Tried and True

Recovering Timeless Leadership Vision for Contemporary Challenges

Successful leadership needs more than top-down strategic plans and lofty vision statements. Real leadership happens at the intersection of a leader’s inner life with the outer expression of care for their organization and the communities it serves. To find sustainable paths of leadership, we can look to reliable guidance from those whose legacy has stood the test of time.

Tried and True offers a unique convergence of the decades of leadership experience of authors Margaret Diddams and Shirley Mullen with a historical exploration of John Wesley’s life and leadership. Informed by their personal and professional journeys in both higher education and corporate consulting, Diddams and Mullen provide a comprehensive and practical study of John Wesley’s leadership practices and his holistic view of leadership that transformed not just his immediate community but the shape of church history.

In Tried and True, Diddams and Mullen

• speak to today’s leadership fatigue with a focus on sustainable, character-driven leadership;
• revive John Wesley’s timeless leadership practices for modern challenges; and
• integrate inner character with outward community impact for a vision of sustainable leadership.
• offer a hopeful vision for today’s leaders and the communities they serve.

The three attributes of surrender, stewardship, and servanthood provide a dynamic framework for leaders as they navigate the tensions and paradoxes of leadership. As leaders seek to be faithful to their calling, they will find that even as God is inspiring them to lead, he is also using the work itself to form them more closely to the image of Christ.

This book doesn’t offer the latest leadership fad or a “silver bullet” solution. It calls leaders back to what has stood the test of time—a sustainable, countercultural path of leadership that not only transforms organizations and cultures, but also opens leaders themselves to the Spirit’s deep work of transformation.