Review: Future Leader

It comes with a certain amount of relief to read a Christian leadership book that is not overly unbalanced towards the whole ‘bigger is better’ and ‘onwards and upwards’ kind of thinking that has tended to dominate lately. It is a great strength that section of the Christian leadership movement has paid more careful attention to the world of commercial leadership, but sometimes this focus has resulted in the loss of certain fundamental principles of leadership that Scripture emphasizes: Principles such as servanthood, humility and the vital importance of a well-managed interior life.

Viv Thomas’ book ‘Future Leader’ manages to get that mix right. He uses the best of organizational management research but always filters it through very Biblical models. Thomas rightly asserts that “Leadership is a key to success in any organization,” and then engages with what it means to get leadership right in a post-modern context as it is guided by Scripture. Thomas acknowledges that leadership can never be black and white in a world that is filled with ambiguities, and that leaders have to face the great challenge of wisely moving others through messy and confusing circumstances that might never have clear answers or solutions.

Thomas begins by reminding his readers that crucial to all Christian leadership is the realization and embrace of God’s call to lead. He writes, "The great Christian leaders are identified by the quality of their conversation with God." Thomas goes onto describe this ongoing conversation as the “inscape” of the leader as he compares the very different leadership styles of Pontius Pilate and Jesus under the same pressure-filled circumstances. Thomas describes how Pilate would have been a much better leader if he had paid more attention to his “inscape,” or his inner world and character. Thomas speaks of leadership in "blurred times" and our need to find clarity during such times. That clarity comes from re-asserting our followership of God. Thomas warns us to not confuse ‘vision’ with our own agendas because that will inevitably lead to clashes with others.

Building on all of this, Thomas tells us that a good leader will have three main qualities:

1. They will be driven by compassion, not obsession.
2. They will be rooted in relationships, not systems.
3. They will promote life, not self image.

Essentially, Thomas is saying that leadership is always a reflection of our “inscape” – whether that is rooted in Christ and conversant with God - or whether it is more indulgent in ego issues and self-glorification. Before our best-laid plans, great vision, purpose and accomplishments, there is character and the calling to relationship. Within this Thomas not only takes us through a deep and very helpful look at some biblical examples of leadership that will help us affect and change the future for good, he also stresses the vital importance of mentor relationships by detailing the lives of some people who have inspired him.

‘Future Leader’ is clearly written and infused with both wisdom and compassion, resulting in a compelling manifesto of thoroughly biblical leadership that provides valuable guidance to every leader's necessary escape from a compulsive and perfectionist approach to his or her role, and into a Christ-rooted leadership that serves in love rather than fear.

The Right Way to Do the Right Thing

Most people want to succeed. Just as many want to do right with their lives. So perhaps the essential question how to balance these two powerful, but often contradictory human drives? Well, Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe in ‘Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing,’ believe this balance will come from embracing one integral human quality that is in grave danger of being drummed out of daily life ... wisdom.

Wisdom, Schwartz and Sharpe say, is learning "the right way to do the right thing in a particular circumstance, with a particular person, at a particular time." Wisdom is the inner quality that combines what we learn from our own experiences and from others with our empathy and intellect. The authors build this book upon a premise from Aristotle, which maintains that wisdom must be applied to every day situations for it be truly effective. Aristotle famously taught that the ability to frame and assess each situation on its own merits, and then chart the best course forward, is ‘practical wisdom.’

The authors assert this type of wisdom is sorely lacking in much of modern society, particularly in essential areas like medicine, law, education and business. They then outline the core idea in this book, which is that the overabundance of rules that govern work has resulted in people emotionally and intellectually disengaging. Wisdom is strangled out of the system because individuals are not encouraged to think for themselves within a larger framework, but instead are micro-managed. The research that the authors highlight to prove this assertion is both saddening and troubling, and it makes you realise just how dehumanising some societal systems have become. The point is that teachers, doctors and lawyers begin to operate too robotically, and lose their ability to see beyond the surface levels of their pupils, patients and clients. This means that these essential professions begin hurting rather than helping people.

One of the central stories in this book is about a hospital janitor named Luke. Luke has just cleaned the room of a coma patient, but the patient’s father, who is grieving and distraught, does not notice and angrily tells him to clean it again. The author’s applaud the wisdom of this ordinary janitor, as he does not give into the temptation to lash back, but instead recognises the father’s grieving process and calmly cleans the room again.

The authors use this story to argue that we need more people like Luke in fields such as medicine, law and education, but key to this happening is to clear out the unnecessary rules from every day life and grant people more individual discretion. This is because: “Detailed rules and procedures, however well intentioned, are undermining the skill that wisdom requires.” The book repeatedly mentions “canny outlaws,” people who at great professional risk, work both within and outside the system. A “canny outlaw” educator, might for example, ignore the overly scripted teaching that education departments require, and teach their students what they really need according to their own unique contexts.

Another interesting point raised by these authors is that monetary incentivisation almost never creates sufficient space for wisdom and learning within individuals, and instead can often become a pathway for personal corruption. Here the book cites examples in the medical profession, where doctors are paid for each person they see, and not for the overall quality of their care.

This book does a brilliant job of analysing a crucial problem that is weakening society in several key areas, but while everyone can see the value of practical wisdom, the one big problem in this book is that, ironically enough, it needed to be more practical. The authors do survey some best practices, but the key learning areas identified are not applied enough to everyday life. The final chapter on true human happiness, while again making some wonderful points, does not do justice to an area that is foundational to practically living wisdom.

Despite this weakness, I would still recommend Practical Wisdom as a starter in this important topic. Statistics not withstanding, mere common sense will tell you that wisdom is sorely lacking in our society, and that we are deeply hurting as a result. This in itself makes this book worthy of your attention.

