Pamela Sanders Ellis, Ph.D.


        From the beginning, we were engaged with blessings to be fruitful, as well as to multiply, filling and subduing the earth while exercising our dominion “over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Does this general directive apply to a select few, or to every living human on the planet? In the image of God, we are created, “…male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27) 

        Those with Biblically-based faith understand God as possessing intelligence, emotions, and a will to exercise power, or creative change, in our environment. As people, we all, also, possess these attributes. According to the tenets of jus naturale, the law of nature, the law of reason, “power is conceded” by the decision of individual persons. If this is so, where then does concepts of low self-esteem and subsequent social systems of degradation originate? Without question, leadership reforms are needed throughout all areas of education in civic and religious society for this reason.

        There are various leadership models in operation that affect our daily life. Transactional leadership, autocratic or command-and-control leadership, as well as the exceptional, servant leadership are all types of leadership styles among others. Additionally, there are charismatic and transformational leaders. Leadership styles can be either benevolent or malevolent. Good leaders rationally demonstrate to others how their knowledge, skills, and abilities will benefit identified shared outcomes within an organization. Poor leaders assume that people have no choice or other alternative than to blindly follow, check their conscience at the door, and not “give voice” to oppressive social, educational, work, and environmental conditions due to fear of adverse reprisals.

        To what extent are we good or poor leaders, and to what extent are we followers within our homes, workplaces, civic, and religious social structures and world systems? Isn’t it so much easier to capitulate our God-given leadership responsibility to someone else? To be sure, we do have “positional” leaders who, ideally, serve the rhema voice of God speaking to us, individually and collectively, as a people in our various organizations and institutions. In reality, positional leaders are also prone to errors in judgment from which, we should guard ourselves from being unnecessary victims.

        Interestingly, a model for leadership espoused by Goucher College in Baltimore, MD for all undergraduate students is the model that I believe many would find agreement in that it affirms holistic principles of human dignity for everyone regardless of “position” in an organization. In highlighting their student leadership program a reference states, 

        We believe that all persons have leadership potential and that their particular gifts, talents, and skills can be enhanced through education, training, and development. Furthermore, we believe that leadership is a process, not a position. (Goucher, 2009)

        Leadership learning outcomes at Goucher College include:

• the development of critical thinking skills
• understanding change processes and obstacles of change
• knowledge of diverse cultures, cross-culture communication, and the dynamics
  of privilege and oppression
• understanding how ethics, morals, and values relate to their leadership dilemmas
• being able to integrate their lived experiences into their leadership development
  process (Goucher, 2009)

       More importantly to this discussion, would people possessing these leadership attributes be accepted in each of our social institutions of culture, business, and worship? Are they warmly welcomed or would they be “targeted”, viewed with suspicion, and labeled as trouble-makers? Most likely, if they are strict adherents to ideal principles, it seems that they may be “weeded out” during the interview process. How many of the institutions that you, personally, are affiliated with actually utilize or teach shared, participatory leadership principles? If your answer is none, or a low number, then you see the problem.

       Agents of change, often, don’t directly reap the benefits that they garner for others and may end up at low levels in “valueless” institutions. It is so much easier to be rewarded transactionally based on whatever is established in an “unstated” manner within a particular institution. A “worldly payoff” or “rise to the top” may be attained by those who “go along to get along” within what very often may be an unscrupulous system. This is not to say that every “positional” leadership person or institution will lack integrity. I hope that we will support those who most closely represent our values as positional leaders when warranted by taking ambiguities into consideration. 

        In summary, good leadership is shared and involves sacrifice with an accompaniment of variously possible rewards. Acting as agents of change under the direction of rhema principles, we will fulfill our leadership responsibilities locally, nationally, and throughout the world community.

Goucher College (2009). Undergraduate-student leadership program. Retrieved on August 24, 2009, from http://www.goucher.edu/x30489.xml