Reviewing Leadership (Engaging Culture): A Christian Evaluation of Current Approaches by Banks Robert J. & Ledbetter Bernice M. & Greenhalgh David C

Author:Banks, Robert J. & Ledbetter, Bernice M. & Greenhalgh, David C. [Banks, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Leadership—Religious aspects—Christianity, REL071000
ISBN: 9781441227188
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

Leadership and Faithfulness

When religious people, especially those who are Jews and Christians, talk about connecting their convictions with their work, discussion commonly focuses on the contribution their “faith” makes to the role they play. This is also true of literature stemming from these sources—studded with phrases like “faith in the workplace,” “believers in business,” or “faith and leadership.” Organizations established by such groups or people also generally highlight the word “faith” in their names or mission statements. An interesting exception to this is the Center for Faithful Leadership at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

As a leader, however, it is not enough simply to have faith or to be perceived as a person of faith in the workplace. That is, faith means more than holding religious beliefs or standing up for them publicly. Faithfulness is required as well as private or public faith. This means more than maintaining a consistent personal relationship with God or talking about one’s faith with others. It also means more than obedience to an employment contract or a workplace superior.

Faithfulness entails a closer and more extensive connection between beliefs and behavior. Forging such a link requires a certain kind of character. Possessing this requires having certain principles that form into habits. Today, from Robert Bellah’s analysis of some Habits of the Heart to Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, there is more recognition that inner priorities and values must be embodied in regular practices.15 People in the workplace increasingly want leaders whose behavior is shaped not just by company policy, political correctness, or individual preferences but also by character. However, the understanding of character in these books contains some limitations.

Too often it sounds as if developing the right kinds of principles and habits at work is simply a matter of working harder. Yet according to the New Testament, faith, and therefore faithfulness flowing from it, is more a gift than an achievement (see Eph. 2:8–9).

The principles and habits discussed in most popular books do not go deep enough. Fairness, honesty, service, and excellence do not cover the full range of Christian qualities (as in Gal. 5:22–23). For example, justice involves more than fairness, goodness more than honesty, sacrifice more than service, and faithfulness more than excellence.

On their own principles are too dry and abstract to motivate people to practice them. They first require the dispositions from which principled behavior flows. These develop largely through being on the receiving end of divine or human life-changing experiences and gratuitous acts of kindness. These are the kinds of things that generate lasting personal transformation.

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