Classic Books: The Gulag Archipelago

"The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being."

How do you break someone's spirit? How do you torture them in such as way as to leave them tattered and torn? Forget hot coals or thumbscrews because it seems that simple sleep deprivation combined with the cruelty of offering false hope before withdrawing it proves enough to plunge the average person into insanity. The Gulag Archipelago is a harrowing journey through the man-made hells of the Soviet forced labour camps in Siberia, a dark part of human history that should never be forgotten. In this book, the Nobel-prize winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn provides a voice for all those nameless people forever lost in the Gulags, stripped of their intrinsic human dignity, but remembered and celebrated here.

This is why a book that was published way back in 1971 remains relevant thirty years later. The Gulag is a Russian acronym that refers to the prison camps that existed during Soviet communist rule, and that were made especially notorious under Stalin. Solzhenitsyn has personal experience of the Gulag, having been arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 1945 for criticising Stalin in a personal letter while serving during WWII as a decorated army captain. Solzhenitsyn’s account is both angry and haunting as it describes the extreme suffering and total dehumanisation of the prisoners, and yet at the same time there is always an undercurrent of hope and belief in the human spirit that is both touching and compelling. Solzhenitsyn writes with such superlative skill that you find yourself drawn deeply into the stories of various arrests on trumped up charges, cruel interrogations, and unjust imprisonment.

Throughout Solzhenitsyn keeps asking the same incredulous question: "How did we let this happen?" Simply put, it was because people stayed silent through the suffering of others, hoping that if they kept their heads down, it wouldn’t happen to them. But of course it did happen to countless millions. To stop evil in its tracks, humanity needs to learn from our history, to learn from the tragedy of so many lives lost and countless families torn apart by an evil political system that could recur unless we remain vigilant and hold each other accountable. As Solzhenitsyn says, the line between good and evil runs closely together in each human being. Good people do cruel things to each other to save themselves, or they ignore the suffering of others because they are afraid. Apathy and cruelty are far more closely bound that we would care to admit.

What has always fascinated me about Solzhenitsyn is his faith. Through his experiences in Siberia, Solzhenitsyn gradually became a philosophically-minded Christian. He describes his own transformation at length in The Gulag Archipelago, and throughout his life always warned people of the dangers of atheism, saying that Russia forgetting God was “the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people.” Solzhenitsyn’s faith, forged in places of horrendous suffering, shines through his work and brings out both hope and goodness, even as he details hardship after hardship.

Solzhenitsyn is considered to be one of the greatest authors of the last century, and I would highly, highly recommend tackling this book. I remember reading someone describe The Gulag Archipelago as a biography about everyone who has ever suffered, and a lesson to everyone who has never truly suffered. If learning about history helps prevent the repetition of mistakes, then this should be required reading for every human being (and in fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin made this book required reading in Russian schools during the 1990s).

This book was originally published in three chapters, but I would recommend reading the abridged version, which was especially compiled for non-Russians by the author himself.

Review: This is history that will appeal even to those who don’t like reading history

I have loved reading history ever since my imagination was first caught by George Santayana’s wonderful quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” However, I am well aware from the glazed looks and suppressed yawns that arise whenever the topic is mentioned that many don’t share this interest. This week’s book review is ‘History’s Worst Decisions and The People Who Made Them,’ and I can guarantee that even the most ‘history-resistant’ among you will enjoy this one. This book, which uses Santayana’s famous quote as inspiration, is an entertaining examination of some of the most appalling decisions made by people through thousands of years that will both will amuse and inform you.

This bestselling book has recently been reprinted in an illustrated edition with over 80 full colour photographs, paintings, illustrations and maps depicting events as they unfolded around history’s 50 most monumental blunders. Author Stephen Weir writes with enough wit to keep you smiling throughout this “journey through the sheer idiocy of humanity.” He also keeps each chapter short and sharp making it easy enough to read in little pockets of time here and there. Weir's detailing of each calamitous decision is done in a personable style that allows you to emotionally relate to "history’s idiots." This means that much of your amusement (or horror) will be tempered by the knowledge that in another time and place this ‘idiot’ could quite possibly have been you!

Weir keeps the content even more interesting by categorising each decision through the ‘Seven Deadly Sins,’ meaning that Nero’s burning of Rome was motivated by gluttony, greed and lust, while Robert Mugabe’s land grab was the result of anger, envy, greed and pride. Since Weir also believes that “Cardinal virtues” such as faith, hope and charity have compelled misinformed followers to serious folly as well, he throws in these three categories for use as well. This is why Pope Alexander III and his costly search for a non-existent Christian Empire in the East led by the mythical King Prester John that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Crusaders could be seen as a mistake of misinformed faith.

Popes unfortunately feature more than once in history’s greatest mistakes, while famous errors such as General Custer and Bighorn, and Churchhill's push into Gallipoli are included as well. There are also some mistakes that are not so well known, and which I found fascinating such as Johan de Witt – the man who effectively swapped what is now Manhattan Island for a small Indonesian island where he believed he could grow nutmeg (but couldn't). Other mistakes included by Weir range from Adam and Eve munching down on the forbidden fruit, to the Y2K bug that never was, to the ten-year old girl who read the warning signs of the 2004 Asian Tsunami while whole governments failed to do so.

Some of Weir’s choices and the facts he used to support them have come under criticism by other historians but this really is par-for-the-course when it comes to history writing. If there is one thing we should have learned from history it is that life is not black and white, and that all perspectives are imbalanced if they are only seen from one angle. What is seen as a ‘righteous‘ war by one group of people, is viewed as bloody oppression by others. I enjoy this book because it provokes us to consider our own decisions, even as it invites us to learn from history’s greatest mistakes so as not to repeat them ourselves, because after all, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”