Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership

 

2009 BOOK-OF-THE-YEAR Issue No. 168 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Dec. 22, 2009) features the last book review for 2009—and it’s a Top-10 pick. (Next week we’ll list all of the 2009 books we’ve reviewed, including the 10 most important ones.) Here’s a 2010 challenge: book a day of solitude in January and bring along this book. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.   Soul Whackers The sidebars and the prayers in this book are soul whackers. Like Henri Nouwen’s elbow-to-the-gut: “The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.” Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to chew through a book with soul-probing insights and illuminating “Ah ha!” moments.  Then there are times when the content is not so soul-shattering, but the writing is poetic and almost symphonic. Amazingly, this 221-page gem is both. It whacked my soul. It raised my sights. I appreciate my God and Savior more today than I did last week. Many leaders preach, “Speed of the leader, speed of the team.” Perhaps you’ve had those times like this week’s author, Ruth Haley Barton, who sighed, “I’m tired of helping others enjoy God; I just want to enjoy God for myself.”  If your leadership life needs not just a boost, but a divine encounter with our Holy God, read this book. Slowly.  “Strengthening the soul of your leadership is an invitation to enter more deeply into the process of spiritual transformation and to choose to lead from that place,” writes Barton.  “It is an opportunity to forge a connection between our souls and our leadership rather than experiencing them as separate arenas of our lives.” She rightly observes, “The market is glutted with books on leadership, and many contain contradictory messages.” She takes leaders down a very slow path of spiritual leadership—focusing on sustenance for their own souls. “Then, rather than offering the cold stone of past devotionals, regurgitated apologetics, or someone else’s musings about the spiritual life [or might I add the latest email devotional], we will have bread to offer from the oven of our intimacy with God.” Using the story of Moses—with fresh insights—Barton concludes each chapter with a “Practice” suggestion and serves up often remarkable prayers from saints past and present. While I read every book I review, I typically read fast and slow down only to underline good stuff.  Trust me—you can’t read this rapidly. A chapter-a-day was about my limit. The soul whacks are unnerving, refreshing, penetrating and deep. For me, it would have been sinful to rush through this treasure.  Don Parrott, president of The Finishers Project, encouraged me to read this book (it was on my “Read Soon” shelf), yet with a warning. “After you read it, you’ll need to get away for some solitude to deal with it.” I agree. Leighton Ford’s foreword pulls you into the richness of the topics like “When Leaders Lose Their Souls,” “The Practice of Paying Attention,” “Guiding Others on the Spiritual Journey,” “Living Within Limits,” “Spiritual Rhythms in the Life of the Leader,” and thoughts on the loneliness of leadership, isolation and finding God’s will together. It’s real stuff—because Barton is a nonprofit ministry leader herself. She gets it. You, or someone close to you, will cherish this book. TO ORDER THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, by Ruth Haley Barton. (Note: This is the 2018 expanded edition.) Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:  1) The author quotes Gerald May, who comments, “The freedom question, then, is not whether we can do whatever we want but whether we can do what we most deeply want.” What do you most deeply want? 2) Barton suggests that “in silence, you take a few moments to settle into the training of waiting.” What do you think that might mean—and why might it be important for leaders? __________________________________________________ 7-Step Crisis Plan Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit One of the big ideas in the Crisis Bucket, Chapter 13, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to plan now for your next crisis. It’s not if you’ll have a crisis, but when. The Forbes Group, a 20-year-old strategic management consulting firm, recommends organizations adopt a seven-step crisis management formula:    1. Define the scope of the crisis.    2. Establish unified response.    3. Create a central information service.    4. Act promptly.    5. Establish media response policy.    6. Document everything.    7. Conduct a post-crisis review. MORE RESOURCES: • Blog: Pails in Comparison • Subscribe: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • John's book reviews: on Amazon  • Website: Management Buckets • Blog: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations Note: This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month.