Lack of Leadership

[OldSkool]

There have been few other leadership examples I have seen that are actually worse that what you find in the way international. I had several years management/project management experience before going into the way corps. There were clear cut goals, authority was delegated along with responsibility, there was wide lateral movement to accomplish tasks, there was true support from higher ups, money was allocated in the form of a budget and there was freedom to spend as needed, etc. Above all there was freedom to succeed and inspire excellence in those who worked for me.

Going into the way corps I really expected to build on what I had been trained in. After all, it was supposed to be the greatest leadership training on earth? So after wasting 4 years in way corps training, what did I find?

Some of the worst leadership examples on earth - the way corps. Now that's not to say there are no talented people in the way corps. They are simply in a system that will always hold them back.

And so I find myself (upon graduation) working on staff at HQ. I was highly micromanaged. I received responsibilities galore but no real authority to carry them out without seeking approval for even the smallest matter. I had to turn in reports on very frivolous matters that concerned the private lives of employees. I was responsible to report to Rosalie (via chain of command) that everyone had heard the Sunday teaching service each week. There were no tangible goals. Most lead from hind sight and the mantra of "this is what we did last year." Other leaders I worked with were not interested in excelling but only maintaining the status quo. They were afraid to be different. Nobody wanted to draw attention to themselves for fear of censure.

I could go on.

I can personally say I swam upstream while I was there. I revamped a dysfunctional department and received praise for a very short season. In the end I was identified as a "bad guy" because I would not roll over and take wrong from the directors.

Let it stand as a warning for anyone that thinks they can change the way ministry as I once did. A corrupt organization cannot be made non-corrupt. This little cultic, 501-c3 has been corrupt since wierwille was around living off the donations of others. Run, run fast and far.

There is no true leadership in the way international. They are the blind leading the blind. The group has been told they are the best in the world. They have been "gassed up."

[outandabout]

Not to mention how the practice of yelling at people all the time doesn't exactly motivate them.

[OldSkool]

Not to mention how the practice of yelling at people all the time doesn't exactly motivate them.

Outside boot camp, the military doesn't even yell that much --- so I have been told.

[WordWolf]

Outside boot camp, the military doesn't even yell that much --- so I have been told.

So it's been reported here, by US military veterans.

[Steve Lortz]

So it's been reported here, by US military veterans.

Me... for one. In the submarine service, officers and enlisted trusted each other. Sometimes, new officers would come aboard with bad attitudes toward enlisted, and we had ways of making them change their attitudes real quick, or get off the boat.

We couldn't frag anybody on the boat, but we sure could make their lives a living hell, all within the rules of the game. TWI style leaders wouldn't have lasted a week.

Real leaders EARN the respect of their followers by behaving respectably!

Love,

Steve

Edited April 25, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[excathedra]

Real leaders EARN the respect of their followers by behaving respectably!

[waysider]

I've encountered similar scenarios in the corporate world. To be fair, though, I can't recall any of them professing to represent God Almighty....more like the almighty dollar.

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

Wierwille's false ideal premise was the military like West Point and boot camp where DI's, Mst. Sgt. were bullies to destroy individualism and create group think robots/androids. If any upper classmen or officer physically assaults a pleb or private, they not only get court martialed with discharge with dishonor but can and most like be charged in civil/criminal court and sent to prison. Wierwille, Martindale, Geer, Sommerville, and Linder would have likely murdered the drill instructors, sargents, and officers and to hell with anyone else. They would have drugged every human being and bullied every one. Wierwille had no bussiness background nor training to be a credible religion professor or administrator of higher education.

[Patriot]

Speaking from a military-experienced perspective, I loved when Congressman Allen West said that he'd walk through hell with full gas cans for his troops. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to appreciate his devotion to his subordinate troops. He lost his position by (allegedly) putting a gun to the head of a terrorist, in order to get them to spill the beans on an upcoming attack on US troops. The terrorist did, and it saved lives. West got in big trouble. That's when he said he'd do whatever it took to take care of his people.

