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PREFACE ——o— Dear Reader, A great deal of work has gone into this volume, which we are extremely proud to place in your hands. After several years of preparation, the exceptionally successful Christan Leadership Conference was held in Budapest and some of the speakers were invited to have their papers included in this volume. The conference was both a precursor and a vehicle for the volume, insofar as it provided the forum where the ideas presented could be heard and tested in the discussions. Ihe authors revised their thoughts based on their experiences in giving the presentations and the ensuing discussions. There was an opportunity for ideas to be matured and clarified. The conference also produced another volume: Volker Kessler, Angelika Marsch & Hans-Georg Wiinch (eds.): Leaders between role model and idol. Zurich: LIT, 2025. This volume is a kind of twin publication, although by different authors. The conference focused on a comparison and dilemma of two leadership patterns of leadership theory, idol and role model. This problem is therefore at the heart of this volume. Idol and role model-based leadership questions the nature, ethics, and the Christian character of leadership. Christian Leadership sees Jesus as a role model, a servant leader, and an understanding and inclusive leader — “... the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve...” (Matthew 20:28) — who sets a moral and spiritual example, but also as a visionary, transformational leader. These are the questions addressed in our volume. We have divided the volume into three sections on ethical models: church organization, business/organizational aspects, and higher education. This book therefore covers different areas of theology, academia and business leadership. (1) In the section on church organizational models, the authors describe the workings of individual congregations, providing positive and negative examples that may be instructive for a wider audience. Authors such as Ghada Barsoum and Mark Birinyi are renowned and experienced practitioners. In a synthesis of theology and psychology, Rosalind Sigamoney offers a holistic and practical framework for training Christlike leaders who are both spiritually grounded and emotionally competent. (2) The business or management section focuses on an ethical approach to management. Susanne Thyroff and Volker Kessler write about silence as a neglected virtue of Christian leaders, the other authors in this block address issues such as the impact of the legal environment on «7 e
