THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE - James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2007 Revised)

The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner assists people in furthering their abilities to lead others in order to get extraordinary things done.  Every person has the capacity to develop the necessary skills and character qualities to reach a level of measurable leadership effectiveness.  Leadership is defined at the outset as “the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.”

The central thesis of the book is that leaders are at their best when they participate at a heart level in five key areas.  Each chapter deals with these areas on a philosophical level and proceed to give practical suggestions on how to implement these principles.  Further, embedded in the five fundamental practices of effective leadership are behaviors that serve as the basis for learning to lead.  The authors call these the Ten Commitments.  These five fundamental areas of effective leaders as well as the Ten Commitments are spelled out below.

First, leaders are at their best when they challenge the process.  Kouzes and Posner suggest that effective leaders constantly challenge the status quo.  They are never satisfied and consistently monitor progress; they push for excellence.  Leaders are change agents who do not change merely for the sake of change but for the purpose of propelling the organization into the future.  “So leaders must challenge the process precisely because any system will unconsciously conspire to maintain the status quo and prevent change” write Kouzes and Posner.

Second, leaders are at their best when they inspire a shared vision.  Vision is defined as “an ideal and unique image of the future.”  The two Commitments that help leaders accomplish the above are envisioning an uplifting and ennobling future and enlisting others in a common vision by appealing to their values, interests, hopes and dreams.

The third essential quality of leadership is enabling others to act.  The central idea is to promote cooperative goals, seek integrative solutions and build trusting relationships.  It follows then, that the two Commitments that enhance this quality is fostering collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust. as well as strengthening people by empowering them.

The fourth plank in the book is modeling the way.  DWYSYWD is an essential step in this process: “Do What You Say You Will Do.”  Three ideas saturate this section.  They include, 1) Clarify personal values and beliefs and those of others, 2) Unify constituents around shared values and 3) Pay attention constantly to how self and others are living the values.  The two Commitments that drive this important aspect of the leadership challenge include setting the example by behaving in ways that are consistent with shared values and achieving small wins that promote consistent progress which builds commitment.

Fifth, effective leaders encourage the heart of constituents.  These leaders make a practice of building self-confidence through high expectations, connect performance and rewards and carry a positive attitude through the day.  The last two Commitments that enhance this process include recognizing individual contributions and regularly celebrating team accomplishments.

The final chapter crystallizes the content of the book by reviewing the central propositions and by proposing  practical application.  While the first twelve chapters make for excellent reading, chapter thirteen is worth the price of  the  book.  Kouzes and Posner present a matrix that serve to help leaders grow in their abilities.  The matrix suggests that leaders grow in three significant ways:  First, they grow through  a process of trial and error.  They experience hardships, job experience and job assignments that help them develop as leaders.   Here they learn new skill sets in the school of hard knocks.  Second, they grow educationally.  Effective leaders engage in formal training and education to enhance their leadership abilities.  It is recommended that leaders spend a minimum of fifty hours annually on personal and professional development.  Third, they grow by observation.  They develop key relationships and learn from personal mentors.  They also learn by observing bad examples, i.e. other people in the organization that exhibit poor behavior, a lack of integrity, etc.

The Leadership Challenge is a tremendous book.  Every pastor pursuing  kingdom purposes should read this book.  While the material is written from a secular perspective, many of the principles are transferable to the local church context.  The book is highly readable, practical and encouraging.  The broad research base that is utilized in the book add to its credibility.

I plan on visiting The Leadership Challenge again and again.  I anticipate utilizing the principles in ministry and sharing them with other leaders and pastors.  My ministry will only be stronger by studying this book!

4.5 stars

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Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess

“ They promised me nine years of safety but only gave me three. Today my time has run out.”

For the past three years Meredith’s father has been locked up in prison for molesting her and many other children.  She thought she was safe, that she could move on with her life, but her father is coming home early. Her mother, who should have been on her side, is ecstatic to have her husband home, ignoring Meredith’s pleas.  Meredith knows he hasn’t changed and it’s only a matter time before her or someone else becomes his victim. She will do whatever it takes to get him locked up for good, even if that means sacrificing herself.

