{"id":293,"date":"2018-10-29T22:04:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/?p=293"},"modified":"2018-11-03T17:56:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T00:56:29","slug":"293","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/2018\/10\/293\/","title":{"rendered":"Light From Many Lamps – Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a few leadership lessons in the story of Abraham Lincoln in Light From Many Lamps<\/em>. The first lesson is how Lincoln focused his re-election speech on a common goal, \u201cto conciliate the rebellious states and to rebuild the Union he had sworn to preserve\u201d (Watson, 1951, p. 204). Through this Lincoln demonstrated one of the characteristics of team excellence, a clear, elevating goal (Larson & LaFasto, as cited in Northouse, 2016, pp. 368-369). Considering that Lincoln was essentially leading a large, national team, it is fitting to exercise certain team leadership characteristics. Furthermore, Lincoln demonstrated transformational leadership, which \u201coccurs when a leader inspires followers to share a vision\u201d (Smith, Montagno & Kuzmenko, 2004, para. 4). This lesson is applicable to me as a leader because it can be easy for me to become fixated on problems instead of focused on vision. While problems need to be addressed, the way to unite followers is towards a common vision.<\/p>\n

Lincoln sought to unite his followers around a common vision with humility. Although not listed as one of the ten characteristics articulated by Spears (2010) as identified in Greenleaf\u2019s writings, humility is considered a key characteristic of servant leadership by Dierendonck (2011). Humility is \u201cthe ability to put one\u2019s own accomplishments and talents in a proper perspective\u201d (Patterson, as cited in Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1233). By not focusing on his own accomplishment of being re-elected, but rather on the task ahead of seeing an end to the civil war (Watson, 1951), Lincoln demonstrated humility. This is an important characteristic for me to remember as I seek to unite followers around a vision.<\/p>\n

Five years ago I had a vision for a discipleship program for youth. As I sought to recruit a team and gather people around the vision, I had to remember that while I had the original vision, that it never would have been possible without the support of a team. I was recently reminded of this by Angela Ahrendts who said that when she is hiring someone she looks at whether they are \u201cme people\u201d or \u201cwe people\u201d (The Global Leadership Summit, 2018). This program has been running for five years now and I have to remember to be a leader who remembers that this has not been successful through my own effort. As I continue to cast vision for this program and look to recruit more staff, I have to maintain a humble attitude.<\/p>\n

Lincoln cast vision to his followers not only with humility but also with the servant leader characteristic of healing (Spears, 2010). He wanted to \u201cbind up the nation\u2019s wounds\u201d (Watson, 1951, 205). As the president, Lincoln was not able to \u201csupport followers by helping them overcome personal problems\u201d (Northouse, 2016, p. 228) through personal interactions, however, he was able to respond compassionately to relieve suffering, which is part of emotional healing (Jit & Kawatra, 2017, p. 85). Lincoln did this in his address as he did not vilify the Confederacy, but rather conveyed grace (Watson, 1951). Responding with grace and a desire to bring healing, even when that is not on a personal level but in a public setting is a good reminder for me as a leader. I often speak to groups, and I would say that I am not naturally a highly compassionate person, however, if I want to bring healing, not just individually but corporately, I have to maintain compassion when communicating publicly.<\/p>\n

These three leadership lessons serve together as a reminder that as leaders we should seek to unite followers by calling them around a common vision with humility and compassion.<\/p>\n

How do we ensure that we do not ignore the problems that need to be addressed but still unite followers around a common vision? How do we cultivate more humility in our lives so that we can be genuine as opposed to lip service “we people”\u00a0(The Global Leadership Summit, 2018)?<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jit, R., S., C., & Kawatra, M. (2017). Healing a Broken Spirit: Role of Servant Leadership.\u00a0Vikalpa<\/em>,\u00a042<\/em>(2), 80\u201394.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0256090917703754<\/a><\/p>\n

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.<\/p>\n

Smith, B. N., Montagno, R. V., & Kuzmenko, T. N. (2004). Transformational and Servant Leadership: Content and Contextual Comparisons. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 10<\/em>(4), 80\u201391. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/107179190401000406<\/a><\/p>\n

Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1<\/em>(1), 25-30. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.vizenllc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/CharacherAndServantLeadership.pdf<\/p>\n

The Global Leadership Summit. (Producer). (2018). Anglea Ahrendts <\/em>[DVD]. Available from https:\/\/store.growingleadership.com\/collections\/gls-2018-resources\/products\/2018-gls-team-edition-pre-order-dvd<\/p>\n

Watson, L.E. (1951).\u00a0Light from many lamps<\/em>. New York: Simon and Schuster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a few leadership lessons in the story of Abraham Lincoln in Light From Many Lamps. The first lesson is how Lincoln focused his re-election speech on a common goal, \u201cto conciliate the rebellious states and to rebuild the… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,34],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-6","tag-light-from-many-lamps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sadnTM-293","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}