Leadership

Republished from Voice, Jan/Feb 2018.

Kaizen means improvement, or literally, good change. Identified by author Masaaki Imai as “the key to Japanese competitive success,”¹ kaizen is the philosophy undergirding continuous improvement at every level of the organization, and involving all personnel. As a philosophy, kaizen is the post-World War II driving force behind the success of a host of Japanese companies, led most notably by Toyota.

An organizational leadership researcher asked me these six questions. These brief answers are from a biblical worldview, and are broadly applicable in any organizational leadership setting. I think they illustrate how helpful the Bible is for (among other reasons) providing reliable and inspirational leadership principles:

(1) When you think about a positive future for your organization, describe what you see in the days and months ahead.

One question I often challenge individuals and organizations with is this: If in five years, your enterprise or initiative fails, what went wrong? What I am challenging them to think about is what are the intermediate and short term potential failures that might lead to an overall failure. From the perspective of looking back from a not-yet-realized outcome, what were the factors that contributed to failure? It is helpful to look forward, look backward, and then reassess what needs to be done now.

People who don’t consider themselves leaders often find themselves in roles that include some leadership responsibility. These roles include everything from committee chairs, team leaders, and project coordinators to ministry leaders, volunteer coordinators, parents, husbands—even older siblings.

Not only are these leaders often unskilled in leadership, but, human nature being what it is, followers are also often reluctant to follow—any leader. (Moses had Miriam and Aaron and eventually Korah; King David had Absalom; even Jesus Christ had Judas Iscariot.)

So you have leadership responsibility, but those you are responsible to lead aren’t following. What do you do? There may be little you can do. But it’s also possible that relatively simple changes in the use of leadership tools will get far better results.

(From Voice magazine, Jan/Feb 2016.)

African elephants are the largest land animal on earth. At 12,000 pounds and ten feet tall, they can intimidate anyone and anything. Elephants don’t worry much about predators.

The norm is to live in herds within a matriarchal social structure. The largest female leads the group of eight to one hundred elephants in a tight family unit. At the age of twelve to fifteen years the males leave the group and begin a new family. There is always a dominant male in the herd, but sooner or later, a younger male will take over, and the older ones are left to wander alone. It is a melancholy scene to watch a great-grandfather pachyderm grazing completely by himself.

For whatever reason, some of these older males go berserk; they go rogue. Unstable males become violent and territorial. They go on a rampage, attacking anyone in their way, destroying crops and vegetation. These are the really scary guys.

(From Voice magazine, Jan/Feb 2016. Read Part 1.)

By Kenneth O. Gangel