Leadership Wisdom From Unlikely Voices

For leaders who've read every leadership book (or just feel like they have) Most leaders feel like they've read all there is to read about leadership but are still frustrated when the tools of 'professionals' fail to work. Leadership Wisdom from Unlikely Voices takes leaders off the frustrating path of doing leadership and into the more meaningful place of being a leader. Rather than focusing on new tools or techniques, author Dave Fleming draws on the 'voices' of contemplative thinkers and their views on issues that affect leaders today. Nouwen, Augustine, Underhill, Benedict, and others offer readers insight from outside the world of leadership on how to regain the humanity of being a leader. Each chapter includes interactive exercises that allow readers to reflect on what they're learning, evaluate ideas, and then implement those ideas that resonate most.

People are desperate for leaders who are credible – those who possess a moral center and exhibit sound leadership skills. Given our global realities, we need strategic leaders who possess cultural intelligence and theological discernment. The aim of this book is to shape such leaders. Each chapter combines careful research with contributions from leaders around the world. These voices bring much-needed insight to leadership issues when translated and applied in different settings, especially the many urban multi-cultural contexts that exist today. Present and emerging leaders, no matter the culture or field, will find this book invaluable in sustaining their call to godly leadership.

Bill Donahue shows you that Jesus is a different kind of leader. He understands your failures, demands your devotion, releases your strengths and rewards your obedience. His leadership is demanding, challenging, full of grace and led by the Spirit. He is a leader worth following. His model of leadership is worth emulating. A Willow Creek Resource.

How do you define leadership? What kind of leader are you?What kind of leader can you be?Can you be both a leader and a follower?You can get a handle on these and other crucial questions by wrapping your brain around Leadership 101. It focuses on the nuts and bolts of solid Christian leadership (prayer, service, communication, conflict management, mentoring, etc.) but also goes deep into the soul of leadership.In these pages you'll find out why leading isn't always what we expect---and how leaders aren't always who we expect them to be. You'll learn to integrate your heart with the skills of leadership. And you'll discover how Jesus, David, and others journeyed on the leadership path---so you can join them, too.This interactive guide also includes checklists, surveys, fill-in-the-blank questions, and journal exercises so you can take your own leadership pulse, identify the traits you want to live out, and record your thoughts and prayers right on the pages---which helps you put leadership into practice more quickly and effectively.Just remember: Leadership isn't a job...it's a journey.

Behind many of the challenges facing us today is a failure of leadership. This is not a new problem. Yearning for wise guidance and effective authority is a perennial human longing. We need leaders who are credible, competent and committed. But many leaders seem to be caught up, even consumed, with their own power and agendas. Some see the leadership crisis as an intellectual problem, believing we lack a clear theory of leadership. Others view the breakdown of leadership as a result of increasing deficiency in moral character. Most leadership books today revolve around the concepts of motivation, inspiration, empowerment, and teamwork. Helpful as these themes might be, they miss something more fundamental. Leadership needs a theological foundation, that will be useful for shaping the undergirding principles, and evaluating current leadership theories and practices. We need to view leadership from the vantage point of God. In Rooted Leadership, John E. Johnson explores how Christian theology provides an overarching leadership framework and applies that theory to leadership practices. Spiritual reflection, guided by scripture, points us to the very center of leadership--God--and the purpose of leadership--that we might display his glory. All the best forms of leading take their cues from who God is, his purposes, and his ways of working with people that he has progressively revealed. Building on three decades of research, study, and experience as a global leader, Johnson surveys the landscape of contemporary leadership theory, unpacks the assumptions and beliefs that underly current trends, and responds by offering a robust approach to leadership, founded on the character, work, and words of God.

This revised and expanded edition of a proven ministry resource contains new contributions from Leith Anderson, Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, Luis Palau, John Ortberg, Aubrey Malphurs, and many others.

When it comes to talking about the activity of directing the church, the language of leadership and leaders is increasingly popular. Yet what is leadership – and how might theological narratives better resource the discourse and practice of leadership in ecclesial contexts? In identifying and critiquing managerialism as a dominant narrative of leadership in the Western church, this book calls for an alternative approach founded on the concept of friendship. Engaging with the wider field of leadership studies, the book establishes an understanding of leadership activity and brings it into conversation with an incarnational ecclesiology. The result is a prophetic reimagining of ecclesial leadership in terms of a relational, kenotic praxis. This praxis of mutuality and love is framed here in the rich language of Christian friendship. The book also wrestles deeply with the embodiment of such a praxis, making explicit the power behaviours typical of friendship-leadership and offering constructive guidance for practitioners in the task of implementation within a complex and fractured world. This book offers a new vision of the centrality of friendship to leadership of a healthy church community. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of practical theology, ecclesiology and leadership, as well as practitioners in church ministry.

The purpose and aim of this book is to develop an appropriate leadership model for missional churches. This implies a positioning of this book within the broader theology of mission and a consensus on the theology of the Missio Dei, originating at the 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council in Willingen, Germany. In this approach to the theology of mission, mission is understood as the work of the Trinitarian God, and the church is privileged to participate in God’s mission. It is against this background that the growing consensus on missional ecclesiology challenges leadership models developed for a different time and a different kind of church (with less or no emphasis on the missional character of the church). The aim is to reflect theologically on the role of leadership in the missional church. What kind of ideas about power, authority and leadership are appropriate for a missional church? New missional challenges demand new ideas about missional leadership. Church organisation and leadership reflects a theological position – there is a strong relation between ecclesiology and church organisation. The nature of the church provides the framework to understand the character of the church. What the church is determines what the church does. The church organises what it does and agrees on rules that regulate ministries and organisation. Issues such as the way the church organises and governs what it does, and thus church leadership, need to be answered against this background and understanding. Church polity and organisation, as well as leadership, must reflect the identity, calling, life and order of the church. This book, therefore, addresses life in the Trinity, participation in the Missio Dei and contours of the missional church as the point of entry to develop leadership insights. It contributes towards the development of an appropriate model of leadership for missional churches, because although recent developments in the theology of mission comprehensively addressed the area of missional ecclesiology, there is a gap in the development of a leadership model based on the concept of authority in the missional church.