Follow Us :
Embodied Christian Through Transformational Leadership
In the 2018 survey of ethics in the U. S. workplace, the Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI) reported that 47% of respondents had observed conduct within their workplaces that violated either law or organizational standards (Ethics & Compliance Initiative, 2018). While the good news is that this percentage is down eight percent since the last survey report in 2013 (Ethics and Compliance Initiative, 2018), the reality is that the percentage has averaged around 50% since 2000. Read More…
How to have that Hard Conversation
The ominous moment has arrived. For some time, you have been concerned about the behavior of an employee and how he or she is affecting the performance of your team. Other team members have been complaining and you notice their eye-rolling and exasperated sighs whenever his or her name is mentioned. Read more…
Innovation as Cultural Engagement
The Christian faith is animated by its compelling vision of the Kingdom of God, the enduring hope of a cosmos that thrives under the ever-expanding reign of God (Matt. 13:31-32). The seed of Christian world missions was planted in the beginning when God created people “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27, New International Version). He crowned them with the creative capacity to graciously rule over the world and to cultivate its horizons of possibility (Crouch, 2009). Read more…
Intercultural Christian Leadership
One of the first things we learn about the God of the Bible is his creativity. Genesis recounts his purposeful handiwork in ordering a previously disordered world. In the six days of creation, God carves out a habitable environment where creativity can flourish, as author Andy Crouch states in Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. In the culmination of his ordering work, God creates an image of himself, the humans both male and female, and commands them, “Have many children. Fill the earth and take control of it” (Gen. 1:28, Easy-to-Read Version). Read more…
Leadership and Culture Creation
In his classic novel Les Misrables, Victor Hugo tells of Jean Valjean, a former criminal hardened from serving 19 years in prison for simply stealing bread in his poverty. The passport that he carries upon his release, his official identity, marks him as a former convict. Essentially, “convict” becomes his identity, the story spoken about his life. He is unable to find work while innkeepers who inspect his passport refuse him shelter. Read more…
Leadership Development for Learning Organizations
Over a century has passed since Frederick Taylor published his groundbreaking book, The Principles of Scientific Management. His influential work forged a paradigm for modern organizations based upon a systematic approach to management. Pre-industrial history highlighted craft or agricultural economies that demanded nothing more than simple management approaches to people and processes. Workers gained the skills required for their respective trades through hands-on experience and apprenticeships with master artisans. Read more…
Managing Conflict Toward Culture Transformation
Adaptivity is the necessary quality of organizational cultures that achieve long-term performance. Organizations that pay attention to their external environments respond quickly to changes so that they can maneuver purposefully and with agility toward their vision without getting lost along the way. Adaptive cultures make space for entrepreneurialism, risk-taking, and collaboration so that the organization may recognize and seize the new opportunities that emerge. Read more….
Paul’s Missional Mindset in Leadership
The complexity of today’s world requires global leadership across multiple segments including politics, business, economics, religion, and society. Its interconnectedness has awoken an awareness that the leadership required to navigate the nuances of differing, sometimes opposing, cultural values to achieve goals must transcend competency-based models. Global leadership must be essentially transformational. Global leadership brings diverse people and resources together to unlock their latent potential to create solutions to the world’s problems (Cabrera and Unruh, 2012). Read more…
Shaping Organizational Ethics through Narrative
In the seventh chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul narrates the inner ethical conflict with which those who sincerely desire to please God wrestle. Here, he describes the almost palpable mental anguish of one who knows right from wrong but cannot quite seem to align right knowledge with right action. In exasperation, he declares, “What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death?” (Rom. 7:24, Easy-to-Read Version). Read more…
Stewardship as a Framework for Christian Ethics
In modern times, the question of ethics creates a philosophical dilemma. While most accept the importance of ethics, and even demand ethical behavior of their civic, religious, and business leaders, few agree on a shared moral framework that constitutes right or wrong behavior within a domain. What makes an act right or wrong? And what ought to guide the ethics of individuals or organizations? Historically, ethicists have offered various philosophical approaches to such questions to guide an ethical decision maker toward the good. Read more…
The Good Samaritan – Institutional Learning and Human Flourishing
The organizations that order society are the institutionalized expressions of our most deeply held values and ideals. Businesses, governments, churches, social organizations, and nonprofits provide embodied structures for the visions of human flourishing that motivate us. Our institutions are not merely secular agencies that order daily life for penultimate aims. Read more…
The Heart of a Hero
In 1773, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus with his brief, Dominus ac Redemptor. With little explanation, the global community of Jesuits found themselves disenfranchised from the religious order that had stirred the pioneering spirit of thousands of young men for several generations. Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus began with the vision of St. Ignatius of Loyola and his six companions to establish an order committed to helping souls. Chris Lowney, author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, looks at the extraordinary leadership that sustained the Jesuit order for over 450 years. Read more…
When Two Become One
Merging two organizations can create unsettling disorientation for employees about the new organization’s mission, purposes, and values. The reality of the merged organization is that the cultures of the former organizations no longer exist, and yet, the culture of the new organization is emerging and unknown. Leadership of the new organization must attend primarily to the development of the new culture. By ignoring the culture to focus exclusively on logistical, administrative, or mechanical concerns of the merger will detrimentally impair the long-term performance and success of the new organization. Read more…
Zimbabwe’s Crossroads
On November 21, 2017, Robert Mugabe resigned as President of Zimbabwe amidst pending impeachment proceedings. Mugabe led Zimbabwe, first as prime minister and then as president, for 37 years since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. However, after firing his vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Zimbabwe National Guard placed Mugabe under house. Mugabe’s political party, ZANU-PF, announced that Mnangagwa would succeed Mugabe until the presidential elections in August 2018 (“Zimbabwe’s Robert,” 2017). Read more…
