Can you have effective, incompetent leaders? Nope. But some highly skilled leaders have enough character flaws to create a dangerous situation for themselves and others! These character issues are usually the result of a wrongly placed sense of identity. It is relatively easy to get ahead using personal competency as the lever because that is…
Effective leaders know who they really are, embrace it and give themselves to the cause. We looked at identity as a foundational understanding of the personal dimension of simple leadership. The concept of essence is closely related. From Wikipedia: In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance…
Simple leadership. I have spent the last few years trying to think both deeply and simply about leadership. In this post I want to give a very simple overview of the basic framework of my thinking. Later I will go into more on how and why I ended up here. For now, conceiving of leadership…
Failure happens. No matter how perfect your leadership and how grace giving the culture you create, personal choices create conflict and consequences for your organization. Just ask God! Genesis 3 The fundamental temptation is to exchange the position of receiving good gifts from God, for the position of taking what we want for our own…
As we ponder the theological roots of Christian leadership, the starting point for understanding the generosity of God’s love is creation itself. If our leadership is an act of love in which we help others discover their gifts and follow God in loving service, we must reflect on how God has as led us first…
Genesis 1 and 2 Foundational to Christian leadership is creating an environment for meaningful vocation. The creation narrative states, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over…”. Our original vocation was to reflect God to all creation and manage it for His glory. To…
As Christian leaders, creating a climate of creativity is foundational. If we are looking to God’s relationship to us as a theological basis for leadership development, the world is created as a context, a climate where we can share His life as His image in a relational context. What does such a climate look like?…
Genesis Leaders create. If God is our example of leadership, we have to begin here. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Why? All creation is essentially the time and space for developmental relationships to form and God to share the extent of His glory in a relational context. While leaders cannot…
Galatians 4 Christian Leadership means taking the long view, if we want to follow God’s manner of dealing with us. Galatians 4:4 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the…
“Why is vulnerability necessary for both mentoring and leadership?” I’ve been on vacation a couple of weeks and my daughter-in-law recommended this video by Brene Brown. Take a look and share how you would connect Brene’s experience and research with mentoring or leadership. In applying this to Christian mentoring or Christian leadership, does vulnerability have…
