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Craig Hamilton's book "Wisdom in Leadership" fills a significant and costly gap in Christian circles, and does so with with verve, wit and wisdom.

Leadership and productivity geeks reading "Wisdom in Leadership" will immediately recognise in Hamilton a fellow traveller whose grasp of the field is impressive and whose judgements are judicious. Without drinking the Kool-Aid, he has critically and appreciatively mined the field's best literature and extracted the very best from it. The book serves as a brilliant readers guide to the last 40 years of secular and Christian leadership publications.

On the other hand (and this is where he really does fill a gap), Hamilton manages to speak to those many people who have an allergic reaction to leadership and productivity literature. Such a reaction is understandable--often in this field, the pop-psychology is cringe, the studies unscientific and (worst of all) the use of the Bible in the Christian literature is just terrible.

And therein lies the problem. For, the truth is, Christian leaders do actually have to run staff teams, create agendas, chair meetings, draft budgets, set visions, write job descriptions and lead organisations. We just do. And we often do it very badly. The gag reflex against the relevant literature creates a kind of paywall that means pastors and gospel workers who really do need to know this stuff just can't access it. And, as a result, badly run meetings, poorly cast visions and horribly dysfunctional teams litter the Christian landscape.

Hamilton manages to use the Bible well, reflect theologically and get the best of the relevant thought out from behind the barriers and into the hands of Christians leaders who desperately need them. This book could be a game changer for many Christian leaders and, as a result, a blessing to many churches and Christian ministries. Highly recommended.

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Rory Shiner
Senior Pastor
Website: http://providencechurch.org.au

[Note] This review was transferred from our old online store which did not give ratings. But this new store requires ratings. So in order to transfer them we have tried to give a rating which reflects the content of the review. So you may prefer to ignore the rating and just read the review.
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Let's get the negatives out of the way first. I love Matthias Media, but the cover is cheesy and the book is way too long. This volume is going to reach a smaller audience because it is 78 chapters and 495 pages. Which is a shame, because this is an outstanding book. Hamilton's thesis is that most Christian leaders are into theology books or leadership books, but rarely both. And that's a problem. He thinks (1) Christian leadership must be rooted in good theology and (2) theologically-minded pastors cannot ignore principles of good leadership. The result is an extraordinarily practical book that is full of invaluable insight and hard fought common sense. Pick 20 or 30 small chapters and use this book with your staff or your leadership team. I like 'Time Management Won't Help You,' 'Praise Publicly,' 'Ideas Are Born Ugly,' 'Public Fans and Private Critics,' 'Choose Your Lieutenants,' 'There's No Point Having a Dog and then Barking Yourself,' and 'Why Systems Matter.'

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2016/05/26/book-briefs-24/