Book Description
A retelling of the Ernest Shackleton story to showcase the fine arts of leadership that emerged from his failed expedition.


From the Back Cover
Leadership Re-Visioned Cast a vision, set a strategy, rally the troops, and take the hill—you don’t need another book to rehash the well-worn principles of modern leadership. But if you’re looking for something different, something that . . .approaches leadership as an art as well as a science inspires hope and expectation in those of us who aren’t born leaders challenges those with leadership roles to explore new possibilities . . . then Leonard Sweet wants to help you discover a very different kind of leadership vision. It’s one you hear if your ears are open, and it could summon you at any time. When you respond, the puzzle pieces of who you are will fit together into a leader others follow because you’ve answered a call, not trained for a position. "The church has it all wrong. It is trying to train leaders. Instead, it ought to train everyone to listen and to develop their own soundtrack." Leaders don’t see a vision, says Sweet, they hear one. "Sound becomes sight. Leaders hear life." For a sonogram of "acoustic leadership," Sweet takes us inside the incredible account of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the celebrated polar explorer who led his entire crew of twenty-seven from disaster in the Antarctic to safety. Called "the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth, bar none," Shackleton objectifies the goals of Sweet’s own exploration in search of wisdom for today and tomorrow’s truly compelling, voice-activated leaders. Right now, you may be leading many people or just yourself. But who knows what tomorrow—or a minute from now—will call forth in you. Are your ears open?


About the Author
Leonard Sweet holds the E. Stanley Jones chair at Drew University. Founder and president of SpiritVenture Ministries, he also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Fox University, and is the chief writer for preachingplus.com. Sweet is a popular speaker and has written numerous books, including Jesus Drives Me Crazy, SoulTsunami, SoulSalsa, Carpe Manana, and (with Brian McLaren and Jerry Haselmeyer) A Is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Leaders are neither born nor made. Leaders are summoned. They are called into existence by circumstances, and those who rise to the occasion are leaders.

That is Leonard Sweet's revolutionary definition of leadership that he so compellingly makes in his new book, Summoned to Lead. This book approaches leadership as an art form as well as a science, and employs the legacy of Ernest Shackleton, the famous polar explorer, as a means of helping readers develop a leadership cachet and a leadership soul.

From 1914 to 1917, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of twenty-eight men were stranded in the Antarctic as he tried to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole. Even though he failed, he has since been called "the greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none."

Sweet retells the Shackleton story and showcases the fine art of leadership that emerged from his failed expedition. Summoned to Lead invites leaders to "forget the vision thing" for a while and focus on vibration, or what he calls "voice-activated leadership" that turns the ear into an eye.