Religion and Contemporary Management

Arthur J. Wolak

Description

A probing analysis of the qualities that make a great leader, revealed through the biblical Moses and contemporary ideas on leadership.

‘Leadership’ is crucial to contemporary business, politics, and organizations of every type, including the corporate, non-profit, educational, and government sectors. While modern leadership theorists suggest various models, traits, and approaches to leadership behavior that purport novelty, Ecclesiastes just may have been right that ‘There is nothing new under the sun’. The biblical figure of Moses – a familiar name both to adherents of the Western religious traditions and to people who are not – provides an exemplary model of effective leadership that is broadly applicable. Moses is depicted in the Bible as exhibiting ‘heroic’ and ‘charismatic’ tendencies. He was certainly empathic. Yet Moses also shows ‘transactional’, ‘transformational’ and ‘visionary’ leadership qualities. A leader of good character, Moses exhibits features similar to the Yiddish term, ‘mensch’ – someone showing responsibility and integrity, knowing right from wrong.

Though few might think of Moses as a ‘leader’ or a ‘manager’ in the contemporary sense, Moses not only holds a firm place among the most significant leaders in Western civilization but is arguably the quintessential example of leadership from whom much can be learned by people entering and occupying leadership positions. While current leadership and management vocabulary might differ from the Hebrew Bible, many of the traits, behaviors and actions advocated by modern leadership theorists appear to emulate those of Moses. Wolak contrasts contemporary leadership ideas with biblical and rabbinic sources that show Moses’ leadership qualities, Moses serves as an ancient model with current relevance for what modern leadership theorists argue make for an effective leader.

‘Religion and Contemporary Management’ discusses and compares original and critical biblical and rabbinic sources with current business leadership and management literature, revealing what leadership theorists’ advocate today largely emulates what the Bible depicts as effective leadership through Moses’ example. Hence, Moses’ influence on current leadership trends in Western culture appears pervasive, even if contemporary leadership theorists do not typically cite Moses as an important source for leadership precedent.

Acknowledgements; Foreword by Ruth Sandberg; Foreword by Larry Pate; About the Author; Epigraph; Introduction; 1. Ancient Leadership for Present Times; 2. Defining Leadership; 3. Leaders and Managers; 4. Heroism, Charisma and Their Limitations; 5. Empathic Leadership; 6. Humility – the Antithesis of Arrogance; 7. Moses’ Essential Leadership Skills; 8. Assessing Moses’ Leadership Style; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Sujets

• Religión
• Leadership
• Management

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 21 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783086016
• Langue: English

Extrait

Religion and Contemporary Management
Religion and Contemporary Management

Moses as a Model for Effective Leadership
Arthur J. Wolak
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2016
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

Copyright © Arthur J. Wolak 2016

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wolak, Arthur J., author.
Title: Religion and contemporary management : Moses as a model for
effective leadership / Arthur J. Wolak.
Description: New York : Anthem Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016036847 | ISBN 9781783085996 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Moses (Biblical leader) | Leadership in the Bible. |
Leadership. | Management.
Classification: LCC BS580.M6 W65 2016 | DDC 222/.1092–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036847

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-599-6 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-599-1 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
To my mother, Elizabeth Wolak, and in memory of my father, Dr. Edward Wolak, who always encouraged a traditional focus on study as a result of Jewish culture, tradition and education in their native Poland; to my wife, Anna, and my brother, Richard; and to my children, Jacob, Joshua and Julia, who may one day read this book among the broader corpus of biblical and rabbinic sources and become effective leaders in any endeavor they choose to pursue.
“Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the Lord singled out, face to face.”
—Deuteronomy 34:10

