Interlock PrayerNet

TALKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP: An Interview with Larry Stout on the Ideal Leadership Model [Part 2]

Larry, explain again in nice simple terms what you mean by your Ideal Leadership Model. 

Let’s try an analogy.  Imagine that I am the world’s greatest football player (I know this requires great imagination, but humor me.)   My skills and abilities could be considered my player’s capital.  This is similar to what is termed leadership capital in the Ideal Leadership Model.  Leadership capital is the characteristics and talent that enables an individual to effectively lead others. It is the raw elements, the innate talents and abilities that are available to the individual.  But, going back to the football analogy, unless I have a team to play with, an opponent, a playing field and officials – my abilities could never be demonstrated.  These are similar to leadership conditions, which are the circumstances that permit an individual to lead others.  The Ideal Leadership Model describes the interaction between leadership capital and leadership conditions.

TALKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP: An Interview with Larry Stout on the Ideal Leadership Model [Part 1]

Larry, you keep talking about this Ideal Leadership Model of yours and how you want to use it all over the world.  What IS the Ideal Leadership Model?

It states that a leader is one who leads his or her organization forward in a positive direction.  The components of leadership are leadership conditions and leadership capital.  The conditions determine who gets to be a leader in the first place.  Basically, a person must be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things, with the right people – to have an opportunity to lead.  How well they lead depends on their leadership capital; their philosophical orientation made up of their vision and values, their personal characteristics of wisdom and courage, and their interpersonal interaction of trust and voice.  

GOODBYE TO A GREAT ONE: Tribute to Peter Drucker by Larry Stout

If you had asked me two weeks ago, “Larry, name the one person on the planet you would most want to spend one hour of conversation” – my answer would have been Peter Drucker.  This one man almost single-handedly transformed everything we believe about the science of management.  It would not be an exaggeration to state that every single writer on the subject of management in the 20^th century owes a debt to this man.  (I know I do!) Unfortunately, I now will never get that opportunity, because on November 11th, this great man died.  He was 95, and incredibly, he was active to the very end. 

WHAT WE SHOULD BE TEACHING: Letter of Wisdom by Larry Stout

While sitting in an office in Bangalore, India, two years ago, I saw a poster on the wall entitled, “He Will Have to Learn.”  It was the reprint of a letter from a parent to his son’s teacher.  The office was for a group of entrepreneurs who had developed a very sophisticated supplemental home study program for students who wished to get in to the best universities.  These words ring as true today as they did one hundred and fifty years ago:

INTELLIGENT DESIGN: The Latest Battle in a Long War by Larry Stout

About every ten or fifteen years or so, another controversy relating to the teaching of evolution comes up in the courts.  This time it is from Dover, Pennsylvania, a small town not far from the famous Gettysburg Battlefield site – and it appears that yet another conflict in this long-running war of ideas is on the way. 

The catalyst was a school board decision that required ninth grade teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. It says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.  As incredible as it seems, that is what all the hubbub is about.

A good friend once asked me a question that only a good friend can ask.
“Larry, you write in your articles about politics, economics, science, etc., but what do those things have to do with your ministry or spreading the gospel for that matter?

The current debate in the United States over judicial appointments and the lack of rational discord on both sides of the debate has led me to review the art of persuasion. My problem is that I am in love with logic. I admire anyone who can effectively argue their position, even if I would completely disagree with their conclusions. What has pained me over the years is the discovery that rational thought has been steadily losing influence over the power of emotional pressure. More time than not, thinking is being displaced by feeling as the final persuader.

Actually there are three primary obstacles that need to be overcome before someone would change their different point of view. These are known as the factual barrier, the ethical barrier, and the emotional barrier. The factual barrier is the first and generally, easiest to overcome. It states that we do not want to accept a new fact when it contradicts a truth we already accept. Obviously the longer we have held a particular idea, the harder it will be to convinced otherwise. The logical barrier is overcome when the new source of information is more credible than what has already been accepted.

The last two weeks focused on changes in diplomacy and media since the New Millennium, and this essay will deal with developments in higher education.  To fully appreciate the changes we are witnessing and will continue to witness in colleges and universities in the future, it is necessary to start right at the beginning of instructed learning.  The history of education begins with what might be termed the apprentice-master relationship.  From the earliest time, a master craftsman took on a young apprentice and through hands-on learning, trained them in the skills they possessed.