Tag Archives: Leadership

Leadership Development among Navajo Youth

Posted on by

Michael P. Shead

Senior Paper

International Community Development

Oral Roberts University

Tulsa, Oklahoma

December 7, 1999

Part II: The Community Development Project

For part one click here

Leadership training among the Navajo men  between ages 12 and 17 in the Shiprock Agency of the Navajo Nation Reservation.

A Note From the Researcher.

A comprehensive documentation of the needs and suggested solutions for any people group would probably fill volumes.  This document is not, by any means, an attempt to address all the needs of the Navajo people but to identify specific leadership issues and present a possible solution in this area.

This project is an effort to contribute an organized leadership training program for young Navajo men.  Its purpose is to train up young leaders who know Jesus Christ as Savior and friend and who will be able, honest, and wise leaders in every area of Navajo life.  This project will take on several stages before completion: analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation and empowerment.

Michael Shead

Tulsa, 1999

Continue reading →

Defining Community Development

Posted on by

Michael P. Shead

Senior Paper

International Community Development

Oral Roberts University

Tulsa, Oklahoma

December 7, 1999

 

 Part I

Chapter 1: A definite purpose and plan

Defining Community Development

Community development is a process. Development is a long-term process of helping people to help themselves.  It is said, “Give a man a fish and you will have fed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you will have fed him for a lifetime”.  This is the concept of community development–to empower people to care for and improve themselves.

In his book, Two Ears of Corn, Roland Bunch defined community development as “A process whereby people learn to take charge of their own lives and solve their own problems.” (1982).  It is a development of attitude as well as resources. Bunch noted that poverty is often linked directly to mental attitudes more than actual physical situations (1982).

Community development includes many different areas: agriculture, economics, literacy, hygiene, and others.  No matter what area in which the development is taking place it is important to remember that the purpose is to empower the people within their own society and culture so that changes are coming from within the culture and from the people, not merely because an outside influence is changing them.

In 1973 Dale Kietzman presented a definition of community development to the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).  He said, “Community Development is the process of helping to strengthen a community (and its leadership) so that it can resolve, through its own initiative, the problems which face it” (Yost & Yost, 1999). Continue reading →

Leadership: Art or Science

Posted on by

Recently a friend asked me what I thought about leadership. Is it an art or science?
I think it’s both.

While personality traits that lend themselves to leadership may be born into an individual, I believe that most of the qualities of good leadership are developed through the experiences, examples, training, and effort that an individual has or gives.

Similar to musicians, there are those naturally born with an ability to lead and there are those who have to put in much time and effort growing into a leader. However, those who hone, craft, and develop these skills are the ones who receive the benefits of good results. Leadership is a science in that it is developed through processes, but it is an art in how it must be executed in a way to be well received by others.

It’s a bit like engineering and designing a chair. The engineer makes the structure so it won’t fall down. The designer makes it look like something upon which someone will want to sit. You need both. A leader who is all science will probably have difficulty finding people to lead.

Someone who is all ‘art’ as a leader will not really have somewhere he is leading the people to. You need both art and science in your leadership development.