What comes to mind when you hear the term, spiritual leadership? For many, I suspect, this brings up associations with institutionalized religion and following the codes and creeds of a particular tradition’s dogmas and rules. There is a particular association for many people with spirituality as something that is private and potentially not appropriate for discussion in public situations, including the workplace.
Scholars of spirituality tend to make a distinction between “religion” on the one hand and “spirituality” on the other. The former tends to be related to the institutionalized manifestations of a particular tradition’s efforts to be organized formally. The latter tends to be considered the more experiential and interiorized personal phenomena of being in an intentional relationship with God, or the Transcendent Other, through a set of practices. Spirituality scholar Sandra Schneiders, for example, describes spirituality as “the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.”
In recent years, the contribution of spirituality to leadership development has received more and more attention. The interest in this combination is arising not only from spiritually minded practitioners and ministry leaders but directly from the world of secular professional practice. Without going into too much detail, the basis of this interest has to do with what individual spiritual practices, cultivated by employees and members of groups on their own, have to positively offer to the health and vitality of organizations. Spirituality then becomes a well of resources for cultivating strong ethical leadership skills that can help organized groups of all kinds better realize their missions and their bottom lines.
In this spirit, Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies is running an inaugural “Strategic Thinking & Leadership Academy” this March. This comprehensive, intensive 3-day program is designed to “empower aspiring leaders in government, industry, education, and nonprofits with the skills and knowledge needed to make informed decisions, implement strategies, and lead effectively in today’s environment.” What is especially exciting about this academy is that it brings together faculty whose own professional experience and perspectives on strategic thinking and leadership add up to a truly interdisciplinary academic experience, with a particular emphasis on the need to build truly inclusive organizational cultures. I am delighted to offer one of the modules, “Becoming a Discerning Leader,” which will introduce program participants to the critical importance of developing interior practices that help leaders notice their emotions with clarity and acknowledge their blind spots. Discerning Leadership is a purposeful reference to the wealth of resources for professional practitioners that are made available by Jesuit values and the traditions of Ignatian Spirituality.
One such ongoing example of work at SCS that brings together the richness of the ideas and practices of Ignatian Spirituality and the critical work of personal group leadership development is the facilitated use of the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. Now on its third edition, the book presents a series of practical suggestions for how to skillfully and gracefully navigate conversations that involve opposing opinions, strong emotions, and high stakes. In short, the book argues that such Crucial Conversations, which often end up in seemingly intractable workplace conflicts, can be better managed with more effective dialogue skills, greater emotional awareness, and a willingness to pause during heated situations and calmly assess both the surface-level and underlying interpersonal dynamics. Administrative units at SCS are encouraged to use the book and explore how these practices might shape healthier, more productive, and more mission-driven accomplishment of organizational goals.
There is a false choice in leadership development praxis between purely scientific or purely spiritual strategies. Using the lens of Ignatian Spirituality to more richly explore the potential connections within Crucial Conversations for the work of SCS faculty and staff leaders brings together these worldviews. The book need not be experienced as an entirely secular framework, even if the authors are not explicit about the contributions of spirituality to the discussion. Chapter 5, “Master My Stories: How to Stay in Dialogue When You’re Angry, Scared, or Hurt,” for example, presents some compelling opportunities for integration with the Ignatian tradition.
At one point, the authors emphasize the importance of emotional literacy and awareness: “When you take the time to precisely articulate what you’re feeling, you begin to put a little bit of daylight between you and the emotion. This distance lets you move from being hostage to the emotion to being an observer of it” (87). This idea relates well to the Ignatian Examen, a daily practice that encourages self-awareness and discovery by reverentially reviewing one’s emotional experiences, both those that are consoling and those that are desolating, for signs of how one is being called to more loving and generous leadership and service. Noticing and naming the emotions we experience is one step toward healthy indifference and detachment from harmful emotions that get in the way of better discerned action.
Another Ignatian connection in the book is the emphasis on practicality in terms of how actions of leaders cannot depend on excessive self-reflection: “Why would you stop and retrace your Path to Action in the first place? Certainly, if you’re constantly stopping what you’re doing and looking for your underlying motive and thoughts, you won’t even be able to put on your shoes without thinking about it for who knows how long. You’ll die of analysis paralysis” (85). This point relates directly to the Jesuit value of Contemplation in Action, which stresses the pragmatics of daily life and seeks to cultivate habits of discernment that can be exercised in moments that call for decisive action. A retreat removed from daily life is simply not possible on a daily basis so discerning leaders need to practice the habits of healthy discernment in order to make decisions within reasonable time frames.
There are many more instances in the book in which a spiritual lens might deepen the conversation about how to become a strategic thinker and discerning leader who is capable and skilled during a Crucial Conversation. This exercise in connecting these seemingly secular ideas with the roots and heritage of our Jesuit values is another manifestation of the unique ways that Georgetown SCS inspirits the University’s mission in how it delivers applied professional education to a continuum of learners at various places in their careers.