I’ve been crashing through different resources as I prepare for a new leadership course on teams and just finished Leading Multicultural Teams by Evelyn & Richard Hibbert. This is a book on team leadership and team dynamics focused on multicultural teams. There is a focus on missions contexts, but it is not so focused in that direction that it cannot serve broader team leadership training purposes.
One of the unique things about this book is that it’s one of the few texts that does the job anchoring teams or the concept of teams in a biblical and theological foundation, while also really robustly engaging contemporary leadership theory as well as integrating deep intercultural insight. This isn’t a book on missions strategy by any means, but it is focused on how teams can embody the values and vision of cross-cultural mission.
Some of the highlights are its treatment of trust – both in terms of cross-cultural relationships, relationships between teammates, and in terms of the leader. The authors clearly understand power dynamics cross-culturally and issues of voice both in terms of leadership, team dynamics, and conflict. It’s been a while since I’ve read something that reflected that experience and ethos.
The book covers themes of team formation, purposes of teams, functioning of teams, cultural dynamics on teams, conflict on teams and conflict styles, and many of the other key areas. It covers most of what you would want covered in a text book on teams in a cross-cultural context, which is why I’m going to assign it this year in the course I’m preparing. It would seem to be a great text for the context I’m teaching in (Asia) and I think it’s robust enough to serve both pastor/church planter folks and lay leaders in the marketplace and military. We’ll find out!