 Laura Wiess is brilliant at writing incredibly difficult and honest stuff. She doesn’t sugar coat or try too hard to make a point. What she produces is heartbreakingly raw. This is a very quick read, if you can suffer through the brokenness and destruction until the end. Meredith is a wonderfully dynamic character in that she is both paralyzed with her suffering and incredibly strong. She is so compelling, and her struggle so horrible that it’s hard to disconnect. Wiess does a great job of using flashback to give the reader a real sense of the abuse without becoming too graphic. In doing so I think she highlights that the story is about Meredith and her growth and strength, and not just the abuse. Overall, I thought the story was flawless.

 You might enjoy Such a Pretty Girl if you like books with: difficult and emotionally provocative topics, a real focus on a main character’s experience instead of a fast paced plot, a mature writing style

Other books by Laura Wiess: Leftovers  and How it Ends

 If you liked Such a Pretty Girl you might also enjoy:  Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, Leftovers by Laura Wiess, Chanda’s Wars by Allan Statton,

Additional Info: was awarded 2008 ALA Best Books for Young Adults award

Author website found here.

Here is a link to sexual assault centres in Southwestern Ontario. Please find one in your area if you need assistence.

Rating: W4/4   C4/4   P4/4   O4/4   PP2/4   CR3/4

Grade:  S

Covers:

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Sources of misogyny in Islam: not from the Prophet at all

Sources of misogyny in Islam: not from the Prophet at all; (Mar 22, 2010)

            Many misogynic “disciples” to the Prophet Muhammad tried to calumny women in order to discard them from political and social leadership.  In a previous article we took care of the Hadith (a saying of the Prophet not included in the Koran) “No society will witness prosperity if commanded by a woman”.  This Hadith was annunciated by Abu Bakra after the battle of “The camel” that was mainly lead by Aicha (The youngest and most beloved wife of Muhammad).  This battle represents the first instance of “civil war” among the Moslems, 25 years after the death of the Prophet in 633. It is interesting to state that Abu Bakra was sentenced to be whipped by the second caliph Omar bin Khattab for calumny that could have resulted in the lynching of an innocent man.

            Another “disciple”, Abu Huraira, contributed to countless misogyny Hadith; he was a slave before submitting to Allah and just followed the Prophet and aided in cleaning the residences of Muhammad’s nine wives. The prophet’s nickname of Abu Huraira was because this new convert walked with his favorite female kitten. It is interesting to mention that the second Caliph Omar threatened Abu Huraira to be exiled back to Yemen if he resumed cranking Hadith so mindlessly.  Aicha discredited many of Abu Huraira Hadith and mocked him grandly, an attitude that exacerbated Abu Huraira’s misogyny.

            Abu Huraira claimed hearing the Prophet saying “Dog, donkey, and women disturb prayer when they cross the praying visual field.”  Aicha said: “What, Abu Huraira considers women in the same category of dogs and donkeys? I used to be lying down in front of the Prophet when he said his prayers.  I didn’t move in order not to disturb his concentration while praying”

            Abu Huraira also claimed that the Prophet said “Three things bring bad luck: the house, the wife, and the horse.” Aicha mocked Abu Huraira grandly and replied: “He has the tendency not to learn his lessons. Abu Huraitra entered as the Prophet was uttering the end part of his long sentence. The prophet was saying “May Allah fights the Jews: They claim that three things bring bad luck (the house, the wife, and the horse).”  Muhammad was fighting the Jewish tribes in Medina because they were complotting with the tribes of Mecca to discredit his message since Muhammad was winning more converts “at the expense of the Jewish prophets which were considered the sole properties of the Jewish sect”.  The Prophet could no longer comprehend the basic misogyny traditions of the Jewish sects in Medina; these Jewish teachings and attitudes toward women were giving arguments to the misogynic Moslems in Medina who were not ready to abide by the new laws that reformed drastically pre-Islamic customs and traditions.  

            Abu Huraira cranked many Hadith related to what women in periods of menstruation should not do; for example, women should not fast the day they forget to wash their genitalia before morning prayers and things like that. One of the wives of the prophet Umm Maimouna had this to say: “Occasionally, the prophet recited his prayers his head on the knees of one of his wives who was in menstruation. We would spread the Praying Nat in the mosque for the Prophet while we had our periods. The prophet used to do his morning prayers before washing off after a night of intercourse.”

