Disciple-making

In the process of completing a degree in leadership, I have read a good share of the academic literature on the topic of leadership over the past two years. This semester, the focus is on mentoring, and I was required to read much of the academic literature on the topic of mentoring. Something I find…

Backwards Thoughts on Biblical Leadership

Let’s see if I can remember how to blog…I have been following the recent posts about whether leadership is “biblical.” It is difficult to have this conversation without first defining the underlying assumptions and values regarding relationships and organizational structures. To the degree that growth, efficiency, effectiveness, success, and influence are the aspired values, business…

Things I Didn’t Learn About Leadership in Church

Leadership originates in response to the needs of others. Leadership is not the response of people to the vision of an influential person, but rather their response to the leader as he or she articulates their wants and needs. It can not occur without truly knowing and understanding the needs of those one presumes to…

Hauerwas on Leadership

I’ve been wanting to write a few things about leadership, but haven’t had the opportunity. In the meantime, let me share some of my favorite thoughts from this video of Stanley Hauerwas. “It’s always persuasion.” “Many of the proposals about leadership are quite perverse, exactly because it gives the impression that you know what leadership…

Pseudo-leaders

As I was working on my homework, I thought you might be interested in these notes from an article that I read for one of my classes. Discussions of leadership are intertwined with issues of authority.  Western philosophy assumes that there is no morally valid leadership without the consent of the led.  It is a…