“When the righteous become great the people rejoice, but when the wicked dominate the people groan.”
—Proverbs 29:2
Contents
Foreword
Ruth Sandberg
Foreword
Larry Pate
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
1. Ancient Leadership for Present Times
2. Defining Leadership
3. Leaders and Managers
4. Heroism, Charisma and Their Limitations
5. Empathic Leadership
6. Humility—the Antithesis of Arrogance
7 . Moses’ Essential Leadership Skills
8. Assessing Moses’ Leadership Style
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
FOREWORD
At first blush, the ancient biblical figure of Moses does not appear to have anything in common with today’s political or financial leaders. What Dr. Arthur Wolak has accomplished in his work is to show us that, in fact, Moses has a great deal to teach contemporary leaders. Dr. Wolak also succeeds in connecting the most current work on effective leadership with the figure of Moses, as well as in demonstrating that all the leadership skills most desired today have their roots in the text of the Hebrew Bible as personified by Moses.
Dr. Wolak carefully and thoroughly outlines an amazing array of leadership characteristics described in the Hebrew Bible that are associated with Moses. After reading this work, one is confronted with the following list of leadership traits: humility, empathy, power sharing, vision, tenacity, heroism, self-reflection, patience, charisma, wisdom, compassion and perseverance. In addition, Moses is also shown to exhibit the ability to engender trust, to inspire others, to resolve conflicts, to push people beyond their boundaries, to delegate and to speak truth to power.
This list of qualifications at first glance seems an impossible one for any single human being to possess and more appropriate perhaps for a messianic figure. What Moses shows us, however, is that one human being can reach many, if not most, of these leadership traits, if he or she is willing to take on the lifelong discipline of continual character development and moral growth necessary to foster these traits. What Dr. Wolak has done is to show us that the best leaders are those who strive constantly for self- development first before expecting this from others.
Dr. Wolak also demonstrates the ways in which Moses intuitively moves between the roles of leader and manager, and how he succeeds in many different forms of leadership—transactional, transformational and visionary. At the same time, this work focuses on the important theme of the many human imperfections associated with Moses. As great a leader as he is, Moses is just a human being with humanity’s inherent flaws. His anger can get out of control; he is not an eloquent orator due to a speech impediment; he has moments of self-doubt and fear. Yet these very weaknesses are what contribute to his great leadership. By having a humble ego, Moses is not interested in power for its own sake or in self-aggrandizement, but is instead a leader who has compassion for those he is leading and an eagerness to share power with those who serve him. Dr. Wolak points out that the dangers of the charismatic cult leader, to whom so many people have been susceptible in the modern world, are not found in Moses, who is its very antithesis.
Dr. Wolak’s most important contribution is his insistence that the biblical and rabbinic traditions of Judaism have an important place in Western society, and that the leadership concepts that are assumed to be contemporary discoveries are in fact part of an ancient culture that has much to teach the modern world.
Ruth Sandberg, PhD
Leonard and Ethel Landau Professor of Rabbinics
Gratz College
FOREWORD

“As a tree is known by its fruit, so man by his works.”
—The Talmud
When Arthur asked me to write a foreword to his book Religion and Contemporary Management: Moses as a Model for Effective Leadership , I was honored and a little surprised. Although I have spent the past 30 years studying and teaching the various facets of leadership and spent several years teaching at a Jesuit university, Loyola Marymount University, I’m not exactly a religious scholar. My focus has been on the modern history of leadership rather than ancient practices.
As I contemplated further, though, I began to ask myself, “Are things really that different?” For thousands of years, there have been effective leaders and corrupt ones. Whether a leader is in politics, business or religion, the dynamics are the same. People are the same. The blazing scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Volkswagen and too many other companies illustrate that the age-old battle between right and wrong still rages on. 1
In the wake of these scandals, we don’t need more standards-based guidelines or accounting-based rules to cover every possible situation. Instead, we need leaders of character and integrity. We need leaders who don’t put their own egos and greed ahead of the welfare of the company and its employees. We need principled leaders who make ethically based decisions while considering how both other people and the environment will be affected by their actions. 2 Frankly, we need more leaders like Moses.
Although people and their characters haven’t changed much, the demands of leadership have increased. Perhaps today more than ever, people have extraordinarily high expectations of leaders. Leaders are expected to be decisive, strong, commanding, ethical, honest, fair, balanced, thoughtful and just about any other redeeming quality you can think of.
In addition to these personal qualities, leaders are also expected to have a skill set that is above and beyond that of the people they lead. If the people are negotiators, the leader is expected to be the best negotiator. If the people are athletes, the leader is expected to have knowledge and understanding in every aspect of the sport. If the people are in academics, the leader is expected to be an expert in the field in addition to leading. Is it really fair to expect all those qualities to be present in one person? Is there some underlying trait that can be considered the foundation of effective leadership?
In Religion and Contemporary Management: Moses as a Model for Effective Leadership, Arthur makes the case that humility and empathy are at the core of effective leadership. And for those of us who have worked with humble, empathetic leaders and with those who are not, we know firsthand that the differences between them are great.
For those who work with a person who is a poor leader, every day is a struggle. At any given time, feelings of frustration, anger, helplessness and disillusionment are present. For those who work with a humble, empathetic leader, though, the experience is much different. At any given time, feelings of inspiration, passion, commitment, excitement, connection and accomplishment are present. One leader brings his or her people down. The other lifts them up. 3
The latter kinds of leaders are often called “servant leaders.” In an article on servant leader attributes, Robert Russell and A. Gregory Stone identified several characteristics of servant leaders. 4 These include listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresigh