LEADERSHIP & SPIRITUALITY, PART V

God will never direct us to be prideful, arrogant and unforgiving, immoral or slothful or full of fear. We step into these things because we are insensitive to the leadership of the Spirit within us. –Charles Stanley

Greetings Gentle Reader.  Today I invite you to briefly explore with me Greenleaf’s concept of Spirit.  Today I will offer you Greenleaf’s words to reflect upon and next time I will offer you some of what has emerged for me as I reflect upon his words.  I invite you to consider what emerges from within you as you reflect upon Greenleaf’s words.

SPIRIT. Greenleaf writes: “I take the first listed (in the dictionary I consulted) in defining spirit: That which is traditionally believed to be the vital principle or animating force within living beings.  But that definition does not help establish spirituality as leadership unless one adds a value dimension to it.  I would prefer to say that Spirit is the animating force that disposes one to be a servant to others. The test is that those being served grow as persons; while being served they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants.  And what is the effect on the least privileged in society?  Will she or he benefit, or, at least, be not further deprived?  No one will knowingly be hurt by the action, directly or indirectly.

I would not accept the monk in his cell or the theologian in his study as spiritual unless the fruit of their effort is such that it finds its way to nourish the servant motive in those who do the work of the world.  This, it seems to me, is one of the major reasons why that mediating institution, the church, is so important: to help the fruits of contemplation and theological reflection become an animating force that sustains legions of persons as servants as they wield their influence (on those they serve).  I see churches as (potentially) formative institutions that nurture spirituality in those they reach and, in so doing, nurture themselves so as to sustain themselves as models that encourage other institutions to be optimally serving to (and therefore caring for) all persons whose lives they influence.  The two roles, nurture of spirituality in individuals AND model for others as a serving institution, are closely linked.  In my view, any institution that carries these two roles effectively is a church – regardless of its theological position. 

Be still and cool in thine own spirit. –George Fox

LEADERSHIP & SPIRITUALITY, PART IV

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Greetings Gentle Reader.  Please see PART III for the context of what I will be offering you today – a few of my ‘considerations’ in response to the counsel that Greenleaf offered us on the topic of ‘LEAD’.

If one is going to ‘lead by going out ahead and showing the way’ then, it seems to me, that the one desiring to do so must search and be open to ‘way opening’ and then this person must be willing to take the risk to ‘go out ahead’.  This is what we call ‘Risky Business.’  History reminds us that ‘visionaries’ are not easily tolerated, much less accepted. 

Greenleaf presents us with a paradox: ‘lead stands in sharp contrast to guide, direct, manage, or administer because these words imply maintenance, coercion or manipulation.’  ‘Standing in Contrast’ does not mean that the leader does not engage in these for every leader does, indeed, engage in each of these (sometimes this ‘engagement’ is nurturing/healthy/wise and sometimes such engagement is depleting/unhealthy/foolish). 

Consider, Gentle Reader that the question is: ‘When are each of these appropriate, if not necessary?’  When is it appropriate and/or necessary to ‘maintain’?  The Leader must support ‘maintaining’ AND must support ‘experimenting.’  The Leader must support ‘being cautious’ AND must support ‘taking risks.’  Risk-Taking can occur when the Leader supports a ‘shift,’ a ‘change,’ a ‘transformation,’ and/or a commitment to ‘evolving.’

At times the leader must appropriately ‘react’ rather than ‘respond’ (the difference is significant – firefighters taught me this many years ago).  At times the leader will appropriately ‘coerce.’  At times the leader will appropriately ‘manipulate.’  A crucial question for the leader to hold: ‘What ingredients must be in place for ‘maintaining,’ ‘coercing,’ and/or ‘manipulating’ to be ‘appropriately effective’?  [NOTE: One must also define ‘appropriately effective’.] 

How does the Leader know that ‘maintaining,’ ‘coercing,’ and ‘manipulating’ are appropriate?  Here is one indicator: Those affected freely choose to follow.   

Greenleaf offers us an alternative to these three: ‘Persuasion.’  Consider this, Gentle Reader that in his definition (See PART III) Greenleaf combines ‘Persuade’ and ‘Influence’ into one.  ‘Persuade’ involves convincing via the use of logic and reason with the result that one, when persuaded, freely ‘buys in’ (as contrasted with ‘complying’ or ‘adapting’).  ‘Influence’ is rooted in inquiry.  The leader guides via questions with the goal that the one being influenced will intuitively emerge his/her own response and then ‘own’ his/her response.  This means that the one influenced will not only ‘buy-in’ but will, more importantly, ‘emotionally-own’ his/her response.  Consider that ‘coercion’ and ‘manipulation’ take significantly less time ‘than ‘persuasion’ and ‘influence.’  However, if the leader seeks the led to freely choose to ‘buy-in’ or ‘emotionally-own’ then the leader (and the led) must be willing to take the time necessary for one or both to emerge and be embraced. 

