\u2014in our work and in our daily lives, when teaching others or learning from others. And most of us do all those things in the course of any given day (5).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even those marvelous moments of grabbing a second set of pants and jumping on a boat never to return to the homeland, those grand adventures of exploring the unknown jungles or steppes, stepping out into a new land, learning a new language and wearing funny clothes, placing lives on the line for voiceless slaves\u2014all of that, as adventurous as it sounds, still boils down to the ordinary, real life. At some point, what may seem exciting\u2014that 4-wheel drive, off road 3-hour trek to get home\u2014ends up just being what you do to get home. At some point, that adrenaline rush of bandits arriving at your gate\u2014ends up becoming a regular date for teatime, dancing and \u201cchecking your guns at the door.\u201d At some point, meals still need to be made, laundry washed, and verbs in the new language conjugated. Quotidian worship is that place where the big picture of the Kingdom of God and our role in it, is laid over the risks, the excitement, the frustration, and the boredom of our daily events. That is faithfulness.\"100_0445\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps that is also what Lowney calls heroic leadership:<\/p>\n

Heroic leadership is not just teaching high school kids but looking past the flying spitballs to see that the well-being of the whole world depends on what you\u2019re doing. Heroic leadership is motivating oneself to above-and-beyond performance by focusing on the richest potential of every moment<\/em><\/strong>. Jesuits characterized it more simply with their company motto, magis<\/em>: the restless drive to look for something more<\/em> in every opportunity and the confidence that one will find it. It\u2019s not the job that\u2019s heroic; it\u2019s the attitude one brings to it. The Jesuits weren\u2019t heroes because they were high school teachers; they were heroes because they brought a spirit of magis<\/em> to their work (209).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aligning our perspective to the eternal present (thanks Kierkegaard), allows us to see how our risk-taking, our creativity, and our daring matter in the Kingdom. It helps us recognize that we need not fear change. Pointing our compass to the Kingdom gives us courage to see the Holy Spirit at work in others, allowing us to trust, love and pour into them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who counts as a leader? How many lives must one influence to be considered a leader? (17) The Jesuit perspective finds leadership opportunities \u201cnot just at work but also in the ordinary activities of everyday life\u201d (15). And the ones that lead? It\u2019s not solely those with the leadership title (\u201cwhat you do\u201d), but those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"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":[937,938,933,939,940],"class_list":["post-9856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-extraordinary","tag-jesuits","tag-lowney","tag-ordinary","tag-quotidian","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9856","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\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}