Remaining an Ethical Leader: an exercise in scriptural reflection, personal leadership philosophy development, and self-publishing....

In fall of 2014 through spring of 2015, I was deployed to Afghanistan.  During those 6 months, I successfully finished the USAF's Air War College (AWC), the senior professional development course necessary for promotion consideration and designed to enhance professional growth.  If  I hadn't deployed, I never would have taken the time to slog through it.  In the final section, we were to develop our personal leadership philosophy; the readings were focused on a variety of topics, to include ethical leadership, professionalism, trust, core values.  One of the few readings (the only one?) that I found worthwhile was an article entitled "The Bathsheba Syndrome:  the ethical failure of successful leaders" by Dean Ludwig and Clinton Longenecker.  The title felt a little misogynous--for crying out loud, will we never stop blaming the women--but the premise was sound:  leaders fail for predictable reasons related to their access to resources and to information, their authority and their mindset regarding personal abilities.  The risks for ethical failure outlined seemed very realistic, very possible to me.  I knew that I wanted additional responsibilities and the authority and privilege of leading people.  An ethical failure while serving God's people in the USAF was not a fate I aspired to, nor something I wanted to fall into: the only counter I could think of was to intentionally fortify myself through the wisdom of God's word.  After all, that should have fortified King David.  After I finished AWC, I spent the remainder of my time in Afghanistan studying my Bible, looking for themes from the Ludwig and Longenecker article.

I spent much of 2015 and good portions of 2016 and 2017 studying my Bible, looking for God's wisdom related to ethical leadership.  I increasingly realized that what I was writing and studying might be edifying to others.  I learned about Createspace from a friend.  I sent drafts to people I respected and got good feedback.  I reached out to Dr Longencker himself (the only author I could find online) and received an enthusiastic response.  In February 2017, I hit "publish" for a final version of "Remaining and Ethical Leader: a study on ethical Christian leadership." 

As of May 2018, no copies have yet to sell. But I still believe this was a worthy project for me personally and professionally. Putting it here means little--as I have a readership (or at least commentership) of zero--but hope springs eternal....