When we had real good leaders, they were people who actually cared about the people 'below' their oversight. They had a duty of loyalty to those they were responsible for. When they lived that way, you saw it. All of the people lower in rank ate before them, because if there was a meal missing, they would miss it and not those they were responsible to/for. To me, that was real leadership. When you had leaders above you like that, you'd gladly walk through fire for them.

Loyalty started top down first. They gave us a reason to be loyal to them (like with God, He loved us first, then we loved Him back). Most of what I saw in TWI was people being 'bosses' and not 'leaders.'

[OldSkool]

Good to see you, Patriot. Great points as well.

[penworks]

I remember that one of VPW's great heroes was General Patton. More than once VPW showed us the movie based on his life where he was ordering his men around and shouting profanity. Once VP had us meet in the Way Woods and put up a giant screen so we could watch this modern day "leader" practice principles of intimidation etc., ones that VPW obviously emulated. VP would laugh and laugh at the general's arrogant behavior.

In my view, many guys in the Corps loved Patton, too, because VP did. This outrageous model of so-called leadership supported VP's own abusive behavior that many of us had convinced ourselves was the way a real leader should act, after all, VP portrayed the Old Testament prophets yelling and screaming at the Israelites when they worshiped false idols, etc.. VP used Patton's example as a great "leader" as a justification for his often mean and sickening style, and many - not all - of the Way Corps (guys especially) tried to copy it.

Edited August 14, 2012 by penworks

[OldSkool]

I remember that one of VPW's great heroes was General Patton.

We were forced to watch Patton in-residence. I wonder if anyone around there ever stopped to think that the damn3d movie is a Hollywood portrayal and not something meant to be emulated by Churches and such.

[outandabout]

I fell asleep when we watched Patton.

[chockfull]

In my experience TWI's leadership embodies the worst of human nature. Politics, religion, and the business world, if you take all of the worst-cased scenarios with ego, power-mongering, throwing people under busses, taking credit for others work, extreme micromanagement, slander, libel, and self-aggrandizement, you will find all of that and more in TWI. And it got worse for me the longer I was in. I kept finding myself wondering why it was that I was treated much better in the secular business realm than I was by TWI leaders. Just one scenario I could understand as you could have a good job and a bad TWI leader. However, to see that time after time and leader after leader to me showed a pattern. Even the bad jobs I had with the worst managers were still much better than what I faced in TWI. The people that were being promoted up, given more responsibility and titles were worse and worse as time went on. Those that were the most two-faced excelled the most. One face of absolute compliance and @$$ kissing, and the other face of abusing those under them. Sheer hypocrisy. It reminded me of Jesus parable of the man forgiven a debt and abusing those under him that owed him. And the closer you get to the top leadership, the more blind people are, and the more corrupt people are.

You know people by their fruit. A Christian organization that produces evil fruit is a sham. TWI is a sham. Its leaders are a sham. The worst people rise to the top. They have the most ego, and are the most abusive. They are 100% deluded, as their own self image and that of their fellow leaders is that they are the "best in the world".

They are pathetic. They are losers.

[Twinky]

I kept finding myself wondering why it was that I was treated much better in the secular business realm than I was by TWI leaders.

Trick of the Adversary, doncha know.

Those in the secular business realm ... simply do not love you like the leaders in TWI do. (Thank God.)

[waysider]

edit

Edited August 14, 2012 by waysider

[chockfull]

Trick of the Adversary, doncha know.

Those in the secular business realm ... simply do not love you like the leaders in TWI do. (Thank God.)

Honestly it took me observing through 3 jobs and 10 years to come to the conclusion that evil was a pattern as opposed to believing more like what you said. What a waste of my life...

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

Here I am to save the day-Mighty Mouse now is in THE WAY

Edited August 14, 2012 by Thomas Loy Bumgarner

[excathedra]

I fell asleep when we watched Patton.

i love you outie

[Steve Lortz]

The first time I saw the movie "Patten" was late in 1970 at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. I was in a for real boot camp, for REAL! I enjoyed the movie, but I knew that it was just a movie.

