“Carl is a man who hears what the Spirit is saying and places the poetry of that message for the reader to hear for himself”

Bettie P. Mitchell, Founder and former International Executive Director, Good Samaritan Ministries

Beyond Illusion:
       Leading from Reality

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas Anymore."
Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz

"In this historic moment, we live caught in a worldview that no longer works and a new one that seems too bizarre to contemplate."
Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World

There is no doubt that we see a failure of leadership today. Political leaders are unable to forge a path out of two wars we were led into by lies and greed. Today we see the economic system that has fueled capitalism for years is collapsing from greed and mismanagement. Much of the existing leadership has been unwilling to change, passing the costs of their selfishness and mismanagement to the next generations and the generations after them. Paradigms of the past remain only as illusions and no longer work. What does real leadership today look like?

Beyond Illusions: Leading from Reality takes a hard look at what is missing in today’s leadership using, as effective models, outstanding leaders in the Bible such as Nehemiah, Moses, and Jesus. If you want to be a leader today, you will find essential clues in this book as well as stories that show you how you can lead in transforming your community, nation, and in the world.

Nothing changes until you upset what is, until you show people that where they are, the status quo, isn’t working. People build a comfort zone, an illusion, so they don’t have to change. They distort facts, lie, and ignore the facts—anything but change from where they are. The leader must upset the equilibrium; that is, create (and what appears to be) chaos. The new leader speaks and acts into the existing order, upsetting what is and creating chaos. This forces the “system” to reorder to a higher ordered system. This doesn’t make sense from our older leadership models; yet there is a new and higher order that emerges from the disorder. The leader is not doing this just for the sake of creating chaos. Rather, the leader is drawing the followers to a new Place.

When the Good News of the Gospel is alive in any person, whatever their type of work may be, they become an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He or she becomes interesting to other people. They disturb, upset, enlighten, and open ways for better understanding.

In the new paradigm, once the vision is put down (and continues to be put down), the leader then focuses energy not so much in planning, putting down programs, building structures, and evaluating; but rather the leader focuses on building relationships (networks, linkages, dynamic connectedness), and releases. There is no control. The result appears to the leader (and even the followers) as non-deterministic; but it really does have a pattern. Trying to control will distort the pattern.