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Prosecutors & Servant Leadership: Discretion, Duty, & Criminal Justice

Prosecutors & Servant Leadership: Discretion, Duty, & Criminal Justice

Tabitha Anderson | 2021

Abstract

Prosecutors are tasked with multiple legal duties, ethical responsibilities, high caseloads, and inherent discretionary authority. As ministers of justice, we expect them to be accomplished trial attorneys, victim advocates, and community representatives. They labor within an adversarial system, a political structure, and courts of public record and opinion. These duties, responsibilities, and expectations often come into conflict. New prosecutors and seasoned prosecutors struggle to effectively balance these competing interests.

Prosecutors are leaders in the criminal justice system. Servant Leadership is a successful approach for prosecutors because it mirrors the multiple duties and behaviors of a prosecutor to put the needs, development, and success of others first. The goal of servant leaders, as with prosecutors, is to equip others with the desire and skill to succeed and to become those who, in turn, serve their communities. Like servant leaders, prosecutors lead from the power of service. The seven behaviors of Servant Leadership – conceptual skills, creating value for the community, behaving ethically, empowering others, putting others first, helping others grow and succeed, and healing – correspond closely to the duties of a prosecutor. To effectively balance these competing duties, prosecutors must begin with their own emotional intelligence (EI). The development of EI leads to competencies in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill that support Servant Leadership.

This Servant Leadership seminar introduces prosecutors to the seven behaviors of Servant Leadership and the four competencies of EI. It demonstrates how they apply to prosecutors and reveals why now is a critical time for such training. At the end of the seminar, prosecutors will have developed a leadership plan that blends the competencies of EI and the behaviors of Servant Leadership with personal, professional, and organizational goals. By virtue of their duties and power, prosecutors are leaders regardless of their experience. While prosecutors are taught how to be lawyers, they are not taught how to be leaders. This seminar is critical for all prosecutors to provide the best possible service to victims, defendants, their communities, and the criminal justice system.

Focus on What Matters: An Executive

Focus on What Matters: An Executive’s Guide to Simplifying Organizational Design and Creating a Culture of Performance

Kimberly Askew | 2021

Abstract

An organization’s people, internal processes, and ability to plan well for the future all play crucial roles in determining its success. Yet, organizational design is rarely top of mind for today’s executives. Instead, as leaders, we have become bogged down with nuance and minute details, often turning to the latest management techniques to remedy the issues we face. In doing so, organizational leaders may be addressing the symptoms of a problem rather than the issue.

The publication, Focus on What Matters: An Executive’s Guide to Simplifying Organizational Design and Creating a Culture of Performance offers a different perspective that suggests business leaders must focus their attention on only three things. It proposes a new design of an organizational structure referred to as the P3 model, which consists of three dimensions: people, processes, and planning. The ‘ACE’ framework also outlined in this publication seeks to evaluate each of these components of organizational design for alignment. This model requires that leaders assess the challenge at hand, communicate the necessary change, and execute the proposed solution quickly and systematically. In this way, it positions organizational design as a management tool, fully accounting for the impact of the design model on organizational culture. More importantly, it specifically seeks to create a high-performance culture that governs every aspect of the work.

This book aims to drive home the point that alignment among the three dimensions of organizational design must be achieved if a high-performance culture is to be developed. It offers a step-by-step guide on why they matter and how you can maneuver each component to work in tandem to move an organization towards operating at peak performance. The unique blending of the P3 and ‘ACE’ models explore the intersection between organizational design and organizational culture, serving as a framework that helps executive leaders relate well to challenges facing those in the C-Suite and offers highly hands-on solutions and recommendations. It is a reminder to organizational leaders that when chaos ensues, and it inevitably will, to take a step back and focus on what matters. People. Processes. Planning. Everything else is secondary.