Greenleaf concludes with an important consideration: ‘Both leader and follower respect the integrity and allow the autonomy of the other.’  This statement invites us to stop, step-back and embrace further reflection. 

We become what we habitually think and do. –Aristotle 

LEADERSHIP & SPIRITUALITY, PART III

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. –Lao Tzu

Greetings Gentle Reader.  Today I invite us to consider Greenleaf’s ideas when it comes to ‘LEAD.’  Next time I will offer some of my ‘considerations’ in response to Greenleaf.  Greenleaf always invites us into a dialogue with him and so, Gentle Reader, I invite you to read, reflect upon and pay attention to what emerges from within you – observations, considerations and questions.

‘LEAD.’  Greenleaf writes: ‘I use the word lead as it is commonly defined: Go out ahead to show the way.  To me lead stands in sharp contrast to guide, direct, manage, or administer because these words imply either maintenance (keeping things going as they are), coercion (sanctions or implied threat of sanctions to enforce one’s will), or manipulation (guiding others into thoughts or actions that they may not fully understand).  As I use the word lead it involves creative venture and risk (as contrasted with maintenance) and it is as free as humanly possible from any implication of coercion or manipulation.  Those who follow do so voluntarily, because they fully understand and, through understanding, they are persuaded that the ideas or courses of action are right for them.’

‘One is persuaded, I believe, on arrival at a feeling of rightness about a belief or actions through one’s own intuitive sense, checked perhaps, by others intuitive judgment, but, in the end, one relies on one’s own intuitive sense.  One takes that intuitive step, from the closest approximation to certainty one can reach by conscious logic (sometimes not very close), to that state in which one may say with conviction, “This is where I stand!”  The act of persuasion will help order the logic and favor the intuitive step.  And this takes time!  The one being persuaded must take that intuitive step alone, untrammeled by coercion or manipulative strategems.  Both leader and follower respect the integrity and allow the autonomy of the other; and each encourages the other to find her or his own intuitive confirmation of the rightness of the belief or action.’

I invite you, Gentle Reader, to take time to read and reflect and pay attention to what emerges from within you.  I invite you to pay attention to how your core values, core guiding life principles, core deep assumptions, core prejudices, core stereotypes and your life-metaphor influences what emerges for you. 

LEADERSHIP & SPIRITUALITY, PART II

The most misleading assumptions are those we are not aware of holding. –Anonymous

Greetings Gentle Reader.  Today I invite you to spend some time with me briefly exploring Greenleaf’s 1982 iteration of his ‘Credo.’ 

Greenleaf writes: My credo for some time has been expressed thusly: ‘I believe that caring for persons, the more able the and less able serving each other, is what makes a good society.  Most caring was once person to person.  Now much of it is mediated through institutions – often large, powerful, impersonal; not always competent, sometimes corrupt.  If a better society is to be built, one more just and more caring and providing opportunity for people to grow, the most effective and economical way, while supportive of the social order, is to raise the performance as servant of as many institutions as possible by new voluntary regenerative forces initiated within them by committed individuals: servants. Such servants may never predominate or even be numerous; but their influence may form a leaven that makes possible a reasonably civilized society.’

Greenleaf was invitational and often invited us into a searching dialogue with him.  Today, Gentle Reader, I am inviting you into a search with me.  I will provide you some guiding questions (I also invite you to emerge your own guiding questions and then to either ‘hold them’ or take some time and reflect upon them. – The ‘holding the question’ comes from the great German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  He invites us to ‘hold and live the questions’ and ‘perhaps someday we might live into the answer’).

