{"id":272,"date":"2004-07-20T15:42:38","date_gmt":"2004-07-20T23:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2004\/07\/20\/reaching-leaders\/"},"modified":"2004-07-20T15:48:52","modified_gmt":"2004-07-20T23:48:52","slug":"reaching-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/07\/20\/reaching-leaders","title":{"rendered":"Reaching Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was blown away by this article from The Origins Project<\/a> newsletter (Emerging Leaders part 1). I believe it was written by Alex McManus, but I\u2019m not altogether certain of that.<\/p>\n

\nAlexander Hamilton was 19 years old when George Washington appointed him as an aid. Impressive enough, except when compared to the fact that at 14, Hamilton set the rules for the sea-faring captains who traded with his employers on St. Croix Island.<\/p>\n

In 1381, Richard II walked onto a field and faced off against Wat Tyler and his mob. Later that same day, after fourteen year old Richard 11 had Wat Tyler beheaded, the young king addressed the mob of peasants with enough sensibility to calm and end Wat Tyler\u2019s Peasant Rebellion.<\/p>\n

Few of us are aware of the way history and culture \u2011not to mention our personal age \u2014 influence our feelings about youthfulness and leadership. In order to create an ethos conducive to including emerging leaders, we\u2019ll need to ask ourselves the question, \u201cAt what age does someone have capacity to lead?\u201d <\/p>\n

Recently I spoke on a University campus and was startled at the youthfulness of the student body. This happens to me every year. In truth, the students are the same age undergraduates have always been. I\u2019m just one year older. Every year, as our church leaders age, the young look younger. The corresponding danger is that we may overlook many of our ablest leaders. <\/p>\n

History is sprinkled with tales of the exploits, achievements and leadership of young adults, even teenagers. Columbus and all the explorers of the new world relied on hard working teens to man their crews. Think about this: Middle school age children setting off on adventures that many adults would lack the courage to undertake. In times past, teenagers could lead armies in battle and young pages could be made knights as early as age 12.<\/p>\n

Contrast this to the head deacon who said of his new \u201cyoung\u201d pastor, \u201cWe\u2019re letting him stretch his wings a little.\u201d Many emerging leaders won\u2019t stretch their wings within a cage of past accomplishments and existing institutions. Emerging leadership will go where it can fly. One question we must ask ourselves is, do we really want young leaders? Or are we only looking for someone to serve in and manage a program we\u2019ve created. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A tip of the hat to Jordan Cooper<\/a> for finding this.<\/p>\n

I keep describing the students at Stanford as \u201cfuture leaders.\u201d I ought to know better, but I sometimes nail them into a box that I ought to be ripping apart on their behalf. <\/p>\n

I will say one thing though\u2013while some students are ready to lead something major from the moment they set foot on campus, others aren\u2019t ready even years after graduation (this isn\u2019t just at Stanford, this is everywhere I\u2019ve been). I guess a huge part of my job ought to be figuring out which tendency a given student has\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was blown away by this article from The Origins Project newsletter (Emerging Leaders part 1). I believe it was written by Alex McManus, but I\u2019m not altogether certain of that. Alexander Hamilton was 19 years old when George Washington appointed him as an aid. Impressive enough, except when compared to the fact that at 14, \u2026 Continue reading \u201cReaching Leaders\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanfordministry-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-4o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}