Financial Foresight: A Strategic Approach to the Future of Your Money

Financial Foresight: A Strategic Approach to the Future of Your Money

Brandy Baxter | 2021

Abstract

Families who want to save money for an emergency and retirement may have financial knowledge but lack financial accountability. The research included in this project highlights the benefit of financial coaching and foresight as an effective strategy to help clients prepare for their financial future. Currently, financial coaching helps clients reach financial goals, and financial planning helps clients make investments. However, there is a gap between having an authentic goal and funding that goal through the future.

The core of this project introduces the LENS method as a way for clients to look at their financial goals through different lenses. LENS stands for looking eagerly for new strategies, and the method encourages clients to identify new strategies to help them plan for the next thirty years of their financial life. This model gives clients a straightforward way to think about foresight strategies and apply them to their finances.

Mind Redesign Workshop

Mind Redesign Workshop

Johnnie Brown | 2021

Abstract

Change is inevitable and organizational leaders face the ongoing challenge of managing change processes amid an ever-growing global marketplace. Thus, a corporate change process could be better achieved when all actors have increased levels of awareness on the imperative that self-transformation plays in the change implementation process. Hence, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, personal belief systems, trust dynamics, and conflict resolution perspectives and practices impact and influence the realization of an effective organizational change process.

Conversely, the Mind Redesign Workshop is designed to promote and foster increased levels of awareness for both leaders and followers on organizational change and the relationship of individual mental attitudes on the change dynamic. In addition, this workshop provides practical insights to foster the development of an expanded transformative mental framework regarding human perspectives on the change narrative to encourage a more collaborative, integrative approach for an organizational change initiative.

The Mind Redesign Workshop is a one-day interactive workshop for organizational leaders and followers from diverse corporate environments. In addition, a pre- and post-survey is administered to assess personal levels of awareness relative to the training materials and participants’ commitment toward applying practical insights gained from the workshop.

The research elements of this project focused on identifying and isolating leadership theories and scholarly literature that showcases the imperative of mental attitudes and behaviors toward organizational change processes and how mental frameworks promote or encumber corporate change strategies. Furthermore, the Mind Redesign Workshop aims to reduce the gap between theory and practical methods for leaders and followers in profit and nonprofit organizations to support and strengthen the pursuit of effective organizational change implementation by formulating an integrative learning space that allows the workshop participants to engage and dialogue at ever intercession of the workshop.

Coaching the Soul: A Leadership Development Coaching Model

Coaching the Soul: A Leadership Development Coaching Model

Shanita Brown | 2021

Abstract

Leadership is a universal language. Since the beginning of time, people have sought leaders to lead them. Leadership seems to center more around competence than character. The title of leadership is not separate from the person who carries the title. Leaders do not lead from their title; they lead from who they are. Leadership is an inside job and starts within. Leadership is a journey and needs continuous development and transformation to be effective.

Many leaders lead from patterns and pathologies shaped by obstacles, wounds, brokenness, traumas, and strongholds; rather than leading from a place given freely to Christians in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). It is time for Christian leaders to live and lead from the Christ identity that produces fulfilled lives and desired results.

The CODE coaching model is a model for developing the soul. This model coaches the soul, which is a person’s inner being consisting of the mind, will, and emotions. The CODE Model improves authentic power, self-awareness, sense of identity, and empowerment. This model positions individuals to fulfill their desires in Christ. Our souls are essential. It is the part of us that expresses our feelings, thinking, and decisions. Parts of our souls show up in our everyday lives, including our leadership. The start of healthier and effective leaders starts with caring for and developing the soul. Leaders and coaches can use this simple framework to help individuals connect their souls with something greater that produces meaning, wholeness, and growth.

