It’s tempting to want to play it safe, not change until you absolutely have to. Whether you’re a parent, a CEO, head of a division, or pastor, the conventional wisdom is clear: don’t fix what ain’t broke. This approach to leadership is tested, reliable, and trustworthy. But it also has resulted in zero major breakthroughs, breathtaking discoveries, or major advances. Growth – significant and exciting growth – comes from taking a risk, daring to do things differently, mixing up the status quo and, quite frankly, ignoring the conventional wisdom. Consider, for instance, the world of filmed musicals. From Oklahoma and The Sound of...
Thank You, Julia!
posted by DJL
This summer – August 15, to be exact – marked the 100th birthday of Julia Child. Why should you care about that? Because “America’s cooking teacher” might just be one of our best role models for the kind of church leader we need in a rapidly changing world. I’ve...
When Do You Stand Ou...
posted by DJL
…and when do you fit it? It’s an incredibly important question. Seth Godin describes these two options for action in a recent and very brief post: Stand out or fit in. Not all the time, and never at the same time, but it’s always a choice. Those that choose to fit in should...
Communal Preaching
posted by DJL
If I had room to add a subtitle to this post, it would be “I Don’t Know, Pt. 4.” In three earlier posts, I talked about the importance of admitting when we don’t know something because 1) when we don’t admit our ignorance, we often share bad information and miss an opportunity to...
Moving From Performer to Coach
posted by DJL
Having served for more than a decade as Dean of Duke Divinity School, L. Gregory Jones is now a senior strategist and professor of theology there. His work is reliably insightful, challenging, and innovative. More than that – and those who know theologians will understand why I want to underscore this next point 🙂 – his work is also regularly and eminently practical. He’s written another important article posted at Duke’s Faith and Leadership website called “Performance as Leadership Preparation.” I couldn’t find a place to comment on the site, so I’ll both commend his article to you as well as respond to it here. In his...