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Introduction
What is "Christian" about Christian leadership? In this article, I propose that theories of Christian leadership can be defined, implemented, and evaluated through qualitative and quantitative research (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000). Qualitative-research methods suit the complex (Heifetz, 1994), context-embedded nature of leadership, which involves an interrelation of contextual boundaries and leader characteristics (Antonakis, Cianciolo, & Sternberg, 2004). Qualitative research can prepare the way for quantitative research, which is better suited to testing theories (Lowe & Gardner, 2000).
At the pre-theoretical level, leadership is common to all people. Everyone participates in leadership within his or her spheres of influence, and everyone does so with or without refined reflections about leadership (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002). Various models of leadership exist at the theoretical level. In this article, however, I focus on a specific model of Christian leadership. In that model, leadership is "a dynamic relational process in which people, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, partner to achieve a common goal . . . [which is] . . . serving others by leading and leading others by serving" (Christian Leadership Center, 2005).
The CLC model for Christian leadership may be evaluated and its implications explored by meta-theory dialog (Dyck, 1970; Meeks, Moltmann, & Trost, 1999) with a model of Christian theology as a study of God which is as Christ-centered, biblical, and relevant to the world in which we live (Hanna, 2006). The Christ-centered characteristic corresponds to the term "Christian leadership" because the disciples, or followers, of Christ (Jones, 1995) are called Christians (Acts 11:26). The biblical characteristic provides a way of evaluating the Christian authenticity of Christian leadership (Malphurs, 2003) in terms of faithfulness to the Christ of Scripture (Hanna, 2006). The characteristic of relevance to the world encourages the evaluation of Christian-leadership theory according to leadership research in general (Plantinga, 2002; Wheatley, 1999).
Spiritual leadership is increasingly recognized in leadership literature (Dodd, 2003; Greenleaf, 1988). At the same time, researchers acknowledge that not enough study has been given to models of spiritual leadership (Hunt, 2005, 1-2; Heifetz and Laurie, 1998). In the subsequent sections of this article, I present a discussion of what is "Christian" about Christian leadership in relation to these four elements of the CLC definition:
* The influence...