DERAILED: An amazing read on the dark side of Leadership......

Wow!!!! This is the kind of book that I would require all my pastors and lay leaders read when I become a Senior Pastor. This book has caused me to revisit my presuppositons about the darkside of leadership and the facade in my own life. I am deeply appereciative to the King of Heaven that in His soverignty, He brought this book across my path. After reading this book, I immediately ordered four copies for  four leaders in life.  If you are a leader who is linchpin in your orangization and deisre a book that will rock your personal space and cause you to access your character. Email me @ [email protected] with your address in the next 24 hours and I will ship in copy in 5 weeks. On the grounds that you will write me a one page paper about this  book by Dr. Tim Irvin. Here are some quotes from :

1. Leaders make mistakes.
2. It cannot be overstated how stress impacts behavior...Stress is one this pressure that squeeze out what really inside us.
3. When arrogance blossoms into hubris, a sense of entitlement results. “This place can’t function without me, and I deserve special perks.”  I’ve seen it in secretaries of mom and pop companies. It’s not a function of the size of the organization or the level of the person in that organization.
4. Some leaders blinded by their own success even begin to treat the company like their personal ATM.
5. We all posses a dark curiosity about the misfortunes of others. Would we rather watch a new program about ten trains arriving at the station on time or a story about a train that derailed, with vivid images of brave rescue workers removing bleeding survivors from the twisted wreckage?
6.  To see clearly we must sometimes look into the darkness. To see what is really there, we must be willing to enter space which appears devoid of the normal light on which we so heavily rely..............Paradoxically looking  into darkness can be remarkably enlightening.
7. A given strength can quickly become a weakness.....Similarly a strength over used can become a weakness.
8. Courage is not being unafraid. It’s about choosing to do the right things under difficult circumstances.
9. We need to be ruthlessly intolerant of this toxic character compromiser when we see it in ourselves.
10.  If humility is having an accurate self image and being other-oriented, then arrogance is it’s mirror opposite. Each executive profiled manifested this debilitating quality.

This book has forced me to access my productivity level as Christian leader and to consider character development. I commend this book to every gifted leader and talented leader.

Grace and Peace

Pastor James Owolabi