BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 2
Abstract
The case study of the leadership style, and failure, of Ralph Emerson at Boston Bank
provides a multilevel view of modern leadership development. Ralph as a rising star in his
company is given a promotion, possibly before he was ready, to a leadership position. As any
green leader would, Ralph experiences some setbacks. His manager Ellen goes through an
acceptable leadership development process with him. She follows both biblical and secular
leadership development models and ultimately protects her organizations success by letting
Ralph go. Ellen’s actions are in line with the teaching and example of Jesus as well many
modern scholars. Although not a complete course of action, lacking coaching, Ellen’s actions are
more than fair and appropriate.
Keywords: leadership, biblical leadership, leadership development, coaching, failure
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 3
Biblical Integration Exercise
Successful organizational management, and leadership in general, requires a certain
element of humility and honestly. Ralph Emerson’s story at Boston Bank is a great example of
the rise and fall of a leader who lacks the humility to admit failure and make lasting changes. It
also is an example of what can happen when green employees are quickly promoted to
prominent positions on potential alone and no adequate continual coaching is involved. Ellen
follows both biblical and secular examples in terms of leadership development with Ralph,
although there are additionally steps, she could have taken that may have helped the situation.
In Terms of God’s Character
The Bible is largely a case study on leadership development. Countless times through the
Bible, people are chosen for leadership, sometimes natural ones that make sense and sometimes
more puzzling choices. Despite his issues, David was obvious choice for leadership. Moses took
the long road and was trained and developed over several decades. Paul is an obvious candidate
for prominent Christian leadership, with his education and training. Conversely, Peter, a simple
fisherman, yet given the responsibility of being the ipso facto leader of the church after Christ’s
departure, is a bit more puzzling, in terms of leadership experience and qualities. Yet, Peter’s life
and rise to his prominent position is an excellent case study in Biblical leadership development.
After being chosen, we see Peter mess up many times, notably in Matthew 14 when he loses
focus and sinks and in John 18 when he denies knowing Jesus, even after this being foretold to
him. Peter is young and green in terms of leadership potential and experience, but his hiring
manager, Jesus, sees something in him that no one else seems to see, potential. In Matthew
16:18, Jesus tells him that he will be the rock that the entire new department, church, will be
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 4
built around. Peter experiences quite the professional promotional path, from unemployed
fisherman to leadership development, to a leading department head all in just a few short years.
When examining the case study of Ralph Emerson many parallels to the early part of
Peter’s career can be drawn. Peter had potential and because of this was given several chances
and course corrections before he finally figured it out. Similarly, Ralph rocketed up into a level
of leadership because he continually showed potential. Then made some mistakes but was given
another chance and corrective measures to take. Like Jesus believed in the potential of Peter,
Ellen believes in the potential of Ralph. The differing point is in their end, Peter went on to find
great success in his role, Ralph was let go. Jesus speaks of this in John 15:2 when He says that
unfruitful branches must be cut off. Ralph was pruned and groomed many times before proving
that he would not bear fruit. Slater (2020) said it best, if leadership does not embrace biblical
principles, it is doomed.
In Secular Terms
Outside of the realm of Biblical example, there are many directions that leadership
development can go. By most standards, Ellen handled the development and eventual
termination of Ralph adequately. She gave him multiple chances, expressed his wrong doings,
gave corrective measures, and ultimately held him to those standards. This is indicative to the
heart of secular leadership development, modes and methods may vary from theory to theory, but
the crux is that when a standard is set and published it must be upheld (Bernd et. al., 2021).
Additionally, the emphasis on Ralph reestablishing and holding the trust of his subordinates, is in
line with secular, and biblical, leadership styles. Asier (2023) speaks to the positive and
measurable effects of authentic leadership on not only employee work engagement and outcome
but most importantly on employee trust in their leadership.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 5
Different Course of Action
Ahmadi and Vogel’s (2023) found that what a given leaders experiential and/or academic
knowledge of leadership may or may not be, does not determine or predict how that leader will
act in a given scenario. This very much speaks to how Ralph acted. Assume that the first time
Ralph is given a performance review is genuine lack of leadership know how or experience. The
subsequent lack of proper action and warnings that ensue after, are more about a choice he is or
is not making, not about him simply being an uniformed or untrained leader. He knew the issues
and chose to revert to them repeatedly. This course is certainly an acceptable approach to
leadership development. The one contention would be that this is the only acceptable course of
action. Loumpourdi (2023) warns that companies should steer very clear of one size fits all
approaches to leadership development and the ensuing mentorship process.
Considering this, it is not clear if Ellen simply gave the meetings and the performance
notes, or if she too provided a degree of coaching as to appropriate changes and behaviors. The
issues arising within the company are certainly Ralph’s alone, but a part of the resulting, or lack
their off, organizational success falls onto Ellen and the company culture. This is why it is so
important that an organization has clearly defined methods of leadership development, as its
results, good and bad, can have a ripple effect outside of an isolated department and into the
organizational success (Luria et. al., 2019).
Conclusion
Simply having the answers and doing the right steps, is not always indicative of success.
