Disraeli, or The Two Lives Douglas Hurd and Edward Young Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2013 £20 Friends will know of my mild obsession with post second world ward political biographies and autobiographies. They are a strange and mildly unsatisfying genre with few jewels on the shelves. It is difficult to write a life that is completely honest and that seems especially to be the case with politicians. I have long been an admirer of Hurd who adds another volume to…
Desmond Tutu’s dream is founded in the image of the reign of God, the full dignity of all humanity, and an insistence that all God’s children are made to dwell together in peace, with justice. He has nation and of the world, and to make their methods seem absurd or ridiculous. Tutu has an impish and ingenious sense of humor, and he’s used it to puncture both arrogant self-importance and the insanity of injustice—yet he treats every single human…
Ten outstanding high achievers were asked to sum up their particular approach to leadership – the core message that they wanted to share with others and this is what emerged: the images might ground the snippets! 1. The great don’t need to play games 2.Leadership comes through respect 3.Go for the people, not the position 4. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it 5. Know what makes your workers tick 6 Do what you enjoy. Don’t plan. Be flexible…
“Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished.” Richards and Engle (1986) “Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed.” Drath & Palus (1994) “Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D Eisenhower (1890 -1969) US Statesman
Church of Nigeria reacts to Archbishop of Canterbury’s Resignation The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd and Rt. Hon. Dr. Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002 when it was a happy family. Unfortunately, he is leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness, evangelism and mission all around the Anglican world. It might not have…
So often we think of the Church as an organisation that needs to be run! It might be worth remembering Bishop Edward King. The words are those of G. F. Wilgress, who was, I think once his chaplain. ‘Without any very visible method in his administration of his diocese, there was a deep underlying purpose running through the whole. He did not ostensibly try to organise the Diocese, but tried to inspire life into it, and he left to…
“Playfulness can get you out of a rut more successfully than seriousness,” “Triangles are the plaque in the arteries of communication and stress is the effect of our position in the triangle of our families “ “If you are a leader, expect sabotage” “The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up,…
For some clergy, professionalism is their way of compensating for a sense of being an anachronism as a cleric. So skills in parish administration — skills in this, skills in that — are all part of “I matter because I have these skills,” as opposed to “I have internalized the theology I’ve been taught in such a way that it gives me a ground to stand on and a sense of self that I can confidently act out of as…
Difference, then, it seems, can lead us in one of two directions – towards an increased competitiveness that can lead to mistrust and division, or to the open recognition of difference, and the possibility of understanding and even co-operation. True co-operation, however, requires a commitment to listening: a quality of listening that can turn strangers into friends. This is a listening that recognises and celebrates difference, whilst being concerned to maintain the integrity of ‘the other’; which recognises that if…
Perhaps it is significant that our English word for ‘obedience’ is derived from two Latin words -ob and audire- which mean to ‘listen keenly’. Listening has three meanings: The first is to hear; the second is like the meaning of the French ‘connaitre’ – to understand; and the third is the command to pay attention. In the religious life, obedience is listening. Another way of understanding what we might describe as this ‘listening obedience’ that I have found helpful, is by…
and Listening? Writing in the July 2001 edition of the magazine Quadrant, Eddie Gibbs, an Anglican priest, and for many years Professor of Church Growth at the USA’s Fuller Theological Seminary, sums things up like this: We now have a generation of leaders who do not know how to lead within a con text of rapid and chaotic change. We were trained to map read on well-marked roads, not navigate on stormy seas. I believe the changes are significant and…
For me, part of the burden, the excitement and the challenge of trying to exercise leadership in the Church, is trying to feel the rhythm or the heartbeat of the body of Christ, so that leadership that matters or is effective in the Church, has to be listening (italics mine) … Listening is actually inevitable and built into the structure of Christian leadership… You must listen to what is actually going on so that when things change or things…