Greg Chaney

Tagleadership theories

The Creed of Rational Virtuism – Thinking Clearly. Living Well. Caring Deeply.

5 Min read

We hold that Wisdom is the highest faculty of the human spirit; the union of clear thought, disciplined conscience, and lived understanding. Through wisdom, the individual perceives truth, acts with integrity, and stewards creation with purpose. Every person bears the sacred duty to seek wisdom, to test illusion against reality, and to act not by impulse or imitation, but by discernment and understanding. Wisdom demands humility before truth and courage in its defense.

Article I – Wisdom: The Light That Orders the Soul

We affirm that Wisdom is the light of God within the soul, the union of reason and conscience made whole through understanding. Wisdom is not mere knowledge, but the harmony of truth and virtue expressed through action. It guides judgment beyond impulse, aligns thought with reality, and tempers strength with humility. To live wisely is to act with clarity of mind, purity of motive, and reverence for creation. Wisdom requires care of the self, for clarity of mind and endurance of spirit are necessary to think rightly and live well.

Article II – Virtue: The Discipline of Self-Governance

We hold that Virtue is the act of self-governance in harmony with truth, the will to live neither as master nor slave, but as a conscious being accountable for one’s own thought and deed. Virtue demands responsibility, not obedience; discipline, not submission. The righteous man bends his knee to no idol, for his reverence is reserved for truth alone, and his joy springs from the integrity of his own soul. Each person is a rational soul, not a means to another’s end but an end in themselves, an image of God’s reason. To use another merely for gain is to violate the moral law of creation.

Article III – Love: The Ethics of Intelligent Goodwill

We proclaim that Love, in its highest form, is intelligent goodwill; not sentiment nor sacrifice, but the chosen regard for the life and liberty of all creation. He who governs himself through wisdom will not exploit what he tends, for he knows that to destroy what he is responsible for is to wound his own soul. Thus, care is not servitude, but responsibility practiced with wisdom, and in that care is wonder, the quiet amazement that life exists at all.

Article IV – Action: Wisdom, Virtue, and Love Made Visible

We affirm that Action is the proof of Wisdom and the labor of Virtue, and the means by which a rightly ordered life takes form in the world. To live is not merely to preserve, but to create—to shape raw matter, raw thought, raw institutions, and raw circumstance into higher order. Creation is the discipline of the free mind: the craftsman’s hand guided by intellect, the leader’s judgment guided by conscience, the steward’s care made structure. Wise action respects human limits as well as responsibility, recognizing rest and discipline as necessary for faithful and enduring labor. Action gives form to wisdom, but the created order sets the bounds within which all right action must remain.

Article V – The Created Order: The Covenant of People and Earth

We confess that the Created Order is the living order of which we are both part and protector—people and land alike entrusted to our care. It is the given reality within which all human action occurs and by which it must be judged. To work and to keep the Earth is both command and covenant: to cultivate soil and city, field and family, institution and habitat, with equal reverence. The free man does not plunder the world nor abandon his neighbor; he perfects both through the art of understanding. Man’s highest virtue is not the conquest of nature nor the domination of others, but the cultivation of wonder, dignity, and flourishing before them. In every restored landscape, every strengthened community, and every act of wise care, he finds joy renewed and wonder reborn.

Article VI – Stewardship: The Charge of Wise Care

We declare that the virtuous life is one of Stewardship rightly understood: responsibility practiced with wisdom over what God has entrusted to human care—people, places, institutions, and the living Earth. It joins authority with restraint, power with accountability, and freedom with duty. Such care requires attentiveness to rhythm (labor and rest) as part of faithful governance. To live wisely is to live generatively: to restore what is broken in land and life, to preserve what sustains human dignity and natural order, and to build what uplifts the human spirit. This charge is fulfilled neither through domination nor neglect, but through reasoned care, moral courage, and reverent joy. Each act of honest labor, just governance, invention, and restoration is a hymn of stewardship; the visible testament of the inner light and in the doing of it he knows joy, the sacred joy of participation in creation.

Article VII — Freedom: The Liberty of the Self-Governed Soul

We proclaim that true freedom is not license, but self-governance through wisdom. The wise neither bow to the coercion of power nor to the mob’s clamor but stand steadfast in clarity of mind and purity of motive. Freedom is the discipline of the soul that governs itself rightly; the fruit of reason rooted in virtue.

Therefore we vow:
To act with wisdom as our creed and virtue as our law,
To love creation not as possession but as trust,
To guard the sanctity of individual conscience,
To speak truth though the world should rage,
To walk upright in the freedom of God’s reason,
To practice discipline, rest, and renewal so that our care may endure, and
To live in joy and wonder at the gift of existence.

This is Rational Virtuism:
The philosophy of the wise and free mind,
the disciplined spirit,
and the world made whole by both.