I had an uncle who was in the infantry, but rode on top of one of Patton's tanks when they went to relieve Bastogne. My uncle spent several days in a foxhole with a dead German. All he had to eat was corned beef hash. He could never stomach corned beef hash after that. He was deafened by the artillery fire. He took a piece of shrapnel that was in him till the day he died. He spent the rest of the war folding parachutes (and he had to jump, occasionally, using a random chute that he himself had packed).

Leading people through that sort of thing is a little different from sitting at the head table and admonishing the Way Corps that "a general's suggestion is paramount [sic] to a command."

Wierwille had NO IDEA of what real combat is like. He had NO IDEA of the quality of character it takes to be an officer like Patton or Eisenhower or Bradley. Wierwille had NO IDEA of the discipline or self-sacrifice it took for my Pop to command an M10 tank destroyer in combat, and he was just a shave-tail lieutenant.

Wierwille was all swagger, with NO SUBSTANCE!

Love,

Steve

Edited August 15, 2012 by Steve Lortz

[Twinky]

Leading people through that sort of thing is a little different from sitting at the head table and admonishing the Way Corps that "a general's suggestion is paramount [sic] to a command."

That was "tantamount" not "paramount," Steve.

[skyrider]

I remember that one of VPW's great heroes was General Patton. More than once VPW showed us the movie based on his life where he was ordering his men around and shouting profanity. Once VP had us meet in the Way Woods and put up a giant screen so we could watch this modern day "leader" practice principles of intimidation etc., ones that VPW obviously emulated. VP would laugh and laugh at the general's arrogant behavior.

In my view, many guys in the Corps loved Patton, too, because VP did. This outrageous model of so-called leadership supported VP's own abusive behavior that many of us had convinced ourselves was the way a real leader should act, after all, VP portrayed the Old Testament prophets yelling and screaming at the Israelites when they worshiped false idols, etc.. VP used Patton's example as a great "leader" as a justification for his often mean and sickening style, and many - not all - of the Way Corps (guys especially) tried to copy it.

The corps indoctrination camp had many tangents and sub-level diversions......the patton portrayal was one amongst many. From what I remember of my corps experience, the patton stuff came about mid-year when wierwille and his corps coordinators were searching for more material to "stoke the fires" of commitment and enthusiasm.

I didn't sign up for the corps "training" to learn about general patton.

From my corps experience, wierwille never detailed much more than his 16 "keys" to walking by the spirit and his advanced class material. The corps program was geared towards INDOCTRINATION and OBEDIENCE. Wierwille envisioned a marching throng of followers who would, obediently, carry forth the directive of PFAL CLASSES OVER THE WORLD......er, "word over the world." A class setting where wierwille lectures the student on his version of spiritual truths needed to live abundantly......where students are monitored throughout the class, no questions are to be asked, and a session 12 "seals the deal of knowing that you know."

Yet, when the curtain of twi is pulled back.......one finds wierwille's sexual predation, exploitation, plagairism, drunkenness, orgy exploration, bullying, yell-fests, character assassinations, and visions of grandeur that fell flat.

Today's twi is swirling around the drain-hole of relevancy.

Staffers are scratching their heads wondering where did everyone go.

Recruitment and outreach on the field is infinitely dismal.

All corps graduates this year could easily fit into my living room.

Probably, they could all fit into one of my bathrooms.

<_<

[waysider]

There comes a point when hope turns into delusion. The Way reached that point long, long ago.

[OldSkool]

All corps graduates this year could easily fit into my living room.

Probably, they could all fit into one of my bathrooms.

<_<

Or the bathroom. ---> Just trying to keep the "swirling around the drain-hole of relevancy" figure in play.

I like that.

There comes a point when hope turns into delusion. The Way reached that point long, long ago.

Several years before I left I was able to measure decline at HQ year from year. Staffers, way disciples, graduating way corps, shrinking advanced class numbers. I told my self that we were rebuilding the ministry for the next generation and that if we did the work now to right the wrongs then God would bring the increase of people in time. Did I mention I was seriously deluded at the time?

[JavaJane]

One of the hardest things to face when thinking about leaving is realizing that you have been duped, that you are living in a delusion. In short, that you have been had.

I wonder how many people still in are only in because they can't overcome the ego involved in wanting to be right?