We see that in the rise and fall of Ralph as a leader. He showed all the potential, had a strong
start, but ultimately his foundation of leadership was not strong enough to sustain him and he
ultimately failed, despite repeated changes and attempts at correction. Ellen and Ralph both
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 6
would do well to follow deeper in the leadership example of Jesus, moving beyond simple
promotion and empowerment, but to actual coaching, or discipleship.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 7
References
Ahmadi, A., & Vogel, B. (2023). Knowing but not enacting leadership: NavigatingGthe
leadership knowing–doing gap inGleveraging leadership development.GAcademy of
Management Learning & Education,G22(3), 507–530.
https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0534
Asier, B. (2023). Authentic leadership, employee work engagement, trust in the leader, and
workplace well-being: A moderated mediation model. Psychology Research; Behavior
Management. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S407672
Loumpourdi, M.G(2023), "Leadership development programmes: part of the solution or part of
the problem of women’s under-representation in leadership?",GGender in
Management.Ghttps://doi.org/10.1108/GM-01-2022-0017
Luria, G., Kahana, A., Goldenberg, J., & Noam, Y. (2019). Leadership development: Leadership
emergence to leadership effectiveness. Small Group Research, 50(5), 571-592.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496419865326
Slater, J., 2020, ‘The first shall be last... – A biblical inversion of leadership traps and pressure
cooker appetites for ambitious statuses’, HTS Theologies Studies. 76(2), a5963.
https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v76i2.5963
Vogel, B., Reichard, Rebecca J., Saša, Batistič, Matej, Černe (2021). A bibliometric review of
the leadership development field: How we got here, where we are, and where we are
headed. The Leadership Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101381.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 8
Annotated Bibliography
Ahmadi, A., & Vogel, B. (2023). Knowing but not enacting leadership: NavigatingGthe
leadership knowing–doing gap inGleveraging leadership development.GAcademy of
Management Learning & Education,G22(3), 507–530.
https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0534
Both authors of this paper are established professors at the University of Reading in the U.K. in
the fields of business and leadership. Their individual expertise in the field of leadership is well
documented, by their academic teaching positions but also by their multiple published peer
reviewed scholarly articles on the subject. This article is written and accepted by the Academy of
Management and Learning and Education, a well-documented and respected source. The article
itself can be found cited in several places, indicating that is has been well received in the
academic community. The article is summed up quite well simply in its title. That there is a
major difference in knowing and doing in terms of leadership. They studied and found that the
level of training and academic knowledge that a leader may hold, is not predicative to the level
of organizational leadership success they will experience, if any. Dubbed the leadership
knowing-doing gap. Ultimately it is concluded in the article that leadership knowledge and
leadership action are separate, trainable areas of action. This article fits very well into this
assignment, because it large part, that is exactly the issue that is presented in the leadership
failure of Ralph. He was given the opportunity and information regarding his, lack of, leadership
style, aka his leadership knowing. The issue was in Ralph’s long-term leadership doing, in that
he often reverted back to his old ways causing issues within his team and ultimately
organization. This article was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library Online Database.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 9
Asier, B. (2023). Authentic leadership, employee work engagement, trust in the leader, and
workplace well-being: A moderated mediation model. Psychology Research; Behavior
Management. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S407672
Dove Press has nearly 90,000 published and peer reviewed academic papers. This makes it an
excellent source for material. Dr Asier Baquero is a professor of economics and business at a
university in Spain. He has other peer reviewed academic papers; he is more than qualified in the
field. This paper seeks to examine how perceived, and actual, authentic leadership can have a
measurable impact on employee work engagement and trust in employee leadership. Authentic
leadership is broken down into three traits and each examined separately as to how they impact
the result. Concluding in conclusive data as to its positive impact. This paper is very relevant to
this assignment because there are multiple layers of employee trusting issues at hand in the
Boston Bank world. It is my presumption that, in part, Ralph lacked trust in Ellen, and did not
heed her warnings or advice on his failing leadership with his teams. Additionally, due to
Ralph’s failing leadership style, his employees were documented as having a lack of trust in him
and his abilities. As the paper presumes, this lack of layered trust results in poor organizational
performance, justly resulting in Ralph being let go. This paper is written in the scope of hotel
management and the leadership dynamics amongst hotel staff, but the findings and garnered
insights are likely to hold true across a plethora of industries and organizations. The one knock to
this paper is that the study sample was over a relatively short period of time, two months, so it is
possible that the concluded results, may have a different interpretation over a year or three, as in
the case of Ralph Emerson. This article was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library
Online Database.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 10
Loumpourdi, M.G(2023), "Leadership development programmes: part of the solution or part of
the problem of women’s under-representation in leadership?",GGender in
Management.Ghttps://doi.org/10.1108/GM-01-2022-0017
The author of this article is a professor in the U.K. in the college of social sciences. She has other
accepted, peer reviewed, scholarly papers and is qualified to write about the topic. This article
takes an examination of various organizational leadership development programs, with special
regard to women’s role within the programs. This paper is relevant to this assignment because it
looks at demographics of leadership development programs and how they influence individuals
and overall organizational success. This paper was helpful for my paper and thinking more
critically on leadership development by providing an alternate approach. The paper does take a
special look to see if there is bias in genders selected as participants of leadership development
programs. One surprising conclusion to the paper is that implementing gender-oriented quotas or
gender specific enrollments, will likely actually have a negative effect on the overall. Further
emphasizing the gap and differences in gender percentages within various programs. Rather than
creating gender specific programs, this paper proposes that organizations should simply ensure a
workplace culture that promotes and allows all employee the opportunity to be in leadership
positions. The biggest proposition from this paper is that organizations should be very weary in
the implementation of their leadership development programs and ensure that each program is
unique to the organization rather than a more textbook one size fits all approach and curriculum.
