Richard Kriegbaum
Author, speaker, consultant, and former university president, Rich Kriegbaum is a teacher at heart. He has helped thousands of people view their personal and organizational realities in new ways and apply powerful principles of leading, following, managing, and changing to improve their performance and fulfillment in the Kingdom of God. In addition to numerous articles, his book Leadership Prayers has 100,000 print and digital copies in four languages since its launch in 1998. It is a resource of insights and encouragement for those who accept the challenges of wise and effective following and leading in the Kingdom.
He loves sharing in the improvement of personal and organizational effectiveness. He has been a speaker or consultant on leadership/followership, planning, marketing, systemic change, governance, and prayer for 170 organizations.
After childhood years among the fields and streams of eastern Iowa where his Dad was a pastor, his teen years were in northern Indiana where his Dad was a publishing executive and later dean of students at Grace College (IN), and his mother taught English. He sold his first article while in high school and still loves to read and write.
He played football for four years in high school and for two weeks at Wheaton College (IL), when he was suddenly overcome by a compelling vision of self-preservation, and from then on he stuck to running and long jumping on the track team. He earned a BA from Wheaton (with high honor) and an MA from Ball State University, both in Spanish, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from State University of New York at Buffalo.
Teaching and coaching in elementary and secondary schools helped prepare him to serve 16 years in various faculty and administrative roles at Wheaton College, and 17 years at Fresno Pacific University, including 15 as President. He was Director of Administration at Fresno Leadership Foundation and for eight years was President of United Way Fresno. He has served non-profit, for profit, association, and church boards.
Rich and his wife Peggi (an administrator at Fresno Pacific) share two married children and one in heaven, seven grandchildren, six great grands, and a lot of music, sports, laughter, love, prayer, church, and mutual support and encouragement. In addition to
writing and speaking, he enjoys growing and eating organic fruits and vegetables, working out, and a daily dish of ice cream. He plays the piano as part of his private worship and enjoys singing in groups at church. He can sing the first stanza of the Indiana state song, and sometimes does so with only the slightest justification.
Heads and Tails (Paperback)
Following and Leading in Kingdom-Formed Organizations
Your life depends on organizations. God created you in his image for purposeful relationships. No human can thrive, or ultimately even survive, in isolation. From the small groups like a nuclear family, church, or school to large secular companies, and the
government, every such purposeful group of people is, by definition, an organization where everything is done by someone who is following or leading, and often both. These interdependent roles are equally important heads and tails of the organizational coin.
The Kingdom of God has two realms of organizations. The heavenly realm is perfectly organized, so when Jesus taught his followers to pray, he told them to pray for God’s Kingdom to come soon on earth as it is now in heaven. Later he repeated that
instruction even more strongly and with a promise: seek the Kingdom of God above everything else, and he will give you everything you need.
How do you bring Kingdom principles into every kind of organization, with following and leading equally valued under the perfect leadership of King Jesus? The heavenly realm provides the organizational and relational ideal for all organizations in the earthly realm, so the following and leading roles can be filled with maximum effectiveness.
In the present earthly realm, Kingdom-formed organizations function as much as possible like the ideal model of the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Thus, in a heavily leader-centric world, extra-intentional effort must focus on the development of highly
effective followership and truly humble leadership. Heads and Tails provides principles, illustrations, a practical framework, meditations, and challenging questions for a mindset that guides actions great and small to make following and leading in any kind of organization more like the coming Kingdom of God.