Blog Archives
Effective Leaders
Faith in Flux is a collection of Christian leadership essays that frame leadership as a moral practice shaped by change, faith, critical thinking, and service. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Writing this book was important to me because it was an outlet for my reflections on my doctoral journey. I authored these essays while attending Liberty University’s School of Education, studying for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Educational Leadership. Postgraduate students can get overwhelmed by the volume of scholarly reports, peer-reviewed studies, and primary sources they must scrutinize before drafting their own academic prose. While reviewing and preparing for my dissertation, I decided to revisit my journey and share some of the leadership knowledge I had amassed, curated, and synthesized during my four years of study. I think education’s purpose is more than a simple knowledge transfer; it is knowledge shared to encourage deep thought and spark honest debate – a true collaborative effort.
Why do you believe listening is such a foundational leadership skill?
Listening is a foundational leadership skill because it builds trust, encourages diverse perspectives, informs decision-making, and mitigates potential conflict. As a child, adults told me that God gave us two ears and one mouth because we should listen twice as much as we speak. Although it’s commonly attributed to the ancient Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, the quote “We have two ears and only one tongue so that we may hear more and speak less,” was written by Diogenes of Sinope, the founder of Cynic philosophy. The Cynics were a precursor philosophy to the Stoics; therefore, it makes sense that they share core beliefs. Likewise, Hellenistic culture influenced the Christian Bible. In the Old Testament, there are two references in Proverbs 10:19 and 17:28 advising to “hold their tongues.” Also, the New Testament has a similar quote in James 1:19: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.”
Mentorship feels central to the book’s worldview. What makes a mentor truly transformative?
Mentorship is a critical component of education. The mentee determines whether a mentor is truly transformative. As my favorite mentor once said, “I’m not training you to do your job, I’m training you to do mine.” Anyone can be a mentor: family members, friends, coworkers, classmates, neighbors, or authority figures. Mentorship is a relationship. Both parties are responsible for nurturing any healthy relationship. However, a good mentor inherently has the mentee’s best interest at heart. Mentorship is not a self-serving endeavor, and sincerity is difficult to fake in the long term. All relationships take effort and time. However, not all advice is prudent or actionable. Mentors provide guidance while allowing the mentee to make mistakes without achieving total failure. As General David Goldfein wrote, leaders share success but own failure. I think effective leaders are mentors, and good mentors are leaders.
What audience did you most hope would connect with this book?
I view education as a collaborative effort with educators as mentors. My intent is not to proselytize but to share academic literature from my studies and personal anecdotes from my military experiences. Although I wrote this book from a Christian lens, ethics and morality are human ideals. Ethics is a branch of knowledge focusing on virtues, obligations, and consequences. It originated from the Greek ēthos (character or custom). Morals are one’s particular values concerning right and wrong that inform one’s conduct. It is derived from the Latin word mōs (custom or habit). Culture, traditions, customs, and religion influence both societal beliefs. Anyone who wants to behave ethically and morally (in the classroom or the boardroom) is my target audience.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Website | Amazon
In a world of constant change, this collection of essays distills four years of doctoral research at Liberty University into a practical, faith-grounded exploration of educational leadership, ethics, and modern pedagogy.
Author Michael W. Cook bridges the gap between rigorous academic scholarship and accessible prose, weaving in candid military anecdotes and a distinctly Christian worldview to make complex ideas both relatable and actionable.
From the timeless wisdom of Saint Augustine and the Founding Fathers’ vision of an educated citizenry to today’s most urgent challenges—campus ideological tensions, academic freedom battles, STEM integration with robotics and maker spaces, game-based learning, bureaucratic hierarchies, and technology ethics-—the essays show Christian leaders how to navigate constant change (life is flux) while staying firmly anchored in biblical morals and principles.
More than a scholarly exercise, this book serves as both an engaging narrative and a practical reference guide, equipping educators, administrators, ministry leaders, and professionals with biblical wisdom for faithful leadership in the classroom, boardroom, and daily life.
Ready to lead with conviction when the ground is shifting beneath your feet?
Faith in Flux shows you how.
Faith in Flux: Christian Leadership Lessons From Classroom to Boardroom
Faith in Flux is a wide-ranging collection of Christian leadership essays drawn from Michael William Cook’s PhD studies in educational leadership, moving from classrooms to military teams to higher education debates and organizational ethics. Cook frames leadership as a moral practice shaped by change, faith, critical thinking, and service. He writes about Heraclitus and “life is flux,” Augustine’s belief that education should form virtue, Jefferson and Rush’s competing visions of public education, Freire and campus speech, conflict resolution at work and home, mentoring in the Air Force, project-based learning, bureaucracy, STEM, technology, and the educational damage left by COVID-era distance learning. It’s less a single-argument book than a cabinet of essays, each one turning over a leadership problem under a Christian and academic light.
I liked how personal the book becomes when Cook steps away from the machinery of citations and lets experience do some of the teaching. His memory of Mr. Miller stopping trigonometry class to measure a basketball hoop, then a water tower, and a church steeple, has a lovely plainspoken power because it makes his point before he explains it. The same is true of the Air Force satellite exercise, where students worked with a transparent little box, test equipment, diagrams, and failure itself as a teacher. Those moments gave the book warmth. I felt the author most clearly there, not just as a doctoral student assembling scholarship, but as someone who has been changed by good teaching and wants to pass that change along.
