| "Back
to school." Retailers love this time of year, as families scramble to buy
clothes, school supplies, backpacks and all those things every self-respecting
third grader needs. (We have one of those guys in our house these days, and he
needs all of the above plus Gameboy, Game Cube, Legos, etc.) These
days, however, back to school isn't just for kids. Businesses and professional
organizations all preach the value of continuing education, and more and more
men and women are heading back to get an advanced degree, update their skills,
and get ready for new challenges in the future. As
a Christian leader, are you getting "back to school" these days? You
may not be in a formal degree program — although with an abundance of online
programs available via the Internet, getting a degree isn't as difficult as it
once may have seemed. But whether you're spending your days in a classroom or
a boardroom, effective leaders need to be lifelong learners. Sometimes it may
involve attending a seminar or two each year; sometimes it may be as simple as
a disciplined program of reading quality books that will help you gain new information
and broaden your perspective. Whatever
your approach, make sure that "back to school" takes on new meaning
in your leadership life this year.
Michael
Duduit, Editor
michael@leaderlinks.com
www.michaelduduit.com
Please
forward your copy of LeadingNow to friends
and colleagues who are also interested in Christian leadership. Our best source
of new readers is current readers, like you. So thanks for your help in leading
others to LeadingNow! 
Leaders
must inspire and motivate In
an interview in this month's Leader Links,
Orlando Magic general manager Pat Williams talks about the place of inspiration
and motivation in the work of leadership: "Lee
Iacocca said leadership is nothing more than motivating people. That's his definition
of leadership. I think inspiration and motivation go together and as leaders we
have to be doing both. Inspiration I think is more of an inside job — something
that you are trying to create within people that wells up inside of them. Motivation
may be more external where you're trying to set up goals or strategies to get
people to achieve more. But in both areas it a big part of leadership and it requires
a very careful study of people. None of us are inspired or motivated the same
way. And the successful leaders really study their people carefully and know what
it is that inspires them and knows what it takes to motivate them. (Click
here to read the full interview.) Click
here to learn more about Williams' book The Paradox of Power.
What
book influenced your leadership? An
item in the August 2004 edition of Fast Company asks several business leaders
which non-business book influenced them the most. Kim
Clark, Dean of the faculty at Harvard Business School, cited The Killer Angels,
a 1974 historical novel by Michael Shaara which retells the story of the battle
of Gettysburg through the eyes of the participants. Clark says, "This is
an inspiring, powerful book about leadership. It taught me enduring principles
for leading a group of people to achieve extraordinary things in the face of daunting
challenges." What
book (apart from the Bible) has been the greatest influence on your life and work
as a leader? Send me a note (michael@leaderlinks.com)
and tell me about the book (the title, the author, and why it influenced you).
We'll share some of your favorites in an upcoming issue of LeadingNow.
The
best advice . . . Someone
asked Fred Smith what was the best advice he had ever received. Fred responded:
"That one is hard to identify, but an evangelist gave me a verse of scripture
when I was young that has marked my life. He paraphrased one of the Proverbs,
'Take the gift that God has given you and use it and you will stand before great
men.' It has been a lifelong source of inspiration and direction." (from
Breakfast with Fred, www.breakfastwithfred.com)
What
makes a great leader? The
August issue of Leader Links contains an interview with James Taranto, editor
of OpinionJournal.com
and former deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal.
He and Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard Leo recently produced
a fascinating new book, Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst
in the White House (Free Books). Taranto
had this to say about the three presidents ranked "Great" in the book
and the survey on which it was based: "The three presidents who make the
cut as great — Washington, Lincoln and FDR — all have three things in
common. They all faced unprecedented challenges. Washington had to invent the
office, he had to define what it meant to be President of the United States; the
Constitution was fairly vague on this. Americans had been Englishmen first and
they were used to being ruled by kings. Washington could have become a king —
he was that loved by his countrymen — but he resisted the temptation to be
king and therefore helped insure that we had a lasting Republican form of government.
Lincoln, of course, faced a country that was literally divided, that was at war
with itself. He had to keep the Union together, and for added measure, get rid
of slavery. FDR had the double whammy of the depression and World War II. So all
three of them had unprecedented challenges. They all responded boldly to those
challenges, unlike - in the case of Lincoln and FDR — some of the men who
preceded them. And they all were seen by history to have succeeded. "If
you look at the characteristics of the men, I think you have to say they had vision
and determination. They all knew where they wanted to take the country and weren't
going to be diverted from their vision." (Click
here to read the complete interview.) Click
here to learn more about the book Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best
and the Worst in the White House.
"Business
is what, if you don't have any, you go out of." (Earl Wilson)
| From
this month's Leader Links In
an article adapted from the book Christian Reflections on the Leadership Challenge,
the authors observe that leadership is personal: "Because
credibility is the foundation, the individual leading is central to any discussion
of exemplary leadership. We cannot engage in any serious discussion of the subject
in the purely abstract or conceptual. Leadership is personal. It's not about them;
ultimately it's about you and me. "Research
on employee engagement clearly supports this message. Surveys from eighty thousand
managers in over four hundred companies reveal that it's the immediate manager
who has more influence on employees' engagement with their work than any other
single factor — more important, for example, than pay, benefits, or bonuses.
It's the immediate manager who has the most influence on whether a person voluntarily
stays or leaves an organization. In other words, people don't quit their organizations;
they quit their leaders. Expand this research to religious institutions and you
find similar results. The spiritual commitment of congregational members is driven
by their congregational engagement, and that engagement is directly related to
the kind of leadership they are getting . . . "However
and wherever you express your values and beliefs, you have to take leadership
personally. Seizing the initiative has absolutely nothing to do with position.
It's about attitude and action. "Because
leadership is personal, it also means that leadership development is self-development.
Engineers may have their computers, and painters may have their brushes and canvases,
but leaders have only themselves. The instrument of leadership is the self, and
the mastery of the art of leadership comes from the mastery of the self. "Self-development
is not about stuffing in a whole bunch of new information or trying out the latest
technique. It's about leading out of what is already in your soul. It's about
liberating the leader within you. It's about setting yourself free." (Go
to www.leaderlinks.com
to read the full article. Click
here to learn more about the book Christian Reflections on the Leadership
Challenge.) | "As
I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."
(Andrew Carnegie) | 