Andy Rowell

Category: Leadership

  • Dick DeVos needs to resign as Board Chair of the Global Leadership Network due to his consistent record of protecting corrupt leadership

    Devos Wiki

    The DeVos family made it publicly known this week that they will use their money to continue to protect Donald Trump. Their spokesperson made it clear that they are withdrawing future financial support from Justin Amash who became the first Republican in Congress to lay out why the House should begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Dick DeVos continues to be the Board Chair of the Willow Creek Association (now The Global Leadership Network) that shielded for years Bill Hybels as he sexually harassed women and the board was repeatedly warned. After Hybels's resignation, the WCA Board led by DeVos continued to minimize and play down the seriousness of what had occurred. The Global Leadership Summit will continue to be damaged by the weight of DeVos's devoted support for Hybels and Trump as long as DeVos remains on the board. 

    DeVos Twitter

    On May 22, after Justin Amash went public with his criticism of Trump on May 18, the public spokesperson for the DeVos family noted their withdrawal of support of Amash. 

    "DeVos family ends financial support for Rep. Amash"
    By Colby Itkowitz
    May 22
    Washington Post

    See also: 

    DeVos support

    "DeVos family ends longtime Amash support"
    Jonathan Oosting and Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News Published 1:23 p.m. ET May 22, 2019 | Updated 7:26 p.m. ET May 22, 2019

    The Detroit News

     

    Here are the two tweet threads from Amash, which Romney called courageous, the Freedom Caucus condemned him for but did not refute, and who many legal commentators have said are accurate.

    https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1129831615952236546?s=19

    https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1130533752508157954

    The redacted Mueller Report (April 20) makes clear Betsy DeVos's brother Erik Prince lied about Seychelles meeting with Dmitriev, deleted communication with Bannon, and funded search for Clinton's emails. The DeVos family should be embarrassed and apologetic for their association with Prince. 

    should take a read through the Twitter feed of George Conway, whose wife also works in the administration, from 4 days ago (May 18-19) and see the myriad lawyers and Republicans who think Amash is right. Dick DeVos too could speak up for what's right. As Conway writes, The line is "between those who place the rule of law, the Constitution, and the country above personal interest, political expediency, and party cronyism, and those who don’t."

     

    Meanwhile, it seems is still board chair of the Willow He was part of the denying of and then minimizing of the wrong-doing of Hybels. 

    Letter 2

    Letter 1

    Open Letter to Willow Creek Association Board and Tom De Vries

    July 03, 2018

    The Willow Creek Association (now Global Leadership Network) Board has never publicly acknowledged their colossal failure in adamantly refusing to investigate in 2014, so that Nancy Ortberg, Jon Wallace, and Kara Powell, resigned in protest from the board in January 2015.

    If an organization is going to teach people about leadership from a Christian perspective, it is dissonant to have a Trump booster or enabler as the chair of your board. See also Jerry Falwell Jr.

    Dick DeVos's and Betsy's and Erik Prince's association with the immoral President Trump is hurting the brand of Global Leadership Summit so Dick DeVos needs to resign from the Global Leadership Network Board. That is one thing that would aid in restoring confidence in the organization and event.

  • The most dishonest and incompetent president in history

    It is not Republican or Democratic, it is not conservative or liberal, it is not political, and it should not be controversial to say that Trump is the most dishonest and incompetent president in the history of the United States.

    From Feb 2018: 

    From July 16-18, 2018:

    • “No prior President has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.” – John McCain, July 16 statement. Tweet.
    • "We are living in a national emergency" – Michael Beschloss, presidential historian, July 16 on Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Tweet. 
    • "the spirit of what Trump did is clearly treasonous" – Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian, July 17, Don Lemon Show, CNN. Tweet.
    • "This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man . . . America’s child president had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed providing day care." – George Will, conservative columnist, "This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man," July 17 Washington Post. Tweet.
    • "People will look back on this historical moment and not only be appalled that the world’s greatest nation was led by a corrupt simpleton, but that his political party was (almost) completely intimidated by a corrupt simpleton." – Michael Gerson, conservative columnist, July 18, Tweet. 
    • "Either Trump is too thoroughly inept to continue as president, or his predatory nature, as demonstrated in his business — not to mention his boasting about aggression toward women — has led to his collecting rogues to enhance his own power. Or both. In any case, he has stepped over all lines of acceptable presidential behavior and presents a clear and present danger to the United States." – Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist, "A Cancer Lives Among Us," July 17, Washington Post, Tweet. 
    • "the person we always knew him to be — vain, mendacious, self-serving, sleazy and absurdly stubborn, with a purely personalized understanding of allies and adversaries, a not-so-sneaking admiration for strongmen and the information filter of an old man who prefers his own reality to the discomforts of contrary information" – Ross Douthat, conservative columnist, July 18, "Trump and Russia: One Mystery, Three Theories," July 18, New York Times, Tweet. 

     

  • On disagreeing with leadership as “disappointing people at a rate they can absorb”

    "Learning to take the heat and receive people's anger in a way that does not undermine your initiative is one of the toughest tasks of leadership. When you ask people to make changes and sacrifices, it's almost inevitable that you will frustrate some of your closest colleagues and supporters, not to mention those outsider your faction . . . In this sense, exercising leadership might be understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb." 

    "Think about the times you have had something to say and have pulled back, when you have tried or failed, or succeeded but were bruised along the way. Or when you have watched the trials and successes of other people. The hope of leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignore it or kill the messenger." 

    Ronald A. Heifetz and Martin Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

    “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves.” 

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together; Prayerbook of the Bible, trans., Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 5 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1996), 36.

    I like what Bonhoeffer said in the quote I pasted above. I have to say that I'm not sure about the way Heifetz and Linsky phrase these ideas. They are saying something like, "politics is the art of the possible" (Otto von Bismarck). As Christians, I don't think we need to be so calculating or so fearful of getting killed. The goal is what is really crucial and the means to get there. If the goal is noble (I like to point to Acts 1:8–witness to Jesus Christ), then we can forge ahead. The means are also crucial (not ruling over others with punishments as our means as the pagans do, Matt 20:25-26; Mark 10:42-43). We instead lead (not intentionally disappointing our followers at the rate they can absorb) but rather in tears trying to persuade them as a parent (as the apostle Paul does in 1-2 Corinthians). It may be that we are heeded and it may be that we are killed. We release the power to bring revenge or punishment on those who do not accept our pleas. The evil leader operates in a way that "demands" (as Bonhoeffer says) or "exercises authority over" (as Jesus puts it). They reserve the right to force their followers to bend to their will. They compel. Rightly understood leadership is "always persuasion, all the way down" (Stanley Hauerwas). We see the apostle Paul and Jesus persuading but they will not in the end force their will. Therefore, people will be disappointed in us for not getting all goals accomplished or all dreams fulfilled and we will be disappointed in ourselves. But it is not clear ahead of time when we will disappoint people and when they will be persuaded. There is real agency on the part of our followers. We should not manipulate.

    I have been leaning on Gal 6:9: "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."