{"id":306,"date":"2018-11-05T23:39:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T07:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/?p=306"},"modified":"2018-11-05T23:43:49","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T07:43:49","slug":"response-to-norm-light-from-many-lamps-lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/2018\/11\/05\/response-to-norm-light-from-many-lamps-lincoln\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to Norm: Light from Many Lamps (Lincoln)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norm, thank you for your post<\/a> on Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I appreciated your perspective on this reading and the six leadership traits you outlined that were revealed in Lincoln’s speech.<\/p>\n

I related to your questions regarding leadership in the church context versus other contexts, as I work in a parachurch setting. I fully agree with your observations about the church being a place where leadership is “easy-going and quiet”, as that is viewed as “more spiritual.”<\/p>\n

I may have still held that view, if I had not faced several complex situations as a new leader. In these situations the reality was I had to be decisive, aggressive (in a good way) and confident, or else consequences would have ensued. Unfortunately, I cannot go into details about these instances, as this is a public post.<\/p>\n

I believe God allowed these difficult leadership situations to challenge and test me, as well as to grow confidence in me to “put my foot down” and “draw the line” when needed. Being decisive, aggressive (in a good way ) and confident is a necessary part of being a leader in a “spiritual” context too, because you will face difficult and\/or destructive people and crisis situations, that call for directive leadership.<\/p>\n

I also related to the problem you mentioned of “having the wrong person in the position.” I think there are two realities that make this situation tougher in the church than other contexts:<\/p>\n

1) In the parachurch and\/or church setting, staff may be “semi-volunteers”, “full-volunteers”, or raise their own support. Having the mentality of a “volunteer” and not having a directly paid salary can muddy the reality of “job expectations.”<\/p>\n

2) Since church is so focused around relationships and community, people start to feel like “family”, and firing “family” is very difficult.<\/p>\n

I think these two factors make “removing people” more difficult and less clear in the church setting, as compared to other contexts. However, it still needs to be done in truth and love, when necessary.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the point Norm mentioned from De Pree (1989), which is the \u201cfirst responsibility of a leader is to define reality\u201d (pg. 11) made me reflect on how important “defining reality” is. In fact, I just had a conversation last week where I had to “define reality” for someone and it was not easy, but it needed to be done, else the consequences for that person were imminent.<\/p>\n

“Defining reality” is speaking the truth and in our Canadian political correctness we find this hard. I think “defining reality” is one of the most important things a leader can do. If we do not know our “reality”, we do not know the ground we stand on, so we cannot know where we are going.<\/p>\n

To illustrate this point, think of a map that has a “you are here” label on it. The “you are here” label shows you where you are located in the map. If you are in unfamiliar territory, that “you are here” is tremendously important for understanding the direction you need to go.<\/p>\n

Norm, thank you for this post, it has allowed me to reflect, as well as inspired me to continue to help “define reality” for my team; especially as we undergo a move to a new location in January.<\/p>\n

Monica<\/p>\n

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

De Pree, M. (1989).\u00a0Leadership Is an Art. New York City, NY: Doubleday Business.<\/p>\n

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

Norm, thank you for your post on Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I appreciated your perspective on this reading and the six leadership traits you outlined that were revealed in Lincoln’s speech. I related to your questions regarding leadership in the church context versus other contexts, as I work in a parachurch setting. I fully […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":445,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-light-from-many-lamps","category-unit-7","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/monicagrace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}