Tried and True
Description
Recovering Timeless Leadership Vision for Contemporary Challenges
Successful leadership needs more than top-down strategic plans and lofty vision statements. Real leadership happens at the intersection of a leader's inner life with the outer expression of care for their organization and the communities it serves. To find sustainable paths of leadership, we can look to reliable guidance from those whose legacy has stood the test of time.
Tried and True offers a unique convergence of the decades of leadership experience and scholarship of authors Margaret Diddams and Shirley Mullen with a historical exploration of John Wesley's life and leadership. Informed by their personal and professional journeysin both higher education and the corporate world, Diddams and Mullen provide a comprehensive, scholarly, and practical study of John Wesley's leadership practices that shaped not just the church but the entire society.
In Tried and True, Diddams and Mullen
- speak to today's leadership fatigue with a focus on sustainable, character-driven leadership;
- revive John Wesley's timeless leadership practices for modern challenges; and
- integrate inner character with outward institutional impact for a vision of sustainable leadership.
- offer a hope-filled vision for today's leaders and the institutions they serve.
The three attributes of surrender, stewardship, and servanthood provide a dynamic framework for leaders as they navigate the tensions and paradoxes of leadership. As leaders seek to be faithful to their calling, they will find that even as God is inspiring them to lead, he is also using the work itself to form them more closely to the image of Christ.
This book doesn't offer the latest leadership fad or a "silver bullet" solution. It calls leaders back to what has stood the test of time--a sustainable, countercultural path of leadershipthat not only transforms organizations, communities, and cultures, but also opens leaders themselves to the Spirit's deep work of transformation.
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Margaret Diddams (PhD, NYU) is an industrial-organizational psychologist, former provost and chief academic officer of Wheaton College, and a former senior manager at Microsoft. A sought-after consultant, she has worked closely with Christian leaders navigating the challenges of leading teams, using power wisely, burnout, and organizational development. Her writing--rooted in scholarship, professional experience, and hands-on consulting--focuses on redemptive leadership, vocational calling, virtue ethics, and the formation of Christian character in the workplace. Margaret is the editor and regular contributor to Christian Scholar's Review and has held faculty roles at Columbia University, Seattle Pacific University, and Wheaton College. She offers deep insight into the crucibles of leadership and is committed to helping leaders lead not just effectively, but to develop their faith through leadership experiences. Margaret and her husband Stan live in Seattle. They have four children, three grandchildren, and a Boston Terrier.
Shirley A. Mullen (PhD, University of Minnesota; PhD, University of Wales) served as president of Houghton University for fifteen years. She spent four decades in the work of faith-based liberal arts education in various roles, including professorof history, provost, director of residence life, and president. As president emerita, she continues to write, speak and consult on themes related to her recent publication Claiming the Courageous Middle. Mullen's earned doctorates in history and philosophy reflect her life-long interest in the Enlightenment and its complex impact on the modern world, on liberal learning, and on the intertwining of Christian calling and the legacy of humanism in the Western tradition. In addition to herwork in the classroom and as an administrator, she has served as president of the Conference of Faith and History, chair of the board of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, and chair of Jericho Road Community Health Center in Buffalo, New York. She currently serves as chair of the board of Fuller Seminary, and is a member of the boards of National Association of Evangelicals and First Amendment Partnerships.