A Reading List for Leaders

What books do you recommend??

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Leaders tend to be people that are continuously learning and one of the best sources to learn from is good books.

I have been talking to people to pin down the top books they would consider core to any leadership development process.

Following are some that I have come to value highly:

1. The Bible is foundational of course

2. Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders

3. Leadership as an Identity by Crawford Lorritts

4. Most of Peter Drucker’s works

5. Most of Patrick Lencioni’s books

6. Good to Great by Jim Collins

7. The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes & Posner

8. Built to Serve by Dan Sanders

9. Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf

10. Execution by Bossidy & Charan

11. Linchpin by Seth Godin

12. Switch by Chip & Dan HEath

Those are just a few of the books I would include.

What books would you consider key for a developing leader to read? I would appreciate your advice. Read more at bgallen.com

 

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Management & the Second Commandment

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A man I am coming to know and have a great deal of respect for is Matt Perman of Desiring God Ministries.  Matt is their Senior Director of Strategy and has much to say about how to manage biblically (click here to go to Matt’s blog).  It seems that in some para-church ministries there is some disdain for the art and science of management as being worldly.  Matt does an excellent job of showing how biblically based management is Spirit led, glorifying to the Lord, and highly effective.

Matt’s guiding principle is “Respect for the Individual who is made  in the image of God”.  Following are some quotes from an excellent paper by Matt on biblically based management.

“The fact that we are made in the image of God means that treating people well is at the heart of good management.  Not in a sentimental sense, but rather in the sense of the second commandment.

Making God Supreme in Management Means Affirming the Centrality of the Second Commandment to Management

The first command is that we love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. The second command follows from it: to love your neighbor as yourself. The second commandment is an implication of the first: if we are to love God, and people are in the image of God, then we ought to love people as well.

This is how a passion for the glory of God relates to management: passion for the glory of God implies radical love for people, because people are in God’s image. This is the tie between the first and second commandments.

This reality does not go out of existence when enter the walls of our organization. It does not suddenly become irrelevant and out of scope when we begin dealing with the realm of managing people. Rather, it remains fundamental and essential because it is a matter of Christian ethics. Every management approach, therefore, must have the second commandment at its core.”

So – a question for you – is your management / leadership style based upon the Second Commandment? If not, what do you need to do to change your approach? Read more at bgallen.com

 

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Alone Together

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Technology has had and is having a major impact on our lives, often in ways we did not imagine. The amount of information available to people now is staggering and the ability to connect with people from your past that are now scattered across the globe is a blessing.

However, all technology (as it always has been) is a two-edged sword.  With all the wonderful advances, there is often a price, especially if we are unaware of what it is doing to us.

Sherry Turkle a professor at MIT, in her book Alone Together has been studying the impact of technology, especially computers, upon our lives for the past 30 years.  She is a user and beneficiary of the advances in technology, but is also sounding some warnings about how we are allowing it to shape us.  I am only part way through the book, but following are some quotes from the early part of the book that are worth pondering in my opinion.

“Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies.”

“Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities.”

“Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other.”

“ . . . not what computers do for us but what they do to us, to our ways of thinking about ourselves, our relationships, our sense of being human.”

“We romance the robot and become inseparable from our smartphones. As this happens, we remake ourselves  and our relationships with each other through our new intimacy with machines.”

“People are lonely.  The network is seductive. But if we are always on, we may deny ourselves the rewards of solitude.”

“Technology ties us up as it promises to free us up. Connectivity technologies once promised to give us more time. But as the cell phone and smartphone eroded the boundaries between work and leisure, all the time in the world was not enough. Even when we are not ‘at work’, we experience ourselves as ‘on call’; pressed, we want to edit out complexity and ‘cut to the chase.’”

“Overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of our lives, we turn to technology to help us find time. But technology makes us busier than ever and ever more in search of retreat.”

“We make our technologies, and they, in turn shape us. So, of every technology we must ask, Does it serve our human purposes? – a question that causes us to reconsider what those purposes are.”

This morning, a friend sent me this quote as we were discussing (via e-mail) this very subject:

“All kinds of things rejoiced my soul in the company of my friends — to talk and laugh and to do each other kindnesses; read pleasant books together, pass from lightest jesting to talk of the deepest things and back again; differ without rancour, as a man might differ with himself, and when most rarely dissension arose, find our normal agreement all the sweeter for it; teach each other or learn from each other; be impatient for the return of the absent, and welcome them with joy and their homecoming; these and such like things, proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a flame which infused our very souls and of many made us one. This is what men value in friends.” – -St. Augustine (354-430) Algerian Bishop of Hippo

What are your thoughts on the impact that this “hyper-connectivity” is having on our souls?

See more at bgallen.com

 

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Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

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That’s the title of a new book, edited by John Brockman. He posed that very question to 150 writers, pundits, scientists, scholar, visual artists, architects, and musicians.

In a review of the book for The Wall Street Journal Christine Rosen observes:

One theme emerges frequently from enthusiasts and skeptics alike: Precisely because there are such vast stores of information on the Internet, the ability to carve out time for uninterrupted, concentrated thought may prove to be the most important skill that one can hone. “Attention is the fundamental literacy,” writes Howard Rheingold, the author of “Smart Mobs.”

Rosen quotes philosopher Thomas Metzinger to the effect that “Attention is a finite commodity, and it is absolutely essential to living a good life.” Read more at thegospelcoalition.org

 

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Dealing with the "Winter Blues"

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For those of us that live in the North, the “winter blues” is a very real challenge.  As leaders we need to be aware of this and aware of how it affects those we lead.  Some people / personality types are more affected than others. Some even deal with “seasonal affective disorder”.

There are ways to deal with the issue of winter blues that can be a help to you & those you lead.  Michael Hyatt has a good article on this subject that is worth reading. Click here to go to the article. He basically recommends four steps:

1. Get plenty of sleep.

2. If you deal with S.A.D., try light therapy and he recommends a lamp for this.

3. Take vitamins

4. Get plenty of exercise.

Another recommendation came from one of my colleagues.  He is a Texan used to plenty of sunlight that is now serving here in southwest Michigan where we have plenty of lake effect snow and what somebody termed as “permacloud”.  He adheres to the recommendations made in Michael’s blog, plus some other practices as well.  He strongly recommends that you make no major life change decisions during the months of January through March if you deal with the winter blues.  Put them off, if you can, until the sun is back out.

So, be sensitive to how it impacts you and your decision making as well as how it impacts those you lead.

Enjoy the snow!!

BG Read more at bgallen.com

 

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