The paper does not present a gender bias but does propose that a more gender equity approach is
needed. This article was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library Online Database.
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 11
Luria, G., Kahana, A., Goldenberg, J., & Noam, Y. (2019). Leadership development: Leadership
emergence to leadership effectiveness. Small Group Research, 50(5), 571-592.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496419865326
All the authors of this paper are professors at a university in Israel in the department of human
services. Each of them has multiple academic level peer reviewed articles to their name. They
also each possess multiple citations of those papers. Similarly, this paper can be found to be cited
and accepted by the broader academic community. The study done in this paper is to examine the
leader that is leading a leadership development program and their individual effectiveness and
how that translates to the trainee leader’s overall effectiveness and development. The strength of
this study is that it was over a two-year period and had a multitude of subject. They also used
cadets in a military academy, which is another strength as the emphasis of leadership in the
military as well as the diversity of the cadets. The uniqueness of this article was that they looked
at how peers viewed the leadership potential of each other, not just how current leadership
viewed the leadership potential of subordinates. They were able to determine that peers were
extremally successful in predicting successful leadership abilities in each other up to two years in
advance of being promoted to the role, this is very significant. The people you rub shoulders with
every day, often have a very good sense of who you are. This article is relevant to this
assignment because we see that with Ralph, leadership seeing his potential is not always enough.
Repeatedly Ralph’s former peers questioned his promotion, which ultimately fails. This article
was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library Online Database.
Slater, J., 2020, ‘The first shall be last... – A biblical inversion of leadership traps and pressure
cooker appetites for ambitious statuses’, HTS Theologies Studies. 76(2), a5963.
https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v76i2.5963
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 12
The author of this paper is a professor at a South African university in the department of
Philosophy. This paper can be found to be cited in other academic peer reviewed articles as well
as other articles written by the author. She has other papers on similar topics in accepted
academic journals. This shows her qualifications and acceptance to write on the topic. This
article examines common traps and pitfalls of leadership, especially in regard to leaders who
may act overly virtuous or zealous. This article is relevant and important to this assignment
because it looks at leadership dynamics with a special emphasis on leadership styles from a
biblical perspective. They examine the biblical principle that the first shall be last and the last
first, and how that relates to leadership, both in the biblical perspective, but also in a more
secular perspective. The article examines various traps or pressure cookers of leadership, namely
virtuousness and how the concept of the last being first can be applied to make this a more
productive framework for leadership. I found this article to be helpful in that it pushed me to
consider an attribute of leadership not often discussed in academia, selflessness. When looking at
Ralph’s leadership story, it seems that he lacked in this area, as he never made any lasting
changes for other people. He simply resorted back to his old comfortable ways. This article
speaks to that type of mindset. This article was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library
Online Database.
Vogel, B., Reichard, Rebecca J., Saša, Batistič, Matej, Černe (2021). A bibliometric review of
the leadership development field: How we got here, where we are, and where we are
headed. The Leadership Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101381.
This article is written in the Leadership Quarterly, a respected collection of peer-reviewed
scholarly articles. Each of the four authors of this paper are established professors at various
universities around the globe. Each in varying disciplines related to leadership. Vogel represents
BIBLICAL INTEGRATION EXERCISE 13
the U.K., Reichard the U.S.A., Saša the Netherlands, and Matej represents Slovenia. They all
have multiple peer-reviewed published articles to their credit; each having been cited by multiple
other scholars’ work. The essence of this paper is an overview examination of the field of
leadership development, its history, its current state, and its future. They distinguish leader
development, as in the development of the person themselves who is the leader, and leadership
development, to mean the development of the style and traits of a given leader, individual. This
is exactly why this was a applicable article for this assignment as the case study deals with both
leader and leadership development. Limitations of this article are that they had to choose specific
key words and phrases as the parameter of their leadership development analysis search.
Naturally it would be near impossible to come up with a manageable search criterion that would
contain all possible studies. Additionally, with this being a bibliometric analysis, it simple is
searching for studies that contain the topic, rather than why they contain it. Despite these
limitations the findings and results of this article should hold true across the field. The main
finding from this article is that the field, the study, and the organizational emphasis on leadership
development are growing faster and faster year over year. This can only be good for
organizations. This article was found via a search in the Jerry Falwell Library Online Database.
