Shepherd Leadership: Wisdom for Leaders from Psalm 23 (Hardcover)

by Blaine McCormick (Author), David Davenport (Author) "There seems to be no end of books for aspiring leaders..." (more)
Key Phrases: shepherd leadership, intellectual conflict, Psalmist David, Shepherd Doing, Shepherd Thinking (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"What a joy to learn that David Davenport has placed his thoughts on paper! He has touched thousands with his teaching— may he and Blaine touch even more through this book."
— Max Lucado, bestselling author and pulpit minister, Oak Hills Church of Christ

"Providing fresh insight into one of the most cherished texts in the Bible, David Davenport and Blaine McCormick walk with us beside the "quiet waters" of our contemplation and embolden us for ethical, fearless, and transformational leadership."
— Andrew K. Benton, president, Pepperdine University

"Shepherd Leadership extracts spiritual insights from the writings of one who was anointed by God to lead, David. It makes a tremendous contribution, not to the 'science' of leadership but, far more significantly, to its heart and soul."
— Richard Stearns, president, World Vision United States

"Shepherd Leadership is remarkable for showing how timeless truths— from one of the most significant passages in the Bible— apply to the complexities of contemporary organizations. It's abundantly clear that when leaders accept the call to lead like a shepherd, not only is the organizational culture improved, but so is the bottom line."
— Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager and The Servant Leader and cofounder of the Center for FaithWalk Leadership

Product Description
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me bedside the still waters;
He restoreth my soul.

Today's professionals need reliable models to teach them how to become better leaders. In this remarkable book, leadership experts Blaine McCormick and David Davenport introduce us to a new kind of leader by offering a new image of leadership— the leader as shepherd.
Drawing on the wisdom of the timeless Twenty-Third Psalm, King David's psalm, the authors provide professionals with ancient wisdom for grappling with today's leadership challenges. Shepherd Leadership offers a much-needed lens through which to consider our own leadership as well as the leadership of those around us. This important book teaches us important lessons about leadership: we can be vigilant without being adversarial, we can serve without being passive, and we can guide without commanding. Shepherd Leadership offers a visionary new model for transforming leadership practices in both corporate and small business settings. This is whole-person leadership. It's not just a matter of thinking or doing things a certain way. It's a fully integrated life— a matter of head and hand and heart. It's a way of thinking and doing and being.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass (October 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787966339
• ISBN-13: 978-0787966331
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #704,769 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing Model, November 18, 2003

By	Tom McCarty (TX United States) - See all my reviews

In Shepherd Leadership, McCormick and Davenport present a refreshing model of leadership which takes the person as a whole into account. As someone who is young in my career, I found this book valuable in helping to develop my management style and philosophy. I left business school with strategies, theories, and policy, but very little in the way of leadership practices, which left me treading water when first entering a management role.

One section that stood out for me was the shepherd leader's toolkit. The compass and the frame represent two valuable practices for leaders at any level. The compass reminds you to set clear direction to navigate through the maze of information, reports, meetings, and endless action items that you encounter on a daily basis. The frame sets boundaries and expectations for your organization while still allowing your employees room to creatively explore new approaches.

A fantastic read for anyone who's just been thrown in the deep end of management!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspired, October 25, 2003

By	FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

In a world full of leadership and management style handbooks, can we stand one more? Certainly, if this one - 'Shepherd Leadership: Wisdom for Leaders from Psalm 23' - is that one.

I picked up this book more out of curiosity than anything else. I wondered how such a manual could be developed. As a minister, I've preached on Psalm 23 a number of times, and have studied it both in seminary and outside, but the idea of using it in this way was a new, and I must admit, at first a suspect idea. I am happy to be proven incorrect in my initial assessment, as this book has proven to be insightful and wonderful in many ways.

McCormick is a professor of business (Baylor) and Davenport a professor of public policy (Pepperdine, where he was also president of the university). Together they brought practical and real-world focus on the ancient poem from Israel. Addressing it in a very business-methodical manner, McCormick and Davenport take the psalm line by line, deriving the maximum meaning from each piece individually before drawing it all together in a final meditation.

In the introduction, McCormick and Davenport recount the story of Maggie Lena Walker, who was an unlikely African American leader during the Reconstruction Era and shortly thereafter. She undertook the care and 'shepherding' of her community in Richmond, Virginia, becoming a very successful entrepreneur and community leader in the process. 'Like Walker, leaders become shepherds when they awaken to the reality that their actions and decisions can improve the quality of their followers' lives forever.'

Shepherd and sheep form a mutually beneficial relationship - it is incorrect to think of a shepherd as all-powerful, or even the only powerful one in this situation. Sheep require care and tending, but sheep do have minds of their own, and must be tended by someone both caring and clever, a shepherd-leader who cares both for the entire flock as well as each individual within the flock. Shepherds are also characterised by their presence with the flocks - they aren't remote, distant, from-on-high kinds of leaders. The shepherd knows his sheep, and the sheep know their shepherd.

Going through the psalm line by line, McCormick and Davenport show aspects of sheep and shepherding that relate to everyday problems of individuals and organisations, as well as the large macro-cosmic problems of life, economies, and leadership authority. Whether or not the reader is called to be in the position as shepherd or sheep (and we all occupy these roles at different times in our lives), the reader will gain insight, and perhaps even in the role of a sheep, learn to guide an unresponsive shepherd toward right paths of action. The authors draw upon personal experience, business history, political and social theory, and common sense to help demonstrate their points.

This text is not heavy theology or biblical study; while McCormick and Davenport draw in references such as Rabbi Kushner and Parker Palmer, the text itself remains free of strong 'biblical' or theological biases that might limit the reader's appreciation or comprehension. In addition to doing basic background investigation in leadership and business areas, they also had the insight to ask actual shepherds how they manage their tasks, to see if in fact the shepherd model we mostly urban and suburban readers of Psalm 23 assume to be true is in fact accurate.

McCormick and Davenport also provide twelve versions of Psalm 23 in an appendix - many readers will automatically default to the familiar King James Version, that is unrivaled in its poetic strength. However, like many ancient, translated documents, there are insights to be found in the comparison of multiple translations, so that certain nuances and hidden meanings lost in the translation process may become more apparent in the multiple texts.

This is a fascinating text full of insight and grace.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A more effective management style, December 9, 2003

By	Cynthia Jackson (Central Texas) - See all my reviews

Book Review by Robert Tunmire (from Baylor Business Review, Fall '03)

Many leaders, like me, have highly dominant personalities. We may struggle with the "softer side" of managing. Shepherd Leadership: Wisdom for Leaders from Psalm 23 gives us excellent reasoning and examples of how a "softer" - yet truthful and effective - approach can be a more effective management style.

The analogy of the leader as shepherd is a credible one, and presented in a straightforward manner. The authors clearly lay out, guided by Psalm 23, what a shepherd's responsibilities are and how that applies to a leader's responsibilities in the real world of business. Each chapter ends with two items: "Shepherd Thinking," and "Shepherd Doing," assisting with application of the chapter's concepts.

Read the rest of this review at
http://www.baylor.edu/bbr/index.php?id=10399