Biblical Principles of Leading and Managing Employees

Bruce E. Winston

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319771366
• eBook ISBN: 9783319771373
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

This book examines the scriptural concepts that apply to leading and managing people. It begins with a chapter that contrasts leaders, managers, and administrators and the roles they each play. The book then presents the seven virtues from the Beatitudes and how these virtues result in leaders and managers' behaviors. The book then reviews the 15 characteristics of what love is and what love is not from the 1 Corinthians 12 passage. The book presents the four modalities of leaders as conveyed in the Ezekiel 1 and 10 chapters, as well as Revelations 4 where Ezekiel and John describe the four faces of the winged beings. The modalities are described in terms of contemporary leaders interacting with employees in the workplace. A chapter follows, based on the Parable of the Vineyard and how leaders should provide a minimum living wage. The book then compares the wife in Proverbs 31 to a good leader/manager in today's contemporary organization. The book ends with an admonition from Ecclesiastes 3:1 about the need for leaders/managers to step away and not meddle when the leader/manager's role is finished. Throughout the book, composite case examples provide practical application of the concepts to contemporary organizations.

© The Author(s) 2018

Bruce E. WinstonBiblical Principles of Leading and Managing EmployeesChristian Faith Perspectives in Leadership and Businesshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77137-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Contrast Leader, Manager, and Administrator

Bruce E. Winston¹

(1)

Regent University, Chesapeake, VA, USA

Bruce E. Winston

Email: [email protected]

Leadership

Management

Administration

Works Cited

End Abstract

For this book, I define leader , manager , and administrator based on the focus of the person’s efforts. A leader is someone who directs and motivates employees to accomplish new, or innovative, tasks that may not have been tried before. To use the Star Trek Motto “to boldly go where no one has gone before,” whereas a manager focuses on maintaining a system and solving problems in the system so that the result is stability, reliability, and integrity of the system. Administrators focus on the routinization of tasks and accept problems as inherent in the system. Administrators focus on correct staffing levels, correct task assignment, and correct task tracking. The above definitions for leaders and managers are similar to what Ratcliffe (2013) suggested, and the definitions for managers and administrators are similar to what Surbhi (2015) proposed.

Leaders focus on people, while managers focus on the process, and administrators focus on the task. These definitions are important for this book in that each is described, in various ways in scripture. In Exodus 3 we find the account of God calling Moses to be a leader and take the Jewish people out of Egypt. We see John the Baptist calling the people to change their behavior and prepare to do something new (Matthew 3). Throughout the gospels we see Jesus calling for change among the Jewish people asking them to engage in a new/different lifestyle.

In the account of building the temple (Ezekiel 41), we see what appears to be a manager planning the process and outcome of the building efforts. In Nehemiah, the book describes both a planning, problem-solving manager overseeing the efforts to rebuild the wall but also a leader seeking to call the Jewish people back to a Hebrew lifestyle and worship style. In another account of the building of the temple (1 Kings Chapter 5), we see Solomon acting as an administrator hiring and assigning tasks. In 1 Kings Chapters 6–8, we see Solomon acting in the role of manager planning and coordinating the process steps of building the temple. In 1 Kings 9, we see the author(s) refer to the ‘forced labor’ called for by Solomon (verse 15), thus showing a focus on the process and not on the ‘employees—in this case, slaves.

Leadership

Winston and Patterson (2006) reviewed the literature available at the time of their study to see how leadership was defined and measured. From their review of the literature they found over 1000 items related to a definition of leadership, which they condensed down to 91 dimensions/factors/categories and from this base developed an integrative definition of leadership:

A leader is one or more people who selects, equips, trains, and influences one or more follower(s) who have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the follower(s) to the organization’s mission and objectives causing the follower(s) to willingly and enthusiastically expend spiritual, emotional, and physical energy in a concerted coordinated effort to achieve the organizational mission and objectives. The leader achieves this influence by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future in clear terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps. In this process, the leader presents the prophetic vision in contrast to the present status of the organization and through the use of critical thinking skills, insight, intuition, and the use of both persuasive rhetoric and interpersonal communication including both active listening and positive discourse, facilitates and draws forth the opinions and beliefs of the followers such that the followers move through ambiguity toward clarity of understanding and shared insight that results in influencing the follower(s) to see and accept the future state of the organization as a desirable condition worth committing personal and corporate resources toward its achievement. The leader achieves this using ethical means and seeks the greater good of the follower(s) in the process of action steps such that the follower(s) is/are better off (including the personal development of the follower as well as emotional and physical healing of the follower) as a result of the interaction with the leader. The leader achieves this same state for his/her self as a leader, as he/she seeks personal growth, renewal, regeneration, and increased stamina—mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual—through the leader–follower interactions.

The leader recognizes the diversity of the follower(s) and achieves unity of common values and directions without destroying the uniqueness of the person. The leader accomplishes this through innovative, flexible means of education, training, support, and protection that provide each follower with what the follower needs within the reason and scope of the organization’s resources and accommodations relative to the value of accomplishing the organization’s objectives and the growth of the follower.

The leader , in this process of leading, enables the follower(s) to be innovative as well as self-directed within the scope of individual-follower assignments and allows the follower(s) to learn from his/her/their own, as well as others’ successes, mistakes, and failures along the process of completing the organization’s objectives. The leader accomplishes this by building credibility and trust with the followers through interaction and feedback to and with the followers that shapes the followers’ values, attitudes, and behaviors towards risk, failure, and success. In doing this, the leader builds the followers’ sense of self-worth and self-efficacy such that both the leader and followers are willing and ready to take calculated risks in making decisions to meet the organization’s goals/objectives, and through repeated process steps of risk-taking and decision-making the leader and followers together change the organization to accomplish the organization’s objectives.

The leader recognizes the impact and importance of audiences outside of the organization’s system and presents the organization to outside audiences in such a manner that the audiences have a clear impression of the organization’s purpose and goals and can see the purpose and goals lived out in the life of the leader. In so doing, the leader examines the fit of the organization relative to the outside environment and shapes both the organization and the environment to the extent of the leader’s capability to insure the best fit between the organization and the outside environment. (pp. 7–8)¹

The definition above speaks to doing new, innovative things, vision, mission, goals, unity of values, expending energy and effort toward the organization’s goals and resonation of the organization’s goals with the employees’ goals.

Management

Fayol, in 1916, posited six functions of management (Mindtools 2017):

1. 1.
   Forecasting
2. 2.
   Planning
3. 3.
   Organizing
4. 4.
   Commanding
5. 5.
   Coordinating
6. 6.
   Controlling

Fayol produced a series of principles for managers, based on the six functions. Note that none of the functions speak to innovation, new direction, vision, values, etc. Nothing wrong with this, but it does show the differences between what a leader does and what a manager does. This is not to say that someone could not be both a leader and a manager, but it helps to know which one is at any given time so that oneself and others can understand the person’s motives, behaviors, and expectations.

Administration

Administration, as defined in the Oxford dictionary is the ‘running of a business’ or ‘the day to day administration of a company’. It is a bit awkward to define administration as ‘administration,’ There is little in the contemporary business peer-reviewed journals about the definition of administration. According to padmad.​org (http://​www.​padmad.​org/​2014/​02/​definition-of-administration-as-defined.​html), the word administration is from the two Latin words ‘ad ministrare’ meaning to ‘to act’ ‘to serve’ or ‘to do.’ According to Randstad.​co.​uk (https://​www.​randstad.​co.​uk/​job-seeker/​career-hub/​archives/​what-does-an-administrator-do_​1175/​), administrators are the ‘oil’ that lubricates the operation of the business.

It is also possible to see someone work as a manager and an administrator . I don’t recall ever seeing someone work as both a leader and an administrator since leaders focus on doing new things rather than the orderly precision of a set of routines.

Works Cited

1. Mindtools. (2017). Henri Fayol’s principles of management. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from https://​www.​mindtools.​com/​pages/​article/​henri-fayol.​htm.
2. Padmad.org. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Contrast Leader, Manager, and Administrator
• 2. Leadership Style as an Outcome of Motive: A Contingency ‘State’ Rather Than ‘Trait’ Concept
• 3. Applications from the Mountaintop
• 4. Harvesting the Fruit of Agapao Leadership
• 5. The Virtue of Love: A Foundation for Leadership
• 6. The Four ‘Leadership’ Faces of Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10, and Revelation 4 Paralleled by the Four Gospels
• 7. The Leadership Styles of Jesus as Found in the Four Gospels
• 8. Compensation
• 9. Leadership According to Proverbs 31
• 10. Stepping Out of the Way When It Is Time to Leave—Ecclesiastes 3:1
• Back Matter