Integer Leadership Consulting

In scanning the major news sites this morning, I came across an article from the BBC online version (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4558956.stm). I the yearly Christmas address, Pope Benedict XVI gave a recitation to a large group of thousands in St Peter’s Square. The article highlighted the fact that the “…people of the 21st Century risked becoming “victims of their intellectual achievements”. I continued reading because I found myself in agreement with this initial observation of the Pope. However, I would have altered the above statement with my own thought that the people of the 21st century have indeed become victims of their intellectual achievements.

The article continued…..Pope Benedict “urged the crowd not to focus entirely on the “immense progress” made in science and technology during the previous millennium. In saying this the Pope was in fact articulating one of the most common toxins of western culture particularly manifest and prevalent in our academic institutions AND within the hierarchies of leadership in our organizations. Our progress and advancement easily creates hubris which breeds isolationism (rather than community) and independence (rather than healthy interdependence) and feeds a dangerous addiction called secular humanism which, as one of its by-products, leaves little-to no room for spiritual transcendence. Pope Benedict XVI then made this critical observation…..

“The men and women in our technical age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart.”

I understand this statement to mean that we become victims of intellectual and technical achievements when we find ourselves possessing critical knowledge AND spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart. I believe this is a statement that describes not only a potential risk but a risk realized. Our organizations are filled with men and women who, though possessing intellectual and technical knowledge, are living daily and hourly with an absence of spiritual grounding. They have amassed for themselves intellectual success but have done so at the expense of their sense of identity and purpose…..if you will, they have abandoned a commitment to any form of teleology for the sake of immediacy, success and pride. If this describes you…you know exactly what I am talking about because you confront it on a daily basis both personally and corporately.

The Pope also uses the phrase “emptiness of heart.” Perhaps this means that, at some point in our pursuit of knowledge we arrive at place in life where we realize that our accomplishments, our knowledge, our successes have ultimately left us cold and no better off emotionally or relationally than before we possessed them. Further, I believe this means that our successes in this world, for any leader or would-be leader, adds little value to our identity, our self-valuing, and our esteem. The problem is that we don’t realize this until we have invested many years of our lives in the pursuit of such humanistic values. By then, when we “become aware,” the devastation on a personal level can be exceedingly costly not only to ourselves but also to those around us.

You may be neither Catholic nor Protestant, you may have no spiritual identity per say…nonetheless, the words of Pope Benedict are worthy of deep reflection. I would highly recommend to you a “companion book” of sorts as you think about these thoughts and how they connect with your deepest sense of self. DeMello’s book Awareness is a must read.

Think deeply…..it is NEVER too late to make the internal changes necessary to gain clarity and strength for your exercise of leadership!

Clearly, if you have spent much time reading my entries in the Integer Leadership Blog, you will realize that I attempt to make a clear connection between our capacity and competency to lead and the interior life of the leader. If the leader is to provide holistic leadership, these two themes of leadership competency and leadership interiority must be inseparably present. Given the demands of leadership and management from a personal perspective coupled with the demands of leadership to provide meaning and value within the organization, the leader must find sustenance by drawing from deeper wells and wider margins.

The following are books that have made and are making an impact upon my life professionally and personally and I recommend them to you with confidence. If you are a leader of any organization, public or private, for-profit or not-for-profit, these resources will give you additional insight (and foresight) into ways in which you can draw from those deeper wells and wider margins found within one’s one sense of self which, as I affirm along with many others, is defined by the shaping grace of a creative God. It is critical to remember that the nomenclature I use is not religious or the doctrinal language of ecclesiastical institutions but rather the language of a clear spirituality that I believe is deeply embedded in each one of us…whether or not we have been awakened to that spirituality.

These two books should be read together:

The Inner Compass: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality by Margaret Silf

Silf’s work is incredibly powerful, apprehendable and readily applicable to the life of the leader. Drawing upon the writing of Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, Silf takes the reader through a inner journey of grace and discernment which necessarily leads to what every leader covets: inner freedom and authentic hope…both of which are highly translatable/transferable within any context.

Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello

There is a difference between leaders who operate in a state of reality and leaders who live an illusory (de Mello calls this “being asleep”) life. This is a must read for leaders because of de Mello’s incessant and clarion call for the man or woman to embrace truth regardless of how that truth feels or what it costs. People suffer, says de Mello, because they are unwilling to embrace reality…the truth about themselves and about the challenges and unpleasentries of real life. We spend an inordinate amount of time NOT dealing with what is real and instead fabricate belief (in actuality these are pretend) systems that act as barriers to experiencing the realness of life. The latter is the place of real existence. The former is the place of great peril, suffering and fear.

Additional resources…

Draw Me Into Your Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises, A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading by David L. Fleming, S.J.

Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises is a powerful invitation into the inner life AND an invitation to live outwardly from the inner life or center core. This is not another classic on spiritual naval gazing. Rather, the genius and power of Loyola is that the Exercises call the leader to discern the inner movements of the Spirit of God…movements that are entirely unique to the life-context of the person. Loyola asks the reader to identify those decisions and choices that lead them into experiences of consolation (goodness and joy) and those which lead them into experiences of desolation (barrenness, brokenness, hiding and deceit). In Ignatius’ own words, “For it is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.” (Annotations [2])

Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking about Human Interactions by Roberta M. Gilbert.

Gilbert’s work is a classic and highly practical book on the application of Dr. Murray Bowen’s family systems theory in any setting. In particular it is an outstanding book for leaders who understand or who are beginning to understand that building healthy relationships within the organization (and outside the organization) does NOT begin (NEVER begins) with the other but rather with oneself.

Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Protégés get the Most Out of their Relationships by Ensher and Murphy

Leadership Succession Strategies must begin with a Mentoring Strategy. Both are important but one necessarily precedes and lays the ground work for the other. This book clearly explains what mentoring is and how it prepares the next generation of leaders within the organization. I am a proponent, advocate, and champion of the power of organizational mentoring because it is the most effective and efficient way of preparing leaders. Furthermore, mentoring, as it relates to those who actually provide the mentoring, is one of the most powerful sources of intrinsic encouragement and personal motivation which creates organizational fealty.