10. What do you feel makes the role of a leader or manager a servant or a guide, rather than a master or hero?
11. Describe how you enable or encourage workers, whatever the rank, to take joy in their work, rather than merely savings. How do you know or monitor?
APPENDIX 2
CASE STUDY PROTOCOL
The following protocol was used to conduct the participant interviews. It served as a guide of the events that needed to take place during each interview. This process provided the consistency in the data-gathering phase to triangulate the data during the final phase of the research.
In order to assist in the note-taking process, the researcher would like to audiotape the interview session. If you agree to allow this, please give your verbal consent at the beginning of the session. The researcher alone will have access to these records, which will be destroyed after they are transcribed. Also, please understand that your participation in this research is voluntary, and you may stop the interview at any time.
Introduction
This interview is planned to last no longer than one hour. Both your experience in and contribution to leading transformative change in marketplace businesses were factors in your selection for this study. The research effort is particularly focused on understanding how executive Christian leaders manage transformative change in the secular marketplace. It is not the intention of the researcher to evaluate the process and execution of change management. Instead, the study is an attempt to understand the current approaches of a sampling of Christian executive leaders who have managed transformative change in the marketplace.
A Biblical Foundation
The journey of the contemporary Western church has been led into the valley of exile, and as it traverses through, it is guided by the belief that this is not the final destination.1 As such, there is an urgent need to recapture a biblical vision of work and vocation. The Bible makes it clear that God’s will for the world is that His people are to be scattered as salt and light among the whole range of secular vocations. Christians working only among Christians will not accomplish God’s redemptive purpose for the world.
1Lee Beach and Walter Brueggemann, The Church in Exile: Living in Hope After Christendom (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2015), 3088.
God intends for His Kingdom on earth to be built by Disciples of Christ in their secular jobs. In 1 Corinthians 7:17-24, Paul makes it clear that the call to be a Christian was not a call to leave your secular vocation. Paul wrote: “So brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God” (verse 24). Jesus prayed that His disciples would remain in the world, but that they would not be “of the world” (John 17:15-17).
The biblical truth is that Christians ought to intentionally and joyfully glorify God in secular employment. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul said, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Moreover, in Colossians 3:17, he wrote,
“whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Therefore, Christians should view all of life as worship, and, even though impacted by the fall, work is a good gift from God.
The question for most Christians in the marketplace should be, “How can my life count for the glory of God in my secular vocations?”2 Paul tells the church at Ephesus what godly charter is: “I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1- 3).
The aim of this study is to understand effective practices used by Christian leaders in the secular workplace to manage transformative change as they operate from a biblical worldview. For,
God is interested in all our nonreligious life. All our business transactions are his concern. He is not so distant that he only cares about what happens at church and during devotions. Every square inch of the earth is his and every minute of our lives is a loan from his breath. He is much more secular than we often think.3
2John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 135.
3John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2000), 254.
The purpose of this research is to discover and articulate effective principles for how overtly Christian leaders stimulate transformative change in the marketplace. A qualitative, multiple case study method was used to build a foundation for future
research. Through the examination of several best-case examples of managing change, principles emerged that can assist in identifying effective practices that may benefit Christian marketplace leaders to stimulate an environment of continual, relentless, perpetual search for improvement.
Research Question
As sojourners in the midst of the moral revolution, the purpose of this case study will be to understand how Christian leaders in the marketplace create an
environment of continual, relentless, perpetual search for improvement which simultaneously brings joy of workmanship to people.