            Indeed, for the first six years in Medina there were no dividing lines between the public and the private.  The door of Aicha’s apartment opened to the mosque; Aicha used to wash Muhammad’s hair at the door while the prophet was in the mosque. The Moslems used to enter the Prophets residences without invitations and behaved as if they were close relatives and “faite comme chez vous” in the presence of his wives. Finally, Muhammad had to put a stop to these inconsiderate behaviors and commanded that no one is to enter without invitations and instituted the dividing curtain; the curtain was to separate between men and him when in his residence. After the Prophet death, the misogynic Moslems developed the custom of Muhammad’s wives wearing veils when stepping outside their residences and this tradition was extended to all women gradually.

            Another misogynic “disciple” is Ibn Omar (the son of the second caliph Omar) who was a recluse and ascetics; thus, most of his Hadith were retained as valid since he was the son of a caliph. For example, Ibn Omar said: “Women were to let down their hair before passing their wet hands over before purification.” Aicha corrected Ibn Omar saying: “How strange! Ibn Omar might as well order women to shave their head.  I used to pass 3 times my wet hands over my unloosened hair before praying with the Prophet. I even used to wash with the Prophet in the same bucket.”

            This same Ibn Omar said: “The Prophet said: I had a look into paradise and the majority was of the poor communities. I had a look into hell and it was mostly crowded with women.”  There were so many misogyny pronouncements after the Prophet’s death that Moslems paid visits to Muhammad’s spouses for verifications and clarifications.

            The Prophet knew that Moslems would visit his wives for questions that they would not dare ask him directly; Muhammad thus mostly behaved contrary to Jewish daily rituals and customs related to women so that Moslems would learn his behaviors and refrain from misogynic attitudes. Politics of interests closed the doors on women after the Prophet’s death, shamelessly and openly.

Note: This article is extracted from Fatima Mirnissi’s “The politics of Harem”

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The Whole Day Through by Patrick Gale

“When forty-something Laura Lewis is obliged to abandon a life of stylish independence in Paris to care for her elderly mother in Winchester, it seems all romantic opportunities have gone up in smoke. Then she runs into Ben, the great love of her student days – and, as she only now dares admit, the emotional touchstone against which she has judged every man since. She’s cautious – and he’s married – but they can’t deny that feelings still exist between them. Are they brave enough to take the second chance at the lasting happiness that fate has offered them? Or will they be defeated by the need to do what seems to be the right thing? Taking its structure from the events of a single summer’s day, The Whole Day Through is a bittersweet love story, shot through with an understanding of mortality, memory and the difficulty of being good. In it, Patrick Gale writes with scrupulous candour about the tests of love: the regrets and the triumphs, and the melancholy of failing.”

The first thing that came to mind when I began this novel was the written style and my initial dislike of it. My dislike of the written style made it a challenging novel to get absorbed into. However, after half an hour’s reading, the style seemed to become less important as I got to understand the characters and their backgrounds.
It was the character development in the novel that made it such a strong read for me. The way the author introduces you to both characters separately before the story bought them together, set the plot up well for the continuation of the novel and gave the reader a useful insight into each character’s personal life and family background. The made it easier to relate to both characters, which I think is possible for most readers, and therefore easier for the readers to feel the intended emotions later on.

Overall, not an incredible read, but one that is still worthwhile.

[Via http://voguedotcom.wordpress.com]

The Island of Lost Maps is the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada.

The island of lost maps : a true story of cartographic crime    New York : Random House, c 2000  Miles Harvey Map thefts United States History 20th century, Bland, Gilbert Lee Joseph, Libraries United States Special collections Maps History Hardcover. 1st ed., later printing. xxiii, 405 p. : ill., maps ; 19 cm.  Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-394) and index.  Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text.   VG/VG

The Island of Lost Maps is the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada. The perpetrator was the Al Capone of cartography, a man with the unlikely name of Gilbert Bland, Jr., an enigmatic antiques dealer from south Florida whose cross-country slash-and-dash operation went virtually undetected until he was caught in December 1995.

This is also the spellbinding story of author Miles Harvey’s quest to understand America’s greatest map thief, a chameleon who changed careers and families without ever looking back. Gilbert Bland was a cipher, a blank slate–for Harvey, journalistic terra incognita. Filling in Bland’s life was like filling in a map, and grew from an investigation into an intellectual adventure.

