Last week I talked about the first of four points I got from the book “Heroic Leadership”, about how skill sets can tend to be overrated and self-awareness underrated. While I absolutely mean everything I said I don’t want you to misread me as “feeding the fire of narcissistic leadership” by endorsing the development of self-awareness as an essential piece of your leadership journey. Narcissistic leadership is definitely not true self-leadership; not true leadership at all in my opinion. In my explanation of the second point today, you will see that rather than cycle through self-awareness approaches haphazardly, the Jesuits developed and promoted one universal tool; the Spiritual Exercises.
Author Chris Lowney says it is “impossible to overestimate the importance of the Spiritual Exercises in Jesuit culture. [They] encapsulate the company’s vision and serve as each Jesuits premium personal development experience” (p.114).
One of my favorite elements of the Jesuit practice of the Spiritual Exercises is the presence of a spiritual director. Lowney, again: “An experienced, impartial ‘director’ guides each participant, not by teaching but by helping each recruit interpret his own experiences. The director doesn’t interject his own opinions but is a sounding board who ‘ought not to incline in either direction but rather…[stand] by like the pointer of a scale in equilibrium’” (pp.114-115). Sounds a lot like leadership coaching to me.
Enough with the suspense already. The second quality that the Jesuits seek to embrace and establish in their company is the quality of Ingenuity.
This quality can manifest in several ways; including making themselves and others comfortable in a changing world. Essentially, ingenuity is the willingness to work without a script and to dream up imaginative new approaches to problems that have stumped others. Matteo Ricci was cited as an example of some of these components. Also Roberto de Nobili, according to Lowney, exemplified the creative embrace of new ideas and foreign cultures. This chapter went on to further identify and explain some Jesuit strategic values, including speed, mobility, responsiveness, and flexibility.
As I mentioned before, the Spiritual Exercises are an instrument; a tool in the hands of one who wants to grow in self-awareness. And yet, how you grow in self-awareness is not by sitting around examining yourself all the livelong day. It’s by doing; by acting and reacting and taking risks or choosing not to risk and using, applying, literally working out your destiny. Facing what is yet to come while standing fully in the present.
The spiritual exercises help me, but they are not about me. They demand total intellectual, emotional, and spiritual engagement. They monopolize my focus and energy. They strip away much of life’s customary daily activity because regular habits easily become distracting pre-occupations. Practicing denial of my urges means not only can I not be diverted from my purpose by my craving for Starbucks or M&M’s, but I also can’t be attentive to the desire to the point that I find my need for sugar equally fascinating and absorbing of my attention. The goal is not to replace one coping strategy or thought ritual with another; it is to purify myself and strengthen my will. This is self-leadership, people.
There was a fantastic story in this chapter about three Jesuits who each inherited significant amounts of money. The question was, which Jesuit was going to do the right thing with the money? Similar to the biblical story of the talents; is the winner the one who invests the money, who keeps the money, or who gives the money away?
Charlie Sheen, pay attention:
The winner is one who rids himself of the attachment to the money.
The winner, according to Lowney, is the one who can interact with the money: “–in such a way that there remains no inclination to either keep the required money or to dispose of it.”
The money is not the issue. The attachment to the money is the issue. According to the Jesuits, inordinate attachments fog one’s vision. Only by becoming indifferent- free of prejudices and attachments and therefore free to choose any course of action—do we become strategically flexible. Ingenious.
The point isn’t the money; the point is the attachment. And understanding personal attachments means overturning personal rocks to see what crawls out from underneath. Excessive attachments can often be symptoms of other, deeper issues, and it’s those we want to bring into the light and eliminate.
This is what Loyola and his pals were really after—exposing the internal fears, drives and attachments that can control decisions and actions.
“……while our weaknesses remain unacknowledged or closeted away, we are powerless over them. The sometimes painful process of dragging our weaknesses into the full light of day by understanding them is the first empowering stride toward conquering them. Veterans of Alcoholics Anonymous might call the process a ‘fearless moral inventory’, while others more simply recognize it as ‘taking stock of who I am, where I want to go, and what’s holding me back’” (p.117-118)
Next time we’ll look at where all this leads. The growth accomplished in these first 2 steps are really (just) a prelude to action. They prepare you to love, which is step 3. Get excited.