Ministry Leadership Development Workshop

Ministry Leadership Development Workshop

Kayon Cameron | 2021

Abstract

A non-profit, faith-based organization is the same as a for-profit corporation contingent on its employees’ and volunteers’ well-being to achieve the organization’s overall goal. Fortune 500 companies understand the importance of investing in their personnel’s leadership development. Unfortunately, some non-profit, faith-based organizations do not see the practical value of investing in their personnel’s leadership development. Leadership development is critical for the organization to align its personnel with its vision and create effective teams to see all tasks done thoroughly from start to finish. Leadership development is a critical resource proven to align all personnel within an organization to collectively share resources to collectively achieve the organization’s goals. Church leaders care for their congregants’ spiritual well-being but neglect the importance of investing in their employees and volunteers. The Ministry Leadership Development Workshop is a resource that Christian faith-based organizations can use to invest in their personnel’s leadership development.

The Ministry Leadership Development Workshop will challenge the employee and volunteer participants of a Christian faith-based organization about what constitutes an effective leader, effective communicator, and an effective team. The workshop focuses on self-development for the participants to realize their strengths and weaknesses in these areas of study while understanding that God has provided tools and resources through his word on becoming an effective leader, communicator, and team builder. The participants will understand how they view their identity impacts their effectiveness as a leader because they will project unto their team how they view their strengths and weaknesses. The participants will learn their strengths and weaknesses in communication, and to become effective communicators, they must learn to be others-focused rather than self-focused when communicating.

Lastly, the participants will learn the importance of building relationships between themselves and their team, organization, and the individuals within their team through humility, love, and trust. The workshop results proved that it is effective in challenging the participants’ views of the truth about leadership, areas they can improve on communication, and the importance of a team having a relationship with each other. Upon completing the Ministry Leadership Development Workshop, the organization can better relate to the participant and emphasize their evaluability to the organization to achieve its overall goal.

The Leadership Mantle

The Leadership Mantle

Diane Swanson | 2022

Abstract

God bestows a Leadership Mantle on believers and has commissioned them to rule. Leading is automatic, except for those who remove their leadership mantle. Those who have judged themselves as unworthy or have unhealthy hearts have mantle issues. They lead poorly, minimally, or harshly. They do not prepare for leadership, do not speak up for promotion, unwittingly sabotage their success, or avoid leadership altogether. One of the main reasons more than half of all major organizational change endeavors fail is that the leader fails to change. If you are the senior leader and if you want your organization to change, you must change first.

The Leadership Mantle takes a spiritual approach to address the barriers to inner leadership. It allows the reader to address heart issues and transform inner leadership abilities. Readers will take a divine approach, asking God to intervene in every area, especially the ones that have escaped their notice. The Leadership Mantle addresses motherhood, fatherhood, forgiveness, strongholds, idolatry, and more. After each chapter, the reader will meditate on scripture, answer reflective questions, and pray with guided help. The leadership and guided prayer section is the place of transformation. Engage and watch what God will do in you and through you. Take some time to work on your inner leadership. Bring your perspectives, beliefs, concerns, and all you influence to the Lord. Sit quietly and ask God for divine assistance to improve your leadership and strengthen your soul.

The War for Your Worth: My Life-Long Battle with Substance, Sex, and Success Addiction

The War for Your Worth: My Life-Long Battle with Substance, Sex, and Success Addiction

R. Michael Thornton | 2022

Abstract

Addiction is still a massive threat to families in America. Nearly every government initiative to rid our nation of this problem has failed. Trillions have been spent. Policies have been made, and laws have been passed. This invisible enemy has taken more lives than terrorist attacks over the last 50 years. Still, we continually see addiction destroy so many lives in this country. Addiction is not a political problem. It’s a heart problem that is both complex and complicated. It goes beyond illegal substances and moves into behavioral addictions, which are equally damaging.

Defeating addiction begins by seeing it from different perspectives. The reality is that addiction has many faces. Substance abuse is only one side of the coin. Seeing it from different perceptions helps people discover that addiction is never about the substances or the attachments they gravitate to but about the alignment of their identity. The war on addiction is the war for what people allow to define their self-perception, worth, and value. The substances, the attachments, or even the relationships only serve as bait. When we recognize addiction on this level, we realize it goes far beyond substance abuse and strikes at the core of who people are.