 

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Leadership is hard

1 Min read

I learned that leadership is hard.  Leadership sounds easy in the books, but it is quite difficult in real life.  I learned that leadership is difficult because it is a human interaction and nothing, nothing is more daunting, more frustrating more complex than trying to lead men and women in tough times.

I learned that you won’t get a lot of thanks in return.  I learned that you shouldn’t expect it.

I learned that the great leaders know how to fail.  If you can’t stomach failure, then you will never be a great leader.

Admiral William Harry McRaven, US Special Operations Command, in a speech at the United States Military Academy, January 18, 2014

 

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The Army Leader is a Teaching Leader

3 Min read

Over a decade of war has changed the fabric of the U.S. armed forces.  Short mobilization cycles and changing theater tactics necessitated the development of a learning culture within the organizations.  This learning culture, however, is fundamentally NOT the culture that has sustained our premier forces throughout our history.  As the armed forces move into a garrison environment and resources diminish, it is time for the culture to shift back to what we fundamentally are…a teaching culture.

General Colin Powell, in his autobiography It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, explains that he has been a professional speaker, trainer, and teacher his entire adult career.  He explains

From my first day in my unit as an Army officer, I had to speak to and teach troops.

General Powell built his success on the enduring Army culture where leaders teach troops and other leaders.  They not only learn they pass knowledge on.  Instilling the desire to improve and learn is the important part of any the learning culture; A teaching organization further infuses learning with the culture of passing it on to others.  Noel Tichy, author of the Leadership Engine puts it this way:

(Organizations) that consistently outperform competitors (have) moved beyond being learning organizations to become teaching organizations….That’s because teaching organizations are more agile, come up with better strategies, and are able to implement them more effectively…. Teaching organizations do share with learning organizations the goal that everyone continually acquire new knowledge and skills. But to do that, they add the more critical goal that everyone pass their learning on to others…. In a teaching organization, leaders benefit just by preparing to teach others. Because the teachers are people with hands-on experience within the organization—rather than outside consultants—the people being taught learn relevant, immediately useful concepts and skills. Teaching organizations are better able to achieve success and maintain it because their constant focus is on developing people to become leaders.

In short, leaders train leaders. (more…)

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Guard against the lack of vision

1 Min read

Thomas_J_Watson_Sr“You must guard constantly against those who lack vision.  You must guard against the reactionary mind.  Always cultivate and associate with persons of vision and with persons who believe that things are going to be better.  When you do this, you take on the kind of vision, backed by the right kind of inspiration that you need if you are going to grow . . . .” Thomas Watson, Sr., 1874-1956, chairman and CEO of International Business Machines (IBM)

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Army Leadership Definition

1 Min read

Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.

An Army leader is anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside and outside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization.

As defined in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22, Army Leadership August 2012

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The Lost Art of Backward Planning

3 Min read


Jesus had a plan…and he executed it right on time.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Luke 9:51 (NIV)

Short of the divine knowledge Jesus possessed, few of us would be able to deliver exactly on time with as far to travel and as many things to do.  Along the way he taught  parables, eased Martha to the better choice, confronted demons, expressed woes to the pharisees, healed people, dined with his disciples, and prayed all night before being arrested…right on time.

Granted, the things we do day-to-day don’t have eternal consequences for all of humanity, but why do we seem to always miss deadlines, cram all night to study or finish a project, or flat out miss deadlines?  We’ve lost the art of backward planning.

Backward planning is the process of determining the right time to start something by subtracting from the finish point the time required to complete it .

Here’s a simple example:  It takes 2 hours to drive to your mothers and you need to be there by 7:00pm.  Subtract 2 hours from 7pm and you need to leave at five.  WAIT, WAIT…don’t stop reading, it gets better.

What we fail to do is apply this simple concept to more complex projects like the yearly report, your  masters degree thesis, or even family panning.   Here’s some simple steps to backward plan your next project.

  1. Determine the finish point
  2. List all tasks that must be done in order
  3. Estimate the length of each task
  4. Subtract each length from the finish point

(more…)

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Making a Change at Church: Eight (not so) Simple Steps

2 Min read

In a previous post I quoted John Maxell who observed that  older and “insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. ”  But what if you have to change.

Many small churches are facing declining membership because their traditions have not changed in decades.  The prevailing belief is worship traditions are Biblical and any deviation must certainly be a sin.  Even though largely attracted to the spiritual (review the popular movies today) , younger generations are increasingly turned off by  what they see as rigid and irrelevant. (more…)

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Change: Threat or Opportunity?

1 Min read

Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck asserted, ‘It is the nature of man as he grows older to protect against change, particularly change for the better.’ By its very nature, empowerment brings constant change in that it encourages people to grow and innovate. Change is the price of progress. Insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. – John Maxwell

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Greg Chaney