Book Review

The author provides a unique volume in which she walks a fine line between two schools of leadership theory. The first school is the Behavior phase of leadership studies. This phase emphasizes a comparison of a leader’s personality and task orientation. The second is the Contingency phase which suggests that a leader’s behavior needs to be influenced by the maturity of his or her followers and the context in which a leader works.

Sumner’s contribution is the People Model. She says this model will help to increase self-awareness, make sense of confusing situations, motivate people, instigate changes, establish strong ministry teams to imagine new solutions, and approach hard decisions more effectively.

She understands that all leader situations are contingent with multiple layers of people, structures, history, and motivations. She develops three discreet types of leader decision-making power: Explanatory power to interpret organizational behavior; motivational power to muster up people’s willingness to forfeit stubborn habits that have weakened their effectiveness in the past; and creative power to imagine wise solutions for the future.

Sumner provides self-diagnostic tests that enable readers to analyze their own types of decision-making power and the implications of each type. Such self-analysis and the suggested applications make this volume useable for dual-gender pastoral teams to work through together on the way to understanding their own organizational dynamics, and to find greater effectiveness.