{"id":315,"date":"2018-11-05T14:13:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T22:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/?p=315"},"modified":"2018-11-10T17:29:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T01:29:13","slug":"response-to-norm-light-from-many-lamps-abraham-lincolns-2nd-inaugural-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/2018\/11\/response-to-norm-light-from-many-lamps-abraham-lincolns-2nd-inaugural-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to Norm – Light From Many Lamps \u2013 Abraham Lincoln\u2019s 2nd Inaugural Address"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norm, I chose the same story out of Light From Many Lamps<\/em> as you did, and I appreciated your perspective<\/a> on the leadership lessons in it. After reading your post it was evident that we both identified leadership lessons of healing and having a common goal, as well as transformational leadership and servant leadership principles in the story of Abraham Lincoln (Watson, 1951).<\/p>\n

I appreciated your candour in identifying that \u201cthe ability to identify reality in a church context is something that I have often seen lacking\u201d (Beange, 2018, para. 9). Based on my experience in both church and parachurch contexts I would agree with you. Perhaps it seems an odd comparison, but this made me think of the Twelve Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous (1981). As colloquially quoted, \u201cthe first step is admitting you have a problem\u201d. In many cases, I think honesty is a key to growth in any situation. Northouse notes, \u201cbeing honest is not just about telling the truth. It has to do with being open with others and representing reality as fully and completely as possible\u201d (p. 346). When we are able to acknowledge reality, be honest, and admit when something is wrong we can \u201cfoster greater engagement\u201d (Whitehurst, 2015, para. 6). With that in mind, perhaps we could foster more engagement in church and parachurch contexts if we were more willing to identify reality and be honest.<\/p>\n

Norm, you mentioned \u201cthat people, who outside of the church context, may be decisive, aggressive (in a good sense) and confident are much less so when working within a church context\u201d (Beange, 2018, para. 13). On the theme of being honest, I would like to be honest as a woman in leadership in a Christian context and propose that this contrast in behaviour is further exacerbated for women than for men. I have the privilege of working in an organization that is egalitarian, and therefore do not face day-to-day problems as a female leader, however, when interacting in Christian contexts outside of my organization I have faced certain problems. These problems could be due to role congruity theory (Eagly and Karau, as cited in Scott, 2014, pg. 54) which states:<\/p>\n

\u201cwhen women leaders display the desired leadership attributes in their role as leaders, they cease to be perceived as having the desired characteristics appropriate for their gender. This impacts their likeability and, thus, their success as a leader\u201d (Scott, 2014, pg. 54).<\/p>\n

Research done by Catalyst has shown that \u201cwomen leaders are seen as competent or likeable, but rarely both\u201d (2018). The gender stereotype that women should be \u201cnurturing, emotional, and communicative\u201d (Catalyst, 2018) is in contrast to decisiveness, confidence and good aggression, as mentioned above. Because of this contrast, I would posit that women are more likely than men to refrain from exhibiting those behaviours within a church context. One study found that \u201crole congruity is an obstacle for women serving in evangelical non-profit organizations\u201d (Scott, 2014, pg. 64). While an evangelical non-profit organization is not the same as a church, I would propose that they are similar in this manner.<\/p>\n

As discussed above, perhaps we could foster more engagement in our churches if we were honest and acknowledged reality. As a general statement, I think reality is that the Church (universal) has a problem with how we treat women, especially when it comes to leadership opportunities. As leaders I think it is important that we strive to be intentional with changing this culture. I do not think that means we give roles or positions to women simply because they are women; personally I find it rather insulting that I could be given a role because I am a woman rather than because I am the most competent; however, I do think it means that we give equal opportunity to males and females.<\/p>\n

Norm, thank you for your post acknowledging some of the realities you see present in church culture. It spurred a lot of thinking for me about something I did not realize I was so passionate about. I am looking forward to continuing to explore these realities and what we as Christians and participants\/members in our churches can do about them.<\/p>\n

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

Alcoholics Anonymous. (1981). The twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous <\/em>[PDF document]. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.aa.org\/assets\/en_US\/smf-121_en.pdf<\/p>\n

Beange, N. (2018, October 31). Light from many lamps \u2013 Abraham Lincoln\u2019s 2nd<\/sup> inaugural address [Blog post]. Retrieved from https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/norm\/2018\/10\/31\/light-from-many-lamps-abraham-lincolns-2nd-inaugural-address\/<\/p>\n

Catalyst. (2018, August 2). The Double-Blind Dilemma for Women in Leadership.\u00a0<\/em>[Infographic]. New York: Catalyst. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.catalyst.org\/knowledge\/doublebind-infographic-btn<\/p>\n

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

Scott, H. (2014). Perceptions of Christian Women Leaders in Church-Related Organizations.\u00a0Christian Education Journal<\/em>,\u00a011<\/em>(1), 52\u201370. Retrieved from https:\/\/ezproxy.student.twu.ca\/login?url=http:\/\/search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eoah&AN=45136180&site=ehost-live<\/p>\n

Watson, L.E. (1951).\u00a0Light from many lamps<\/em>. New York: Simon and Schuster.<\/p>\n

Whitehurst, J. (2015, June 2). Be a leader who can admit mistakes. Harvard Business Review<\/em>. Retrieved from https:\/\/hbr.org\/2015\/06\/be-a-leader-who-can-admit-mistakes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norm, I chose the same story out of Light From Many Lamps as you did, and I appreciated your perspective on the leadership lessons in it. After reading your post it was evident that we both identified leadership lessons of… 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":[7,25,34],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-ldrs500-responses","category-unit-6","tag-light-from-many-lamps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padnTM-55","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","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=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/b121\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}