Harvey listens to the fury of the librarians from whom Bland stole. He introduces us to America’s foremost map mogul, a millionaire maverick who predicted the boom in map collecting. He retraces Bland’s life, from his run-ins with the law to his troubled service in Vietnam. And finally, with the aid of an FBI agent, Harvey discovers the Island of Lost Maps. The deeper Miles Harvey investigates, the more we are drawn into this fascinating subculture of collectors, experts, and enthusiasts, all of them gripped by an obsession both surreal and sublime. Capturing that passion in perfect pitch, The Island of Lost Maps is an intriguing story of exploration, craftsmanship, villainy, and the lure of the unknown.

[Via http://oldsaltbooks.wordpress.com]

Fields-Black on <i>Deep Roots</i> of Rice Cultivation in West Africa and the Diaspora

Fields-Black, Edda L. Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Indiana University Press, 2008.

Gilbert, Erik.  “Coastal Rice Farming Systems in Guinea and Sierra Leone, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. By Edda L. Fields-Black.”  The Journal of African History 50, no. 03 (2009): 437-438.

From the review by Erik Gilbert:

“The role of African technologies and agricultural knowledge in the development of rice farming in the Americas has drawn considerable scholarly attention in the last decade. That Africans might have contributed not just their labor to the tidal rice-farming systems of the South Carolina Low Country but also essential knowledge of the techniques needed to grow rice in that challenging environment is highly appealing. It gives agency to enslaved Africans and recognizes the sophistication of West African riziculture. The most recent expression of this idea has been Judith Carney’s Black Rice.1 Carney’s work has been challenged by David Eltis, Philip Morgan, and David Richardson, who have argued that the number of slaves coming to South Carolina from rice-growing areas of Africa is too small to explain the development of American rice farming.2

Edda Fields-Black’s new book contributes to this debate primarily by adding to our knowledge of the coastal rice-farming systems of Guinea and Sierra Leone, where rice-farming techniques most closely resemble the tidal irrigation systems of the South Carolina Low Country. In this part of Sierra Leone, farmers clear mangrove swamps and, through careful control of the movement of fresh water through the fields, drain and desalinate the soil. This is a process that can take years and that can be reversed almost instantly if embankments built to keep salt water out are breached. Managing the water supply to these fields requires careful harnessing of tides in the river estuaries so that salt water is kept out but fresh water is allowed in. Early observers of this system assumed that the stateless societies of the coast were unlikely to have created so complex a technology and that it must have been introduced either by Europeans or by Africans from the states of the interior….”

Read the rest at Cambridge Journals ($$)

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There's Nothing Like a New Book

My eyes feast on the cover, the title, the design. My hands become claws around the rectangle and I bring the wad of meticulously cut paper to my nose. I inhale and breathe in that virgin emanation of a brand new book, almost utterly untouched from the printer to my wrists. Graceful and fluid I carefully open the protective jacket and begin to fan the pages close to my face, still high from the inhale of the newness. I feel my heartbeat pick up. In just a few short moments I will be curled up on my couch and whisked away to another’s reality, entering back into my own only when I deem necessary.
I carefully choose a bookmark to hold my place in a wonderland so close to my grasp yet I know it only exists in my mind. The alluring pull of a surrealism mystified by the know of my conscience. I know I will enjoy it for I picked an author to guide me that I’ve visited with before, almost as mad as the Hatter himself.
I sink into my spot on the couch and begin. My eyes follow the depicted imagery like a hawk following their prey, waiting for the moment I can touch my pencil to the spot and parenthesize the ink that forms the words I so dearly feel. I mark up my books voraciously as to not forget words that tickle my tongue or swing my pendulum of linguistics. I adore authors who play with their words, slithering around the oblivious to hide the obvious.
The sheer joy of becoming enraptured in another’s mind is the pull to books for me. A brand new book excites my psyche and the Literature lover inside me takes over. I can’t control her, trust me I’ve tried. The words library or bookstore stirs euphoria in me that lie dormant at times.
But a brand new book brushes the cowlick on my sensations flat again, and I am once again myself, a reader of great literature and astounding authors. For now I must get lost in a new book that I received yesterday, it has been calling my name for almost twenty-four hours, and I must obey.
Describe your love of books and/or authors. I adore hearing from my readers.

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