Here are a few guiding questions to consider and/or hold:

• At this time in your life, ‘What do you believe? – What is your ‘Credo’?
• What is the difference between ‘belief,’ ‘surety,’ and ‘faith’?
• For you, what makes a good society?
• What inspires you to ‘care’ and what hinders you from choosing to care? (What does ‘to care’ mean for you?)
• What ingredients need to be nurtured or nurtured more in order for a ‘better society to be built’?  What are ‘we’ doing that hinders our building a better society?  What would a ‘better society’ look like, act like, and sound like?
• What does a ‘more just’ and ‘more caring’ society look like, act like, and sound like?
• What opportunities does our society now provide for each of us to ‘grow’?  What does ‘growth’ look like, act like and sound like? 
• What opportunities might ‘we’ provide that would enhance the growth of each of us (or, at least, provide each of us the opportunity to choose to grow)?
• What ingredients need to be in place in order for an institution to become a ‘servant-institution’?
• What are the ingredients that need to be present in order for ‘new voluntary regenerative forces’ to be nurtured and sustained? 
• Greenleaf provides us with ‘the best test’ for the ‘servant’.  How might we or an institution nurture a person so that he/she is more likely to choose to become ‘servant-first’? 

Gentle Reader, next time we will continue to explore some of Greenleaf’s ideas as they pertain to ‘Leadership & Spirituality.’ 

Transformation happens in the hour of the unexpected. –Anonymous

LEADERSHIP & SPIRITUALITY, PART I

In February, 1982 the Journal of Ongoing Formation (Studies in Formative Spirituality), Dusquesne University, published a short essay written by Greenleaf.  The Greeneaf Center published this essay with the title: ‘Spirituality as Leadership.’  Recently I spent some time reading and reflecting upon what Greenleaf invited us (and challenged us) to consider (consider = to take time to reflect upon while neither immediately accepting nor rejecting what is offered while holding an attitude of searching and seeking and while being open to the possibility of being influenced).  Beginning today, Gentle Reader, I will offer us some of what Greenleaf invited us to consider – to enter into a searching dialogue with him.  Today I am going to offer us Greenleaf’s two opening paragraphs.

Greenleaf writes: We all have our own particular windows on the world.  No two of us may have the same view of what is out there.  My window, through which I contemplate everything, including the subject of spirituality as leadership, is as a student of organization – how things get done.  I am not a theologian, nor am I versed in the ways of monastics; but I appreciate the roles of both in the scheme of things, and I believe that each occupies a strategic place from which to wield a constructive influence on this troubled world; and each has great, perhaps largely unrealized potential to serve us all.  That both of them do serve us all, and serve us well, is the central concern of this essay.

Gentle Reader I invite you to consider that each of our ‘windows’ is clouded by our core values, our core life-guiding principles, our core deep tacit assumptions, our core prejudices, our core stereotypes and our core beliefs (to name a few of the ‘clouds).  It is crucial therefore that we take the time to discern each of these so that we might have a more complete understanding of how they powerfully impact what we ‘see’ as we look through our windows.  A few thousand years ago the Oracle advised us to ‘Know Thyself.’ And another seeker of wisdom, Socrates, reminded us that ‘an unexamined life is not worth living.’  And Greenleaf upped the ante with ‘to refuse to examine the assumptions one lives by is immoral.’ 

To what extent do you, Gentle Reader, ‘wield a constructive influence on this troubled world?’  What is the potential that you have allowed to lie dormant – a potential that if nurtured would serve others. 

Greenleaf continues in the second paragraph by offering us his ‘Credo’ (as far as I know this is the last iteration of his ‘Credo’ and as he notes, he has added a last sentence in response to his being criticized as a ‘Romantic’ (As contrasted with being a ‘Realist’ – folks today might well apply the label ‘Idealist’ rather than ‘Romantic’). 

Greenleaf writes: My credo for some time has been expressed thusly: ‘I believe that caring for persons, the more able the and less able serving each other, is what makes a good society.  Most caring was once person to person.  Now much of it is mediated through institutions – often large, powerful, impersonal; not always competent, sometimes corrupt.  If a better society is to be built, one more just and more caring and providing opportunity for people to grow, the most effective and economical way, while supportive of the social order, is to raise the performance as servant of as many institutions as possible by new voluntary regenerative forces initiated within them by committed individuals: servants. Such servants may never predominate or even be numerous; but their influence may form a leaven that makes possible a reasonably civilized society.’

Next time, Gentle Reader, I will offer you some ‘considerations’ and I invite you to spend some time with Greenleaf’s ‘Credo’ and see what emerges for you as you ‘consider’ what he offers.  I also invite you to think about the ‘Credo’ that you live by – I believe we each have integrated one (or if we are younger we are in the process of integrating one).  Our ‘Credo’ is another ‘cloud’ that covers the window through which we view our world.