Entrepreneurial Leadership

Issue No. 279 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting includes a powerful book that addresses why entrepreneurs struggle with the church and vice versa. Plus, this reminder: check out my “new and improved” Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Stop Squelching Entrepreneurs!

Do you work with a serial entrepreneur, perhaps on your board or in your department—and you’re scratching your head wondering, “What makes this person tick and how can I leverage their gifts without going nuts myself?”—then have I got a book for you!

Rick Goossen and Paul Stevens have written a brilliant gift book to the church, Entrepreneurial Leadership: Finding Your Calling, Making a Difference. Two big issues jumped out immediately:
   • Why entrepreneurs struggle in their relationship with the church.
   • Why the church struggles with entrepreneurs.

“Let’s be frank,” Goossen and Stevens admit, “entrepreneurs are not always the easiest people to deal with. In fact entrepreneurs may be among the most challenging for any organization. They can be impatient, action-oriented and nonbureaucratic.”

They add, “The challenge for the church is to harness, rather than squelch, the energies and passions of entrepreneurs in their midst.”

Since 2004, Goossen has interviewed over 250 entrepreneurs, compiling massive data on the intersection of Christian faith and entrepreneurship. Probing entrepreneurs in Europe, Africa and North America, the “Entrepreneurial Leader Research Program” (ELRP) is unequaled in its depth and practical conclusions and is based on responses to the “Entrepreneurial Leader Questionnaire” (ELQ).  Note: the extensive 10-page ELQ is included in the appendix to the fifth in a series of books by Goossen, Entrepreneurial Leaders V: Reflections on Faith at Work (click here for a free download of this 132-page book).

Up front, the authors address the big question—is entrepreneurship inborn or can it be taught? They quote Peter Drucker (“Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.”) and balance the sages with the practitioners (It can’t be taught. “You either have it in you or you don’t.”)

They land on five tenants of entrepreneurship:
   • Innovation
   • Seizing opportunities
   • Gaining personal satisfaction through innovation
   • Doing risk analysis
   • Developing entrepreneurial habits

If you’re a long-time reader of Your Weekly Staff Meeting, perhaps you’ve noted the entrepreneurial theme in previous book reviews and articles such as: Corporate Entrepreneurship: How to Create a Thriving Entrepreneurial Spirit Throughout Your Company (Robert D. Hisrich and Claudine Kearney), Entrepreneurship (Hisrich, Peters and Shepherd), PastorPreneur: Pastors and Entrepreneurs Answer the Call (John Jackson), and my two-page article, “Entrepreneurial Wisdom: 5 Career-Saving Principles for Ministry Entrepreneurs.”

But what does all of this have to do with Christ-followers who are blessed with entrepreneurial leadership gifts?  Here’s where Goossen and Stevens deliver a mammoth gift to our theology of work and entrepreneurship. If you’re a Jesus person, your understanding of entrepreneurship will be skewed without their insight. Newly plowed ground includes:
   • Why they do not use the term “Christian entrepreneur” and what they mean by the “Christian” work heresy.
   • The difference between humanist and Christian models of entrepreneurship.
   • In discussing what leaders do, they cite biblical examples of good and bad leaders. (The bad list: King Saul, Diotrephes, and King Solomon. The good list: Nehemiah, Daniel, David, Paul and Jesus.)
   • On “Soul & Spirituality” they discuss “the marketplace as a location for spiritual formation” and why “marketplace spirituality” is not an oxymoron.
   • On the much debated topic, “Meaning & Work Ethic,” they are provocative with an Old Testament case study in “meaningless work.”
   • Why good theology is a foundation for good entrepreneurship.
   • On the issues of “Risk and Reward,” taste these tidbits: The Risk-Taking God, Reframing the Pursuit of Rewards, and The Temptations of Reward-Seeking.

Amazingly jam-packed with resource-rich footnotes (almost every page) that support their fresh and concise thinking, every chapter delivers. Example: “Five Understandings of Calling.” 
     One myth:
   “Calling is a one-time event.”

In their very practical treatment on “Practicing Entrepreneurial Leadership,” they tackle seven principles including: Knowing to What You Are Called, Engaging in Spiritual Disciplines, and Managing Your Own Ego.  (Good news: “The most quoted verse among Entrepreneurial Leaders is Micah 6:8.”)

In the “Sustaining Entrepreneurial Leadership” chapter, there are seven more principles—all keepers: 1) Sharing Faith Responsibly, 2) Avoiding Hypocrisy, 3) Dealing with Betrayal, 4) Balancing the Serpent and the Dove, 5) Handling Both Financial Rewards and Losses, 6) Giving Effectively, and 7) Managing the Work-Life Tension.

“Along with an entrepreneur’s wallet,” warn the authors, “comes his entrepreneurial spirit.” And if all the entrepreneur senses is criticism in the use of his or her gifts, this will lead from “disenchantment to disenfranchisement.”

How can you not order a case of these books? Give this book to your entrepreneurial colleagues, pastors and nonprofit leaders who must address this egregious entrepreneur-church gap. It’s a perfect group study book: each chapter includes questions for reflection and discussion, plus a mini Bible study.

The book concludes with a powerful 26-line “Entrepreneurial Commission” so your church or ministry can mark the beginning of a new era: leveraging entrepreneurial gifts out of the spectator-heavy pews and into the world. (“Take wise risks knowing that your gracious God is inviting you so to do…”)

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for: Entrepreneurial Leadership: Finding Your Calling, Making a Difference, by Richard J. Goossen and R. Paul Stevens.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The authors write that “without some risk there will be no innovation. But successful entrepreneurs are neither risk-averse nor risk-addicted.” Tell us about an entrepreneur who has effectively integrated the Christian faith and entrepreneurship. Was his or her church a cheerleader or naysayer?
2) The authors share a discernment principle that “the will of God is not like a detailed blueprint but more like an empowering vision.” Do you agree?
3) In the chapter on “Finding Your Calling,” the authors note “that there is also not a single instance in the New Testament of a person being called supernaturally to be a religious professional.” What do you think about that?

New ECFA 2014 Standard on Compensation - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

If you serve on a nonprofit ministry or church board (or serve on the staff) then this issue’s big idea from Mastering the Management Buckets (Chapter 15, The Budget Bucket) is important to note.

Does your organization meet the ECFA Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship™? A new standard on “Compensation and Related Party Transactions” becomes effective Jan. 1, 2014. “Every organization shall set compensation of its top leader and address related-party transactions in a manner that demonstrates integrity and propriety in conformity with ECFA's Policy for Excellence in Compensation-Setting and Related-Party Transactions.”

For more resources, visit the Budget Bucket webpage, including a resource for risk-averse or risk-addicted board members, Who's Minding the Money? An Investment Guide for Nonprofit Board Members, by Robert P. Fry Jr.

Comments

[Kefa]

My opinion,Love for money is hindering entrepreneurs to put God first in their business endevours

[Antonina]

i like your article. i should read extensively

[maryjane]

thank you for this.