What spurs us into action? Reflections on Lamdin’s book, Finding Your Leadership Style
I’ve recently been grading some student reviews of Keith Lamdin’s 2012 book, Finding Your Leadership Style: A Guide for Ministers. In spite of the sub title (a guide for ministers) I think Lamdin’s work has a wider relevance, and thought it worth highlighting some of his key insights. After defining leadership as ‘one humans capacity to influence another’, Lamdin suggests that three factors are usually at work before we spring into leadership action: discontent, vision and courage. The first ingredient, discontent, is interesting as the obvious implication is...
Read MoreColliding Truths: Living with Paradox
Back in 2006 I published an article Colliding Truths: Embracing Paradox in Ministry in the British journal Ministry Today. Ten years later, I think that most of the points remain relevant, so here, with just a few minor changes and updates, is that essay. While the focus is on how pastors deal with colliding truths and paradox, I think that the relevance is far wider than for those who are pastors, and am sure that with just a little imagination you will be able to transfer the insights to your setting. I can still remember him saying it. It seemed mildly amusing at the time. “And the ninth...
Read MoreHow to change the world… The Greenpeace formula
I was flying back from the National Council Meeting of Christian Schools Australia on Friday, and after a full day of discussions, felt entitled to relax by watching a movie on my way home to Perth. The Qantas fare on offer was a tad disappointing, so it was with little enthusiasm that I clicked onto the Greeenpeace documentary, How to Change the World. Now truth to tell, even though I am about to write a post on this film, it is not going to go down as my favourite movie of the decade (or year, or month) – but it was interesting, and set me thinking about a raft of issues. Whatever...
Read MoreReflections on a two funeral week…
Over recent years I’ve become fairly settled in my end of year routine. Vose Seminary, where I am principal, closes for the week between Christmas and New Year, so when I finish preaching the Christmas day message, I am off for the remainder of the year and for the first few days of the new one. Once Christmas feasting is over, the obligatory maintenance on the home gets undertaken – very poorly to be sure – but nevertheless all paving gets water blasted, our decking gets re oiled, and any other tasks I have been unable to wriggle out of, get performed. After that, I set my...
Read MoreIs there a place for quiet leaders?
In 2013 Paternoster published my book, The Tortoise Usually Wins. It works from the simple thesis that while we often assume that leaders need to be larger than life charismatic figures, the reality often turns out to be different. There is a place for those who are quiet leaders. Sometimes they approach the task of leadership hesitantly, even reluctantly. But they often go on to make a significant difference. Many people have found the book helpful and it has now had a second print run and has also been translated into Indonesian. Here is how the preface to the book starts. If you have...
Read More