This book unpacks this conversation in greater detail through my healing journey concerning addiction. For years I battled the multiple faces addiction has to offer, including an addiction to illegal substances, pornography, and my line of work which happened to be ministry. Millions of Americans and leaders struggle with some of these same issues. Unfortunately, stories of long-term healing and redemption over these types of addiction are few and far between. This book is unique because it offers inspiration and practical tools to help people walk in the freedom I have discovered. It includes research, personal experience, explosive personal testimonies, and pathways to help escort people out of bondage and into a state of freedom.

My purpose in writing this book is to show addiction from different viewpoints than what is usually conveyed. Seeing addiction from different lenses helps us define it with more clarity. I have a deep passion for preparing leaders, especially Christian leaders, to recognize addiction for what it is and help them walk out a pathway of healing from it. This book covers the top three habits that every leader will face at some point in their life—an addiction to substances, sex, or success. Whatever addiction you struggle with the most, this book provides hope, redemption, and practical applications.

Strategy Development & Implementation Curriculum

Strategy Development & Implementation Curriculum

Sean Tolbert | 2022

Abstract

Strategy is often nothing more than a misunderstood buzzword. The problem with strategy is threefold. First, many organizations do not take the time to develop a strategy. Second, only a few of the organizations that develop a strategy understand what a good strategy is and should consist of. Finally, organizations must commit to implementing their strategy; organizations that overlook this may never attain their goals.

Strategy Development and Implementation is a graduate-level course curriculum developed for distance learning. This eight-week course introduces students to the discipline of strategy and walks them through ideation to implementation two weeks at a time. The first two-week period gives students an overview of the purpose and origin of strategy, where the essential elements of good strategy are explained. Students are also taught futuring techniques that enable them to envision the future, ultimately exploring and exploiting potential opportunities for their organizations. The second two-week period builds upon the students’ understanding of the foundations of strategy and familiarizes them with strategy development approaches and techniques. The third two-week period focuses on strategy implementation and the development of an implementation plan. Students will learn that strategy implementation is related to change management and project management during this period. Ultimately, they must understand that implementation should be planned. Finally, during the fourth two-week period, the emphasis is on putting it all together and ensuring that students can oversee the development, execution, and revision of good strategies for their organizations.

Assignments throughout the course give students the opportunity to conduct horizon scanning, envision the future, develop a strategy to realize that vision, and create an effective strategy implementation plan. Students will also discuss topics such as the role of organizational self-awareness in strategy development and the pitfalls that could keep an organization from developing and implementing a good strategy.

Between required reading and videos used during lectures, students will learn about strategy from nearly a dozen experts and gain insights from top strategy consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Company, and Strategy.

Digital Dominion: Smartphones, Social Media & Jesus

Digital Dominion: Smartphones, Social Media & Jesus

Thomas Trimble | 2022

Abstract

Some years ago, I began studying social media and other technologies and their effects on us, our families, our lives, and our communication. We all seemed to embrace social media and technology without thinking critically about it. What became apparent is that most embraced all the changes they brought without questioning whether there were negative consequences. As Neil Postman wrote, “Such enthusiasm always calls to my mind an image of some turn-of-the-century blacksmith who not only sings the praises of the automobile but also believes that his business will be enhanced by it. We know now that his business was not enhanced by it; it was rendered obsolete by it, as perhaps the clearheaded blacksmiths knew. What could they have done?”[1] This book is an answer to this question: “What should we do to have a balanced, God-honoring approach to digital communication?” Rather than being an exhaustive study, this study is more of an introduction. But I have set out to examine and discuss some of the most critical areas affected by social media and communication technology. These six foci include self-control, theology of communication, anxiety, identity, relationships, and spirituality, and together they are represented by the acronym STAIRS. If we can handle these main areas, I believe we can walk into the future feeling less manipulated, more pleasing to God, more peaceful, more valuable, and more effective.

[1] Postman, Neil (2011-06-01). Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Kindle Locations 165-167). Random House Inc.. Kindle Edition.