The New Spirit of Leadership

Abstract

Today’s leaders must know how to steer calmly through a sea of chaos and future unknowns, and elicit the creativity and the strengths of the people around them. The new spirit of leadership is informed by three critical cultural trends: spirituality, wholistic awareness, and the recognition and valuing of strengths traditionally associated with women and the feminine principle: intuition, compassion, humility, selfless service, community building and the wisdom of the circle. The paradigm of leader as invulnerable warrior is changing; the world today needs leaders who can be patient gardeners able to foster healthy systems with an eye to the health of the world as a whole.

Biography

Mary Hayes-Grieco is a respected voice in the development of an inclusive spiritual philosophy that has practical applications. She is the author of The Kitchen Mystic, published by Hazelden, and The Kitchen Mystic Series: Tales and Tools of Practical Spirituality, a four-part audiotape series published by High Bridge Audio. Mary was the creator and host of her own radio show in the Twin Cities, a weekly program focusing on issues of spirituality and wholistic lifestyle that aired from 1986-1994. Mary is an instructor at The Management Center at the University of St. Thomas Graduate School of Business. As a trainer, Mary provides inspirational on-site seminars for companies that wish to develop an inclusive spiritual dimension in their company culture. She also works in private practice as a counselor and spirituality coach. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two daughters.

The New Spirit of Leadership

"I believe deeply that we must find, all of us together, a new spirituality. This new concept ought to be elaborated alongside the religions, in such a way that all people of good will could adhere to it. We need a new concept, a lay spirituality. We ought to promote this concept, with the help of scientists. It could lead us to set up what we are all looking for, a secular morality. I believe in it deeply. And I think we need it so the world can have a better future." - The Dalai Lama

"May you live in interesting times," the Chinese saying goes, and it is not always clear whether this is meant as a blessing or a curse. We undoubtedly live in interesting times, and as all of our business and social institutions undergo radical transformation, a new model of leadership is emerging. Today’s leader must be someone who can steer calmly through a sea of unknowns, and elicit the flexibility, creativity, and character strengths of the people around them. The new spirit of leadership is informed by three critical cultural trends: spirituality, whole-person awareness, and the recognition of personal strengths traditionally associated with women and the feminine principle. The classic model of leader as invulnerable warrior/king is becoming tempered by a new one that is emerging: an open-hearted leader who thinks like a master gardener in a world increasingly concerned about sustainability and the impact of the work place on the human soul.

It is true that the movement for spirituality in the workplace is in an embryonic stage, and the numbers are only just starting to trickle in to assure us that spiritual integrity and the bottom line are indeed the compatible dance partners that we hope they are. A recently completed research project by McKinsey & Co. shows that when companies engage in programs that use spiritual techniques for their employees, productivity improves and turnover is greatly reduced. The first empirical study of the issue, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, published in October 1999 by Jossey-Bass, found that employees who work for organizations they consider to be spiritual are less fearful, less likely to compromise their values, and more able to throw themselves into their jobs. Fully 60% of those polled for this book say they believe in the beneficial effects of spirituality in the workplace. According to the book’s co-author, Professor Ian I. Mitroff of the University of Southern California, "Spirituality could be the ultimate competitive advantage."

Measurement issues aside, we need only look around us to see the hunger and the interest in the business community to transform the consciousness within our company cultures, and to walk this new talk. It is exciting and encouraging to see how many of our colleagues are willing to exercise some faith as we try new ways in our business dealings. We all know that with the advent of the global market, computerization, and the world wide web, to name a few, conventional business wisdom must take a back seat at times to somebody’s current "best guess". Evolution is calling, folks, and we aren’t going to outgrow this chaos very soon. The smart leader makes friends with chaos and works first on something he can eventually master: the ability to leading from his whole self and his own inner serenity. In other words, the smart leader is deeply grounded in his own spirituality.

Now, before I go any further, let me make clear what I mean when I say "spirituality" and what I mean by "spiritual tools." I notice that when I teach classes at a local business school, a wave of discomfort ripples through the group when I start to use the word "spirituality." People are so afraid that we’re talking religion, and very concerned about keeping church doctrines and our secular work places separate. This is understandable, but I think that it is high time and eminently possible to come up with a definition of an inclusive secular spirituality that has practical applications. Bringing spirituality into our work life informs our work with new meaning and brings an uplifting element into our daily experience. Here’s my definition of spirituality in the workplace:

"Spirituality in the work place is the disciplined practice of actions and attitudes that promote good will, calm, creativity, and excellent service."

Who can argue with that? Most people don’t.

Today’s new leader may or may not hold an officially designated leadership position in your department or organization. Look around. The leader is the one who keeps a strong personal center when things are flying out of control. She is the one who is holding a firm personal and group intention while she works, and she models an attitude of faith and productivity within that intention. In addition, we can recognize leadership in action in someone who:

• fearlessly asks "what’s going on?" – and wants to know the answer
• listens to people well, and empowers them to do what they need to do
• helps to foster an atmosphere of respect and good will
• perceives real needs in the people around them and humbly seeks to serve those needs whenever practical
• guides the balance between goals and process, action and timely restraint
• thinks outside of the company’s and the culture’s addiction to forward momentum, speed, and "bigness"
• deals skillfully with the "shadow" side of things: grief, uncertainty, and power struggles.
• sees his challenges and the group challenges as an opportunity for learning and character development
• employs spiritual tools as well as traditional tools to solve problems.

