Category: Spiritual Aspects of Leadership
Entrepreneurs and the Renewal of Hope
People are worried. Confidence in the economy and the direction of society continues to drop in the face of new threats. Anxiety is natural as we move into an uncertain future.
But our ancestors survived threatening circumstances and created a better world, and so will we. Despite our problems, we can still contribute to the greater good and build better lives, each in our own way.
For those of us in business, this means working with courage and hope as we identify new opportunities and work to build a better future.
Building Collaboration and Collaborative Relationships: The Role of Personal Values
Collaboration and collaborative relationships are often the key to success in business and most other professions. These relationships are in turn heavily dependent on the values we bring to our work — values like honesty, compassion, humility, transparency, patience, and courage. These values are also the ones usually taught by the church and most other religious institutions. In this episode we talk about these values, and why collaboration is so important to the production of value in business, properly understood. (Time: 9:08)
Listen on: iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Video: Peter Hill Speaks on Humility
On October 30, 2018, Dr. Peter Hill spoke to our first Work Life Forum and presented the results of new research he and a multi-university team has developed about humility. A video of the event is now available;.
Humility is often misunderstood. It is not self-effacement or meekness, but involves having an accurate, ego-free assessment of ourselves, our abilities, and our limitations, and then being able to act accordingly. As such, humility can play an important role in how we deal with the stresses and conflicts in our work life. It can help us see and respond to circumstances more clearly and effectively, lower our stress levels, and improve our working relationships.
Weathering Financial Crisis
Insights from the story of Joseph
In this episode we talk about financial crisis, and how our faith and our spirituality can help us prepare for and survive such crisis.
As we go through our lives most of us encounter financial ups and downs, sometimes very serious ones. This is true for both individuals and for societies. And in the interconnected world of today, the global economy as a whole can move through a series of economic expansions and contractions, sometimes leading to improved material well being, sometimes to hardship.
We will discuss the Biblical story of Joseph and the Pharaoh and how this might provide us with some important insights into how we can weather the storms.
(Time 8:47)
Listen:
iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Gratitude
Cultivating a sense of gratitude can have important benefits for ourselves and for the people with whom we work. It is an important and beneficial quality, but few of us think much about it, and even fewer of us work at cultivating it.
Whether we are going through good times or bad times, if we can cultivate more gratitude we will tend to be happier, have more resilience, and be better able to form personal relationships and to help others. Gratitude helps us to be more open and appreciative of life and of other people.
This has obvious implications for personal well-being. But it also has important implications for our work life.
On this episode we will discuss the nature and benefits of gratitude, reasons why we sometimes resist feeling grateful, and how we might cultivate it.
(Time 8:09)
Listen:
iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
The Story of King Solomon
Wisdom, failure, and the lessons for our work lives.
Solomon was one of the greatest kings in the Bible, perhaps second only to King David. He accomplished great things and had a reputation for having great wisdom.
But there is another side to the story, one involving the misuse of power and the resulting disaster. In this episode we will explore this story and draw insights that can help us in our work lives.(Time 10:33)
Listen:
iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Working With Courage
Moving beyond mere coping.
Many of us encounter anxiety, stress and even fear in the workplace. There is a large amount of literature devoted to ways to cope with these problems; but instead of just coping, as though we are mere victims, what if we were able to move forward into the future with more courage? What if we could live more fully, with more vitality, in the face of what would otherwise be burdensome fears? Is it possible to develop more courage in our work?
In this episode we draw on insights from both positive psychology and the Bible in an attempt to learn how we might take steps towards developing the habit of living and working more courageously. (Time 9:46)
Listen:
iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
The Power of Humility
Humility, properly understood, can make an important contribution to our spiritual and psychological flourishing, and can have very important benefits for our work life.
It is helpful to think of humility as having to do with a reduced focus on one’s own self. The person with humility is less concerned with maintaining a high degree of self-importance, or high social status, and is therefore more open to information and insights from others, whether it supports his or her own viewpoint or not. This can be very important in our work life.
If we are more open to information that has not been filtered through our own ego needs, we are more likely see things as they really are and to act with wisdom. We are also more likely appreciate other people, and the contribution they make; this is bound to lead to stronger relationships, greater collaboration, and more effective leadership.
(Time: 9:01)
Listen on:iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Liberate the Human Spirit!
Have you ever worked in an environment that seemed to be designed to crush the human spirit? To eliminate any sort of initiative or creativity?
Maybe you have also seen working environments that seem to liberate the human spirit, workplaces where people seem to be more alive, more purposeful, more engaged — and also happier.
This raises the question: how might we encourage more of the latter? How might we create environments that liberate the human spirit rather than suppress it?
We discuss this important question in an article that you can find here. We also offer a related podcast episode you can find below.
Listen on: (Time: 11:42) iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Spiritual Renewal for Your Work Life
What might spiritual renewal mean? In this episode we explore what spiritual renewal could mean for our work life. Maybe it would lead to working with greater purpose, compassion, and equanimity, and help us develop a higher level of collaboration and teamwork. We also discuss how our faith and spirituality might help us find spiritual renewal.
Listen on: iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Leaders in Crisis and the Value of Theological Resources
No one can predict the future, but we seem to be moving into a period of crisis that will put unusual burdens on leaders. Cultural and institutional changes (and in many cases failure) will call for leaders grounded in a broader, deeper perspective. Our institutions of faith and spirituality could play an important role in helping us prepare for this future.
The Power of Integrity in Our Work Lives
Integrity involves being in alignment — our words and actions are in alignment with our values and who we are at a deep level. As the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife suggests, integrity can help us through the tough times and be a source of strength and resiliency in our work lives.This story is from the Biblical book of Genesis, Chapter 39, and takes place after Joseph has been kidnapped by his older brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt. (Time: 8:20)
Listen on: iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play or
Preparing Leaders for Crisis: The Value of Theological Education
No one can predict the future, but we seem to be moving into a period of crisis that will put unusual burdens on leaders. Cultural and institutional changes (and in many cases failure) will call for leaders grounded in a broader, deeper perspective. Our institutions...
Hank Paulson on Prayer
Former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson wrote a spell binding memoir of his experience during the financial crisis of 2008. Much of it deals with the day to day effort to prevent a complete financial system meltdown, but one passage in particular deals with the role of prayer. After weeks of exhausting work and little sleep, there came a point where Paulson and his colleagues had done everything they could and still faced the possibility of catastrophe triggered by the impending failure of Lehman Brothers. And then, as told in the middle of a book about the financial system, Paulson telephones his wife and has this exchange:
Max De Pree and the Art of Leadership
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.” (Max De Pree: Leadership Is an Art, Page 11)
———
As many readers probably know, Max De Pree is the author of several highly regarded leadership books including Leadership Jazz: The Essential Elements of a Great Leader and Leadership Is an Art, and was the Chairman of Herman Miller, Inc., during an especially creative period for the company. He is also the inspiration and namesake for Fuller Theological Seminary’s Max De Pree Center for Leadership, from which I retired as a member of the advisory board a few months ago. I have recently been reflecting on De Pree’s approach to leadership, and believe that there is much we can learn from him.
Abraham Zaleznik, RIP
Abraham Zaleznik was a professor of leadership at The Harvard Business School for 43 years and a certified psychoanalyst. He was also the author of a very important, and famous, 1977 Harvard Business Review article: Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? To understand the impact of his article, one should remember that when written there was much less of an understanding that leadership is quite different from management; Zaleznik was on the leading edge of the wave. Zaleznik also had the ability to convey some of the psychological differences between leaders and managers and their formation and did so in a way that is still valuable.
