Future Leader: Spirituality, Mentors, Context and Style for Leaders of the Future

by Viv Thomas

Leadership is a key to success in any organization. All the more reason to get it right, says Viv Thomas in a book that sets out to discern the kind of leadership that is needed as we settle into a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0853649499
• ISBN13: 9780853649496
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Paternoster Publishing
• Length: 189 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Followership during blurred times

Renewal is realization and embrace of God's call. Thomas' book brings the reader back to the reality of God's call, a call to lead. He writes, "The great Christian leaders are identified by the quality of their conversation with God." (2003:4) This `inscape' of the leader, as Thomas describes, is "pivotal" to how the leader leads. While this has not been new material, it has been a renewal of sorts for me. It has been a reminder of the importance of relationships. Before plans, capacity to lead, and power to accomplish the vision, there is character and the calling to relationship. Leadership is a reflection of "inscape." This book provides for me a complementary guideline, alongside Oswald Sanders' Spiritual Leadership, for personal and team leadership development. Thomas' leadership principles I will remember and practice include the following: Leadership is intended to be mobile, intended to bless and teach the nations, intended to lead healthy lives, and intended to obey. Thomas speaks of leadership in "blurred times" and our need to find clarity during such times. That clarity comes from re-asserting my followership of God. It's that vision thing which "have a tendency to keep us in trouble; they drive you on to thoughts and actions which tend to clash with other people's agendas." Leadership requires a prophetic vision in a prophetic service.

Christian Leadership Gets Post Modern

Viv Thomas is one of the first Christian author I've read to deal with leadership in a way that reflects the insights (and provocations) of Post Modernity. He recognises the ambiguities and confusions that face every leader (and honest Christian) and, in a concise, readable way, takes the reader through a reflective investigation of what it takes to work through these things. In the end, it is, to my mind, a compelling manifesto of leadership that is thoroughly biblical and that provides a beginning to every leader's necessary escape from a compulsive and perfectionist approach to his or her role, and into a Christ-rooted leadership that serves without fear.