We have already been using spiritual tools in the work place for a while now, though we haven’t always named them as such. What is a mission statement? A group affirmation of an intention. What is "servant leadership?" An attempt to infuse the role of leadership with the spiritual quality of humility and the practice of selfless service. What are employee appreciations at a meeting? A small ceremony of honoring someone’s excellent service. What is 360 feedback if not an attempt to get back to the wisdom of the community circle? The little special spot on your desk with a picture of your family and your favorite stone or poem is an altar, and the extra touch when creating a "special" meeting room for an important meeting is the quiet establishment of sacred space.

I’d like to see people use even more spiritual tools in the workplace: a private prayer for a sticky problem, the liberal use of an increasingly refined intuition, and a centering exercise for the individual or the team at the beginning of the day. Don’t forget one of the easiest tools of a clever leader: the conscientious passing of good rumors about the place: "Did you ever notice how Dave is always so punctual? I love that about him..." And how about a helpful mantra to repeat to yourself while you’re in a difficult communication process involving someone’s mistake? "No guilt/no blame/no guilt/no blame/"..... These are the actions and attitudes that create good will, calm, creativity, and excellent service: spirituality in the work place.

The second informing influence in the emerging style of leadership is that of whole-person awareness. It is beginning to dawn on all of us that we cannot expect to perform with integrity or live til a ripe old age if we are functioning as a walking/talking head for 8-10 hours of every day. If we are ever to succeed at collectively creating a sane and sustainable culture it is because we as individuals are willing to take a stand and each claim our right to a sane and sustainable life style. A human being is a complex creature made up of a body, emotions, a mind, and a soul, and we must insist on health for all those levels. So let’s have those Casual Fridays, the chair massages, our team retreats, and let’s re-frame that "sick day" into the "wellness day". They’re all steps in the direction of acknowledging our whole selves. The greatest challenge of all still seems to be the balancing act of work and family life, and so many of us struggle with the discouraging sense that we are only performing half as well as we should be in both of those arenas. We need to exercise compassion and forgiveness towards ourselves and others as we navigate through all the double binds our work and family responsibilities put us through.

We also have to take a stand against the kind of discouragement that occurs for us in our ever-changing jobs. We’re lucky if we can keep up with the demands of learning how to use all of the new tools at our disposal, much less get to the jobs those tools are supposed to enhance! When I am feeling discouraged by my own clumsiness in dealing with all of my computer’s options, I pause for a moment of compassion to view my situation through the lens of a useful metaphor. I choose to think of myself and my generational peers as biological mutations in our species--- clumsy specimens of a transitional form of human being. We carry all of the limitations and conditioning of the previous era and all the hopes and potentials of the coming one. No wonder we feel clumsy and schizophrenic sometimes. Whether we think of our human world’s transition in terms of Globalization, or the passage into the Information Age, or however you want to frame it – it is clear that we are in a huge transition, a birth of sorts, and most births are painful and messy. And I may add, totally worth all the trouble.

The third influence on the new spirit of leadership is the increasing value placed on personality strengths that have traditionally been associated with females in our culture. People in leadership, male and female, are drawing more and more on those skills that girls and women have been allowed to develop as part of our gender training. These skills include the use of intuition, the ability to initiate and maintain healthy relationships, "emotional intelligence", humility in service to the needs of others, and sensitivity to the emotional and spiritual needs of the community.

Another way of looking at this "feminization" of leadership is to say that the classic militaristic model of leader as the invulnerable warrior-king is evolving to include an ecologically sound model of leader as a gentle master gardener. The warrior conquers the land and the gardener cultivates and nurtures the land, working, within the circle of life, season, and current soil conditions. This is not to say that we should completely abandon the classic paradigm of the tough and focused leader– we certainly need him at times. Rather, we can add the feminine skills of the gardener into the picture to round him out --- to make him whole --- and to consciously choose these different modes of operating as each situation demands.

"Change is inevitable; growth is optional", the saying goes. We can enter this new millennium kicking and screaming about how hard all this is, or we can enter it with a smile and our sleeves rolled up. Chaos will be our companion for a while, and uncertainty the very air that we breathe. The opportunity of our times is at least as great as the peril of our times. If we choose to sturdily embrace our individual responsibilities, and express leadership from the counsel of our own souls, we will be effective and open up possibilities that previously only starry-eyed idealists hoped for. Right now--- this very minute--- we have available to us every bit of information and technology and resource to insure that unnecessary human suffering will come to an end. Right now, enough of us share a vision of living in right relationship to ourselves, to each other, to the Earth, and to our Divine Source, that we can create a collective future that shines with health. It only takes a committed minority to bring about such a change. My millennial birthday wish is that each of us will find our own sphere of leadership, and engage with it fully, like loving and patient gardeners. Let’s step forward together with a true community spirit, and let humanity take its rightful place as one of God’s favorite experiments.

"This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes."

- Marge Piercy