I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Heroic Leadership
My priest asked what struck me in a book I recommended highly. Here are my thoughts on Chris Lowney’s Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World.
I love that, in the context of a history of the Jesuits that anyone would find accessible, (i.e. taking their religious zeal seriously, but not making religion the focus of the book) Lowney gives a model of leadership that is pretty counter-cultural and fresh at a time when many discussions among cutting-edge types (Seth Godin, TED talks, Daniel Pink and the like) are about the need for creativity, fresh approaches, real leadership, and (pardon the expression) ballsy individuals with huge dreams.
Here’s a quote: “…the stereotype of top-down, immediate, all-transforming leadership is not the solution; it’s the problem. If only those positioned to direct large teams are leaders, all the rest must be followers. And those labeled followers will inevitably act like followers, sapped of the energy and drive to seize their own leadership chances. In the Jesuit model, every one of us is a leader…it’s about who I am as much as what I do….A leader’s greatest power is his or her personal vision, communicated by the example of his or her daily life…defined not by the scale of the opportunity, but by the quality of the response.”
In my own writing, I’ve spoken against the merely ‘purpose driven’ life as two-dimensional. Lowney expresses a similar sense that most of what ‘the world’ teaches as ‘leadership’ is lacking: “Technique – how to spellbind a team, how to fashion long-term goals, how to establish objectives and win buy-in – can amplify vision, but it can never substitute for it.”
He contrasts the Jesuit approach with some modern leadership role models: Attila the Hun, Machiavelli, sports coaches. He describes real leaders as passionately committed “to honoring and unlocking the potential they find in themselves and in others. They create environments bound and energized by loyalty,affection, and mutual support.” “Jesuit culture spurred Jesuits to ‘elicit great desires’ by envisioning heroic objectives.”
I was actually also uplifted by the stories of grueling failures the Jesuits endured, because they didn’t shrink from risk, and didn’t see failure as a sign to second-guess their sense of mission.
Anyway, my Joy Foundation motto is, “Be small, Think big!” and I am always wishing to be part of a company of individual leaders who are yet in true, Catholic companionship on the adventure of life, so Heroic Leadership appeals to me because of my own predisposition to agree with Lowney, too!
I know, all good Catholics are wary of rogue Jesuits and too much talk of individualism, but I think it’s time the Church began in earnest to take back the territory of the individual human person and promote the kind of rugged “self-leadership” Lowney sees modeled within the affectionate, loyal, Catholic company of the original Jesuits. Now that a Jesuit is our beloved Pope, it’s time to reconcile ourselves to all the tremendous good in the formation designed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. It can’t be a coincidence that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict both spoke of the need for “recapitulation of the human person” and of a “personalist” approach to the new evangelization.
Lowney’s book also helped me see a direct connection between Pope Francis’ involvement in Communion & Liberation and the ideas of St. Ignatius. Both emphasize the need for the individual person to be fully present to the reality he encounters, and then to respond – to act based on his own ‘judgment with heart in it’ – and thus to make an adventure of life in Christ by constantly expanding the sphere of his own freedom, his own response-ability. Oh, for more people who would learn to respond!!!
You must be logged in to post a comment.