South by Southwest: Leadership revisited

Monday, December 04, 2006

Leadership revisited

Breaking good news - MSNBC is reporting that John Bolton has resigned his (recess appointment) position as Ambassador to the U.N., and that our current president (OCP) has accepted his resignation. Bolton's leadership was often in question, as is the leadership of his boss, OCP.

On leadership - Readers of S/Sw sometimes do blog searches on "leadership qualities," about which I have written in the past.* Why is it a recurring subject of interest, very often to readers from abroad? Since my blog is so clearly political/progressive I speculate that it is because of the dearth of good leadership from the current Bush administration. The recent election of large numbers of Democrats to office in states and in the U.S. congress suggests that citizens want new kinds of public servants. Exit polls revealed that the war in Iraq (to more Democrats) and corruption (to more Republicans) were important issues to voters. They are demanding better from those they elect.

Serving the public interest - I have long been interested in the concept of "servant-leaders," originated by Robert Greenleaf. It was such an important concept that a center has been founded in his name in Westfield, Indiana. The organization's web site has announced that their annual convocation will be in Dallas next year, good news for those of us in the Southwest:

June 28-30, 2007, in Dallas, Texas: Mark your calendar for our next international conference, with keynoter Dr. Stephen Covey
LIFE 2007: The 12th Leadership Institute For Education will be offered in Dallas on June 27-28, 2007

What did voters want in government leaders? I am not sure, but there are clues that came from my search ("servant-leaders government") on Google. For insight into the views of evangelicals I took this article from Crosswalk.com: "Political engagement: Responsibility, Government and God," by Dr. Paul Dean. It is one of the very expositions I have read on Christian activism and government.

Missed opportunity for OCP - The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University has listed, as one of its 2005-2006 projects, something called "Annual Event Servant Leadership Seminar, 125 Bryan High Students." Bush 41 also has his presidential library at Texas A&M. Bush 43 is said to be raising funds (reportedly $500 million) to put his in Dallas. So it is laudable that the father established a school for public service; it is predictable that the son will be raising money from his rich friends to build a monument to himself . . . for what? Certainly not for being a good leader.

Learning more about Servant-Leadership, three resources:

Servant-Leadership blog "Our Life Markers" is today's post. It asks, who are the people and what are the events that have most shaped our lives?

Book from Wiley Publishers - Essential Resources for Government. The book is titled "Focus on Leadership: Servant-Leadership in the Twenty-first Century," by Larry Spears and Michele Lawrence. Spears is President and CEO of the Greenleaf Center. 2) What about servant leaders in government?

Research: Servant Leadership and Public Managers, is a dissertation abstract by Sandra Bryant at Regent University. To quote,

Although, servant leadership is growing in popularity with corporate and public managers, the viability of this leadership approach for local government leaders is mixed. We found local government managers generally accept and believe they practice the characteristics of servant leadership. Local government managers experienced difficulty, in particular, with the constructs of altruism, humility and love. Additional research is needed to determine whether these difficulties were definitional or organizational based.