Cook’s convictions are sincere, and I respected the moral seriousness behind his concerns about campus speech, leadership legitimacy, and education without virtue. Some passages land with more force than nuance, especially when discussing Marxism, Freire, and contemporary university culture. The writing can become compressed by its academic scaffolding, with names, theories, citations, and conclusions arriving in a steady march. I appreciated that the book doesn’t pretend to be neutral. Its best ideas are grounded in responsibility: leaders should listen before correcting, delegate without abandoning accountability, protect children, teach for mastery rather than mere grades, and treat authority as something earned through character rather than title.
Faith in Flux is thoughtful, earnest, and often thought-provoking, especially when Cook connects leadership theory to lived moments of mentorship, classroom discovery, and moral choice. The prose is strongest when it breathes, and the ideas are strongest when they’re embodied in stories. This is a passionate book about becoming the kind of leader who can stand inside change without losing his ethical center. I’d recommend it to Christian educators, school leaders, military mentors, and readers who enjoy reflective essays that blend faith, leadership theory, and practical experience.
Pages: 247 | ASIN : B0GWWNC92F
A Contrary Voice Of Reason
Meditations for Modern Man provides wisdom on morality, ethics, and everyday life. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I wrote this book at my son’s request. My book is a contrary voice of reason to an increasingly emotional and reactionary leftist society in America. For two decades I have been a parent, led Boy Scouts, and supervised military members. I have lived in several countries in Europe and Asia. I witnessed a severe decline in American critical thinking, rational thought, and historical facts. Contrary opinions to leftist (mostly Marxist and anti-Capitalist) dogma are literally being prosecuted as violating newly implemented company policy or worse prosecuted as a criminal without justifying the policy/law with facts, scientific studies, or logical argument. This is extremely dangerous and anathema to a free society.
What is one piece of advice someone gave you that changed your life?
An old adage military leaders once professed was “I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It”. This maxim is no longer in vogue and is not a tenant of current Academia ideology. Contrary opinion is silenced and individuals espousing it are censored or de-platformed. “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it,” attributed to St Augustine of Hippo.
There are a variety of quotes I found valuable like, “When Logic fails, Emotion reigns.” What quote in the book do you find you most often refer to?
The quote I most often refer to is “An emotional mind is blind to reason, quick to anger, and intolerant of contrary thoughts.” This is the crux of the problem. Emotional people who cannot or will not think logically are easily manipulated. Rational people, on the other hand, question beliefs and behaviors while demanding those who profess them to logically justify them. Challenged emotional people quickly turn to anger.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
Everyone must be able to challenge what they’ve been told, justify what they think, and logically defend what they believe. As Socrates wrote: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Most critics of my book assume it is a “conservative viewpoint”. It is not. It is an unemotional logical viewpoint of traditional American values and principles. I hope people who were never exposed to contrary viewpoints are open-minded enough to entertain a rational belief.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Website
… this is the book you wish your parents gave you.
Have you ever questioned what you believe to be true?
Many unasked questions are answered from nine topics: Leadership, Morality, Logic, Facts, Liberty, Criticism, Character, Education, and Politics.
Do you regret not asking a parent, grandparent, or mentor about certain life lessons?
Get this book now for the answers.
TRIGGER WARNING
This book contains unapologetic content that could be emotionally and intellectually challenging to the reader.
If you are easily triggered, this book provides the opportunity to contemplate your strongly held beliefs and question your cultural conditioning.
An open mind is a free mind. Recent studies published in Clinical Psychological Science “suggest a trigger warning is neither meaningfully helpful nor harmful.”
A must-read for parents and children alike. Meditate on maxims developed by a loyal follower, moral leader, and compassionate parent.
Get it now.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components.
Shadows of the Trees
Shadows of the Trees is a collection of thought-provoking poetry and prose. The poems are chronologically presented based on the time of composition, which makes me feel like the poet wants us to follow his journey by following these pieces.
If you start from the initial poems, there’s a free flow of raw emotions. The heavy influence of American Romanticism is evident throughout, but the poet also manages to express his own passions and insights through his writings. As we progress towards the later chapters, the melodies in the poems start to develop. Poetry enthusiasts can easily recognize this shift, both in terms of rhythmic quality as well as a gradual change in the poet’s perspectives.
The poems are of varied moods – some are dark, while others carry a beautiful introspective quality. The poet not only looks inward, but also at his surroundings, and takes inspiration from life. The last chapters ‘1996’ and ‘1997’ have a somber feel, but it’s also where the melodies find maturity. Even though the poems sing of anguish and broken hearts, there is a hint of faith and hope pervading throughout them. Once you read the compositions, you would truly agree with what the poet said in the introduction – poems are “lyrics to melodies of the mind”.
Shadows of the Trees can be an excellent gift for someone who enjoys reading poetry, or aspiring young adults who love to compose. These candid poems are short but potent, so they can be read in one go, but it’s better to read them leisurely, and let the feelings sink in as you ponder.
Pages: 115 | ASIN: B09QFDYYNS
