106 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY concern leaders and leadership. The first relates to the danger, or “cost” of leadership, and the second is about the paradoxical freedom found in embracing limitation. It is important in life not to succumb to overthinking or being scared away from new challenges or opportunities because of fear of the unknown. One could construct a fairly robust list of Tolkien characters who exhibit such courage. However the problem with leadership is not usually in taking initiative, since I have already argued that pragmatism is the dominant perspective within the field both at the popular and academic levels. The wisdom from Tolkien for leaders has to do with the counter to initiative, which is that under-thinking is as equally disastrous as over-thinking. Dietrich Bonhoeffer made famous the phrase the “cost of discipleship,”19 which Dallas Willard then extended in his consideration of the “cost of non-discipleship.”20 I would like to suggest that what Tolkien helps leaders with is considering the cost, or dangers, of leadership. I remember back to my own time in DBU’s doctoral program for leadership, how it was often all-too-easy to be swept up into envisioning what type of leader the program could help me become. That temptation, unchecked, produces vanity and pride, because without serious reflection on the formative nature of leadership itself, the study and practice of leadership does not guarantee becoming a good person. Leadership roles simply amplify existing immaturities and inadequacies, so self-awareness and habitual self-reflection are essential antidotes to pride. The long-standing Christian understanding of positional power and influence is that it will dehumanize and diminish the soul of the leader who is not aware of the continual need to foster grace, forgiveness, mercy, humility, and love in their lives. Tolkien understood the way power impacts individuals. In a letter to an enthusiastic fan, Tolkien underscores the way one of his characters, Sauron, is paradoxically less in control by wielding the “Ring of Power”: The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODc4ODgx