Stewardship (Organizational Leadership)

This book is a product of multiple authorship. In so being, it acknowledges the complexity that characterizes leadership in the new millennium. It is no longer sufficient to consider leadership as an individual pursuit. This notion belongs to the increasingly outdated, yet in certain terrains still effective, concept of heroic leadership. We believe that it is not possible to write something worthwhile about leadership as an individual, because the perspective will be too limited. Hence this book is written by a team made up of South Africans and Americans, a tribute to the impact of modern technology and the Internet, but more importantly an acknowledgement that these two countries, for very different reasons, are fascinating laboratories for studying leadership.

The United States of America has produced many of the leadership gurus, including Peter Drucker, Warren Bennis, Tom Peters, Peter Senge, Stephen Covey and many others. However, very little research has been carried out in this field in South Africa, a country which experienced one form of leadership for most of the twentieth century — autocratic control under the guise of apartheid. The social, political, and economic freedom that now prevails in South Africa has provided for the emergence of new leaders in all sectors of society. This has meant that a whole range of new approaches to leadership is being experienced in business, government and civil society.

Seventeenth-century scientific thinking would have us believe that leadership is a mechanical process — if certain requirements are met (for example, if the leader has certain qualities and the followers have a certain level of maturity) successful leadership will result. What then can we learn about leadership from the experiences of the US and SA at the start of the twenty-first century? Firstly, that leadership is not all that it seems to be. Perhaps the US and SA experiences highlight for us that success (however we wish to measure this) does not necessarily depend on the performance of the person at the top, that is, the leader. We realize of course, that leadership takes place at every level in society and every level of every subgrouping thereof, organizations being the grouping in which most humans experience leadership. Hence, while Mandela speaks about reconciliation, the extent to which this has an impact on South Africa as a whole will depend hugely on the influence of the leadership that exists within the sub-groupings of South African society. Our seventeenth-century view of leadership would encourage us to see Mandela as the person with ultimate sway, but we are realizing more and more, as we enter the twenty-first century, that leadership is not only complex, but that it is more of a group process — a process of shared leadership. It may be argued that the success of the United States of America under Bill Clinton testifies to this understanding.

De manera significativa, Vila ha mencionado que desde prácticamente sus orígenes, el hombre fue pensando fórmulas para valorar sus productos y manufacturas con vistas a intercambiarlos por otros de igual precio o equivalente. Lo primero que se utilizó fue el trueque, el mero cambio de un producto por otro que se consideraba equiparable, por ejemplo: cierta cantidad de vino o de trigo por una cabeza de ganado; pieles o cerámica por un cuchillo de caza; etc. Este sistema funcionó en el marco de ciertas sociedades, pero pronto se constató que no resultaba del todo efectivo. 1

We aim to provide a theoretical framework for enhancing the Catholic Church's culture of transparency. We therefore define concepts of culture and transparency, stressing some of the institutional consequences due to their interaction. Finally, we apply these principles to the ecclesial institution's fields that are attractive for the public square: the administration of temporal goods, the use of information and the dispensation of sacraments and religious teachings. Defining culture as the setting up of behavioral standards, we realize that the ones regarding transparency have been constantly raised in the last years by society, while the Church has remained stable in its long-term organizational principles. Applying a culture of transparency for the Church would therefore require to understand the dynamic of cultural change within the Church that is essentially united to the preservation of its own spiritual purposes. Also builds within itself a culture that sustains a culture of accountability. Ecclesial institutions as any institution, builds and sustains trust through its diligent and consistent refusal to abuse the power given. The ecclesiastical institution would change its standards of transparency when it is needed to keep up with its original mission not when it is just an exigency of its cultural environment.

This paper introduces the idea of a non-kinship-based Universal-family firm, an organizational form we developed based on interpreting historical writings in their socio-economic context. We analyzed Luke’s gospel with an eye toward drawing implications for the stewardship-agency debate in the contemporary family business literature. Our paper makes contributions at two important levels. In addition to introducing and developing theory about the Universal-family firms, we also contribute to the methodological toolkit of family business scholars by providing a template for using historical documents to challenge, enhance and develop theory.