The winter 2009 issue of the Leadership in Ministry Workshops (LIM) newsletter is now available. You can download a copy of the newsletter by visiting the LIM website and selecting the link to the newsletters from the main menu.
The newsletter includes the following features: Continue reading
I’ve been doing formal consultation since 1989, when I started Educational Consultants. The venture achieved all the goals I had for it, including covering the college tuition for the boys. While success is its own reward, there’s a downside to it also. The traveling got old pretty soon, for one thing. I’m in the process of reconsidering how long I want to continue. Lately I’m turning down more offers and invitations than I’m taking on. Some of that has to do with the new job, but some of it is that my interests may be changing. Continue reading
Margaret Marcuson touches all the right bases in her first book for congregational leaders, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury Press, 2009). It is a primer on effective ministerial leadership based on perennial principals and much influenced by Marcuson’s experience in working with leaders, and, her continuing study of Bowen Systems Theory applied to leadership. A recognized coach to leaders Marcuson brings real world wisdom to the pages of this book on effective ministry leadership. Insightful, and often playful, Marcuson shares her coaching expertise with readers in this short course on effective leadership. Continue reading
Some of my students in my philosophy course are starting to get annoyed that the professor doesn’t answer their questions. More often than not, when a student asks a question, the professor will respond, “That’s a good question,” or, “What do you think?” It hasn’t stopped the students from asking good questions. In fact, as the course goes on, the students are learning to ask better questions. Continue reading
One interesting phenomena of the power of homeostasis is that whenever a leader attempts to bring about change he or she will most certainly encounter sabotage. And while we can find some comfort in the notion that reactivity is unimaginative, and therefore predictable, sabotage has a thousand faces. The fun thing about sabotage (if one can be non-reactive about it), is that while we can expect it, we will tend to be surprised at its source and the forms it takes. In that sense, for most of us, we never see it coming. Continue reading
Leaders who are shortsighted worry too much about what people say about them. Whether it’s because of insecurity, a need for affirmation, issues related to competence or image, many leaders measure success in the metrics of immediate change. More often than not, however, the full measure of our success can only be measured long after we’ve gone from the organization we leave. Only then can can determine how lasting our influence was. Continue reading
One of the most important qualities for leaders is the capacity for vision. Extraordinary leaders, however, are visionaries. The dilemma for visionaries is that they often are ahead of their time. Leaders with vision see the horizons and lead people there. Visionary leaders see beyond the horizon and try to communicate to those they lead vistas of places yet unseen and possibilities of things not yet realized. It’s hard enough for leaders with a vision; they need to be resilient in the face of resistance. For visionary leaders, it’s harder. They need to change people’s perception of what is possible, and they need courage to commit to persistence of vision in the face of incredulity. Continue reading
We can all appreciate that homeostatic forces are powerful dynamics in systems, from family to governments. Homeostatic force has at least two characteristics: (1) its force comes as a multigenerational tidal wave, and therefore difficult to resist, and (2) like a tidal wave, it is an unthinking force. Meaning, you can’t reason with it. Continue reading
Throwing out some old files and materials (New Year’s Resolution no. 7) I stumbled across an old final exam from a course I offered over two decades ago when I was teaching adjunctively. Reviewing the course material I was struck at how clunky the course was. Whoever let me loose on those poor graduate students during those years will be doing hard time in Purgatory. Being young and foolish is one thing; young, foolish, and passionate is a deadly combination. It seems I had yet a lot to learn about pedagogy and course design. Continue reading
Quick quiz: What philosopher said, “To think is easy, to act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.”?
Answer… Continue reading
