A Brief Annotated Bibliography on Leadership

Jeffrey P. Greenman

There is an enormous and ever-expanding body of literature on the topic of leadership.

The list below reflects my own personal recommendations about some valuable resources
for Christian leaders, whether in congregational settings or secular workplaces. The
majority of entries here are by Christian writers. In addition, there are books by “secular”
authors, since my assumption is that “all truth is God’s truth,” and that Christians can
gain valuable insights from writers whose values and assumptions that are compatible or
overlapping with biblical principles. The list is organized simply in alphabetical order,
and I have made no attempt to rank these books in terms of importance. I have tried,
however, to look at leadership in fairly broad terms, and to point to excellent materials on
a range of key issues facing leaders.

Banks, Robert & Bernice M. Ledbetter, Reviewing Leadership: A Christian

Evaluation of Current Approaches (Baker, 2004).
This book provides an enormously useful overview of important leadership literature.
The book offers a theological engagement with the field of leadership, while being alert
to the practical dimensions of the issues at stake. They discuss a wide range of
materials—both popular and more scholarly, as well both Christian and secular writers.

Bolman, Lee G. & Terrence E. Deal, Reframing Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 1991).

The authors develop the insight that organizational leaders need to develop the ability to
read or interpret their contexts in comprehensive or holistic ways. They describe four
“frames” or interpretive lenses that people employ in daily life and workplace
interactions (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) and suggest that leaders
need to learn to think in all four frames simultaneously.

Callahan, Kennon L., Effective Church Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 1990).

The author is a leading church consultant and writer on congregational development and
pastoral ministry. This book makes a particularly valuable contribution to the leadership
literature because it examines congregational leadership from the standpoint of a
missional understanding of the church. His oft-quoted statement is: “The day of the
professional minister is over. The day of the missionary pastor has come.” Callahan
discusses what is involved in moving the church from an inward orientation to an
outward engagement with the world, including important insights on leadership
structures, approaches to evaluation and ways of rethinking congregational planning.

Clinton, J. Robert, The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of
Leadership Development (NavPress, 1988).
Clinton’s teaching and writings have made a significant impact on a wide range of
evangelical Christian leaders. This book describes the typical means that God uses to
shape the life of a leader and the typical stages of development within a leader’s career. It
is particularly useful in opening up personal reflection toward self-understanding.

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DePree, Max, Leadership is An Art (Doubleday, 1989).
Written by an influential Christian leader in the marketplace, this book is the author’s
reflections on his approach to leadership as practiced at Herman Miller Inc., a major
furniture company. DePree advocates a relational, person-oriented, values-driven
approach that liberates people to use their gifts and to share together in meaningful work.

Hammond, Pete, R. Paul Stevens & Todd Svanoe, The Marketplace Annotated
Bibliography: A Christian Guide to Books on Work, Business & Vocation
(InterVarsity Press, 2002).
One of today’s most strategic ministries is the “marketplace-faith” movement, in which
Pete Hammond and Paul Stevens have been key leaders over the past two decades. This
volume is a 200-page annotated bibliography of over 700 books in English that explore
the connections between Christian faith and the everyday worklife of people Monday
through Saturday. An expansive range of materials is sampled, on topics including career
guidance, theologies of work and leisure, Christian understandings of business, the role
of the laity in the marketplace, workplace ministry, personal evangelism in work settings,
and much more.

Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing
the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Harvard Business School Press, 2002).
Goleman is one of the main pioneers of the concept of “emotional intelligence.” In a
series of books, he has described the skills of self-management and relating to others that
are essential for healthy leadership. This book, written with his colleagues at Harvard, is
based on empirical studies of 188 corporations, examining what factors best account for
effective leadership. The book argues that emotional intelligence is more important than
specific skills or innate intelligence. The authors also correlate the concept of emotional
intelligence with a helpful taxonomy of six leadership styles.

Nouwen, Henri, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership

(Crossroad, 1989).
This is a very short, and deeply personal, articulation of the spiritual challenges and
temptations facing Christian leaders, written by one of the most prominent Catholic
spiritual writers of the 20th century. He connects the practices of leadership with the
spiritual disciplines of contemplative prayer, confession, and theological reflection.

Parker, Glenn M., Team Players and Teamwork (Jossey-Bass, 1990).

I have found Parker to be the best single book on teamwork. Christian books about
teamwork often draw heavily on Parker’s analysis. His taxonomy of ways that people
contribute to teams (contributor, collaborator, communicator, challenger) is very helpful.

Quinn, Robert E., Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within (Jossey-Bass, 1996).
Leaders are people who are responsible for fostering meaningful and significant change
in their contexts. This is an outstanding book on the topic of change, developing the
concept of “deep change” to describe change that is major in scope, discontinuous with
the past, generally irreversible, distorts existing patterns, involves taking risks and means

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surrendering control. Quinn believes that deep change is always a “spiritual process.” My
view is that the church in a post-Christian Western culture is facing “deep change” and
that church leaders would benefit from reading this account of what it involves.

Roxburgh, Alan, with Mike Regele, Crossing the Bridge: Church Leadership in a
Time of Change (Precept Group, 2000).
Roxburgh, a core member of the Gospel and Our Culture Network, addresses the
church’s challenges moving into the postmodern cultural milieu. He explores our
“liminal” situation, between the “known world” and our “missional” future. The book is
particularly valuable in describing phases of transition and what is demanded of leaders
who are moving into new congregational paradigms. Roxburgh emphasizes the leader’s
role as poet, prophet and apostle in the missional church.

Stanley, Paul D. & J. Robert Clinton, Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You
Need to Succeed in Life (NavPress, 1992).
Currently there is widespread interest in mentoring as component of leadership
development. The most useful single book, from a Christian perspective, is Stanley and
Clinton’s volume. The book describes eight types of mentoring (the discipler, spiritual
guide, coach, counsellor, teacher, sponsor, contemporary model, historical model). The
authors also emphasize the value of “peer co-mentoring” and include a practical section
of “Ten Commandments of Mentoring.” This book is the place to start if you are
interested in being mentoring, becoming a mentor, or starting a mentoring program in
your organization.

Sweet, Leonard, AquaChurch: Essential Leadership Arts for Piloting Your Church in
Today’s Fluid Culture (Group, 1999).
Sweet is a leading theologian writing prolifically about issues facing the church in the
postmodern cultural milieu. This book is specifically focused on the essential practices or
“navigational skills” of leadership in congregations who are engaging our Western
culture, such as risk taking, communication, collaboration and teamwork, creativity. He
suggests that the “the top challenge of leadership is this: How do we get people to ask
new questions, to think in different ways?”

One of the best bibliographies of Christian leadership can be found at the website for
Next Level Leadership Canada. The address is: nextlevelleadership.ca/resources.

Updated March 2005