“Leaders in the United States have needed to heed the message of this book for years. Roger Parrott explains how leaders can best serve their people and the organizations they lead. Leading others is like running a marathon, not a sprint, and Roger Parrott is a leadership marathoner par excellence! I highly recommend this book.”The Longview Book
This is my 21st year as a college president, so I hope I've learned something along the way, and I am pleased to have put together many of my leadership ideas in this book. Those who know me, you won't be surprised that some concepts run against the norm of traditional thinking, such as the chapter: Planning Will Drain the Life from Your Ministry.
On page 11 and 12, you'll see my call is for us to break free from the immediate result-driven culture that has taken over business and permeated the church as well.
Our theology and our ministry passion draw us to talk about longview outcomes as our heart's desire, but we have been duped into fostering a generation of leaders, board members, employees, and constituencies who value short-term gain over longview significance. Ministry leaders believe it and act accordingly-hiring and rewarding people who can promote Band-Aid fixes as monumental solutions, creating plans that promise the moon and always come up short, raising funds from unrealistically compressed donor relationships, and touting to boards and constituencies those results that can most easily be measured and applauded.
Because this short-view corporate culture has so permeated the church today, we in ministry have loosened our grip on the biblical model of leadership....The time is right for rising leaders to break free from the short-term leadership patterns of the past and set their sites on the horizon to ensure a life of leadership that will be honoring to God and bring us to principles that will allow the church to make a transformational difference in the world.
We need to be leading for significance rather than giving into the pressure for short-term results. This book not only calls us to this priority but deals with the practical implications of leading for the longview.
Read an excerpt below from The Longview, view the Table of Contents or purchase a copy today.
The Longview , by Dr. Roger Parrott
Table of Contents
| Intro | The Challenge: Take the Longview |
| 1. | Lead As If You'll Be There Forever |
| 2. | Deflate Your Ego to Expand Your Influence |
| 3. | Applause Lasts for a Moment but Leadership Is for a Lifetime |
| 4. | Vulnerability May Get You In but Humility Keeps You There |
| 5. | Renewal: The Energy Drink of Lasting Leadership |
| 6. | The Bookends of a Leader’s Character – Evaluation and Accountability |
| 7. | Preempting the Stickiest Challenge of Long-Term Leadership |
| 8. | Planning Will Drain the Life from Your Ministry |
| 9. | Keep Your Eyes on the Horizon and in the Rearview Mirror |
| 10. | Shepherding a Vision Without Scaring Away the Flock |
| 11. | Good Ideas Stand Up to the Light of Day |
| 12. | Creating a Longview Culture That Can Thrive Without You |
| 13. | Catching the Wind of God |