Leadership Lessons from Ted Engstrom, Part 2

At the encouragement of a few friends and fellow General Council members, I am reading through The Making of a Christian Leader by Ted Engstrom. This book was written in 1976 but still resonates with its insights to this day. Talk about retro!

Every week, I will share some quotes and gleanings from my reading for the week. I hope to use this time as an encouragement to myself and to others that being a leader is a calling from Christ and only possible through Christ.




INTRODUCTION

"Crises...stem first from a lack of positive, constructive, dynamic, creative leadership...[sometimes] no leadership is being exercised at all."

 "The successful organization has one major attribute that sets it apart from unsuccessful organizations: dynamic and effective leadership."

"...with the requirement for leadership implicit in change, there are too few individuals with leadership qualities to manage the changes taking place."

"Christian organizations are different [from secular organization]-or at least they should be. They are different because they have a higher allegiance than the basic purpose of the organization."

"An organization may have a fixed, grand objective-to serve Christ, to serve mankind, or to care for the needy-but too often that purpose is not stated in terms of what we intend to do to accomplish that purpose. The goals and objectives are not clearly defined. A major sign of this malady is the large number of committees, department or boards [that exist in an organization]"

Join me in learning with the next post on Chapter 1 (What is Leadership?) of this book.