Gerhart Completes Initial Term of PhD Program

After being accepted and enrolling in the PhD in Organizational Leadership program at Regent University in August 2017, Ken Gerhart has successfully completed the first semester and is now navigating the voluminous pre-reading required for the Spring semester beginning in mid January 2018.  The Regent PhD program has a rather unique feature in that 15 of the required 60 hours of coursework can be designated as a concentration.  Gerhart has chosen the Ecclesial concentration, which is akin to a theology program of study without the languages. While theology is an area of focus, it will be accomplished under the umbrella of organizational leadership.

Gerhart's particular research interest is developing an overarching theology of leadership that uncovers the imbrications of the timeless truths of Christian scripture and academic understanding of contemporary leadership theory under which a comprehensive taxonomy can be codified. As such, developing a proto-taxonomy is the first step in an iterative process that will evolve over the course
of this research.

Such a proto-taxonomy - depicted in Figure 1, sets forth a dynamic leadership model with the following emerging constructs: Ontology of Leadership; Shepherd Leadership: Moses, David & Jesus; Counter-Social Leadership: Descending into Greatness; Pauline Leadership: Development, Maintenance & Succession; Sanctification & Transformational Leadership; Spiritual Intelligence: A Hermeneutical Context; Christological Leadership: Kenotic to Pleromatic; and, Trinitarian Leadership: Team Dynamics of the Godhead.  When aligned, each of these constructs will undergird the overall theory of a theology of leadership.