Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Well, thus ends Co Hort.

Dr. Lawson quoted Maxwell on the first day of class saying, “Leadership is Influence.” I’ve read several of Maxwell’s books and have never been a fan of any. But this isn’t about my appreciation of someone else’s positions rather a question of what one must do, to become a leader on leadership. The Miller text for this class says, “Yes, leadership owns leaders. It is not to be gained by studying books like this. It is innate.” (9) Despite the innateness, thousands of books on leadership are written annually, and somehow Maxwell gets credit for a line as, well, underwhelming as “leadership is influence.” Really, he’s the guy that ‘made up’ that saying?! At the core of this diatribe is a real curiosity about how you become an authority on leadership, and if you are how do you teach, write anything about it? Some will read this as me attacking Maxwell, or writing out of envy; I assure you this isn’t the case. I legitimately struggle with the issue of leadership as a subject to be studied as we study math or history, when we know that there are no solid answers, as Dr. Lawson said in class today. We are a class full of leaders. Some by position. Some by passion. Some by giftedness. In all cases we are leaders, and the 40 of us struggled through 10 weeks to define the very thing that we’re all doing. How can we do as Wardle said? How can we learn these principles and forget them instantly at 30+ or 50+?

2 comments:

  1. Miles,

    I too have struggled greatly with this whole idea of “developing a theory of leadership.” Not even situational leadership (what I like to call “cop-out of picking a leadership theory”) is not without its faults. I appreciate what another blog wrote this week that argued that we should be developing a “theology of leadership.” If we look to the business world first, we are wrong. If we look to psychology, we are wrong. We should begin by following Jesus the epitome and apex of leadership. I am not saying that there are not things to be learned because of God’s common grace. The bottom line is the thing that is going to keep us in ministry and “in” leadership (as if leadership is something that is attained by human means alone). We must look to the one who called us in the first place. I am not trying to oversimplify the issue; it is just that I think we go down many rabbit trails with the issue of leadership when if we follow Christ we will become leaders-Christian ones. Why do we think we can figure out something that only comes by a work of the Holy Spirit, not simple three step methods or cliché definitions?

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