Knowledge is Integrative

Author: Joel Liechty

In our post Knowledge has three parts, we discussed how knowledge is not just information but content and character as well. You "know" how to ride a bike well when you not only have information about riding a bike but the skill to do it and even the character, if you will, to ride it without running over Margaret's flower bed. 

In this post, we want to take this even further. Although it's helpful to define the parts of knowledge, to stop there is like dissecting a dead body to see what its constituitive parts are. It's nice to know but in dissecting it, we actually destroy it. 

True knowledge is integrative. It is not just content. Nor just craft. Nor just character. It is not all three of those together but still separate. Real knowledge is integrative. 

Suppose we were assessing someone's knowledge of leadership. It could be helpful to assess each part but we would not want to stop there. 

We may assess the content of their leadership knowledge. 

We could assess their leadership craft and skills. 

We could assess the leader as a person, their character.

And this would be helpful. But, if knowledge is integrative, what we really want to assess is how they embody leadership and how they lead in their church or organization and their role. 

How do they live into the full knowledge (content, character and craft) of leadership in their life: how do we see leadership content show up in their decisions, how do we see them interacting as a leader, how are they managing themselves as a leader. And how do all of these flow in and out, seemlessly perhaps, in their daily leadership interactions. 

This is what we really want to see: an embodied leadership that artfully, meaningfully, and winsomely integrates content, character and craft.