The Manager's Pocket Guide to Spiritual Leadership (Manager's Pocket Guide Series)

134 Pages·2001·0.76 MB·English

by  Julie Meeks, Richard Bellingham

The Manager’s
Pocket Guide to
Spiritual
Leadership
Transforming
Dysfunctional Organizations
into Healthy Communities
Richard Bellingham, Ed.D.
Julie Meek, DNS
HRD Press, Inc. • Amherst • Massachusetts
© 2001 by HRD Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. Any reproduction in any media of
the materials that appear in this book without written
permission from HRD Press is a violation of copyright law.
Published by:
HRD Press
22 Amherst Road
Amherst, MA 01002
1-800-822-2801 (U.S. and Canada)
413-253-3488
413-253-3490 (FAX)
www.hrdpress.com
ISBN 0-87425-617-8
Cover design by Eileen Klockars
Editorial services by Sally M. Farnham
Production services by Anctil Virtual Office
Printed in Canada
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Am I living in a dysfunctional organization? . . 1
Is it academic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
All we need is love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Wanted: remarkable people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
I. How Do You Recognize a Healthy Community
When You See One? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
How do you know a healthy community
when you see one?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Physical indicators of a healthy
community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Intellectual indicators of a healthy
community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3. Emotional indicators of a healthy
community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. Spiritual indicators of a healthy
community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
II. Soul Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Russ Campanello
Merging technology with heart . . . . . . . . . 32
Dr. Dorothea Johnson
A pioneer with determination . . . . . . . . . . 37
Dr. Barry Cohen
Innovation in the midst of crisis . . . . . . . . 41
Stuart Sendell
Community involvement with wit and
wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Sister Nancy Hoffman
Leadership with spirit and compassion . . 50
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The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Spiritual Leadership
III. The Transformational Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
That “unsettled” feeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Transformation Step 1:
Understand the degree of your
organization’s dysfunction . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Transformation Step 2:
Develop the discipline to use a
systematic process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Transformation Steps 3 and 4:
Increase readiness: assess organizational
commitment and capacity to change . . . . 64
Transformation Step 5:
Identify what great results look like: the
Diagnosis phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Transformation Steps 6 and 7:
Involve people, benchmark possible
solutions, and identify exemplars: the
Design phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Transformation Step 8:
Impact the culture: the Delivery phase. . . 73
Transformation Steps 9 and 10:
Measure the results and take the long-
term view: the Determination phase. . . . . 77
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Appendix A:
Indicators of Healthy Communities . . . . . . . . . . A-1
Appendix B:
Possibilities Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-1
Appendix C:
Quality of Work Life Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R-1
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I-1
iv
Preface
Sole leadership was good in an independent and com-
petitive world. A quick review of the past millennium brings
to mind hundreds of courageous men and women who
accomplished extraordinary feats through their fierce
individualism and their uniquely heroic acts. Yes, sole
leadership produced unprecedented results in the last
millennium. And it will fail in the next.
Leadership in the future will require a new style. Leaders
cannot just go it alone and expect to succeed. A critical
mass of committed and capable people is required for
success. In a global, interdependent, and collaborative
world, organizations need soul leadership to continue
the momentum that was established during the last
decade of the 20th century.
Downsizing, restructuring, re-engineering, cost cutting
and de-layering have stripped corporations of whatever
soul they had. Soul sick and spiritually impoverished,
corporations face a new millennium that will impose
new demands to create organizations that respond to
the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs
of its employees. With pockets full, but with empty hearts,
corporations face the most compelling challenge in history:
to find and nourish their soul as a prerequisite to profits,
performance, and productivity.
What is Spiritual Leadership?
The single most significant difference between leadership
in the 2nd Millennium and leadership in the 3rd Millennium
will be the difference between sole leadership vs. soul
leadership. While sole leadership is characterized by
independence, competitiveness, authoritarianism,
obedience, and self-aggrandizement; soul leadership will
be noted by its emphasis on interdependence, creativity,
collaboration, and community development.
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The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Spiritual Leadership
Soul leadership means building healthy communities that
are simultaneously committed to both people and profits.
soul leadership concerns itself with ethics as well as
earnings; it invites criticism as well as celebration. Soul
leadership embraces the values of respect, involvement,
support, development, innovation, flexibility, and
empowerment.
That was then, this is now
As we transition from the Age of Information to the Age of
Ideation, leadership will need to attend to our source of
enthusiasm and inspiration and the part of us that sees
the dream—our soul. The Age of Information focuses
on knowledge and ways of keeping abreast of the latest
breakthroughs. The Age of Ideation focuses on people
and culture and ways of generating new sources of gain.
Leadership style that worked for the Industrial Age and the
Information Age will not work for the Age of Ideation. In
this emerging age, successful leaders will create environ-
ments in which there is a continuous generation of new
ideas. In short, they will need to engage in soul leadership.
On the other hand, sole leadership concerns itself only
with profits, earnings, and bigger management paychecks.
The quality of life and competitiveness in most organiza-
tions are deteriorating and becoming dysfunctional. People
are working longer hours and having less fun. Work/life
balance is a joke. A sense of work spirit is gone. Most
people do not have a sense that their work has meaning.
And the only thing that keeps us laughing is the gallows
humor of Scott Adams and the world view of Dilbert. Are
we destined to go through our 30 years or so of working
mechanically with the only hope that retirement will
constitute a better life? Or can this change? The authors
of this book believe that change is possible only through
a dedicated effort to build healthy, interdependent com-
munities within organizations. We believe that profitability
and competitiveness are only possible with interdependent
strategies. Yes, it is possible . . . primarily because it is
necessary to win.
vi
Preface
Defining Soul
Through the ages man has tried to define soul. Here
are a few definitions that reflect the importance of
soulful leadership:
“The beginnings of all things” —Plotinus
“The way black folks sing when they leave
themselves alone” —Ray Charles
“Our life’s star” —William Wordsworth
“The part of you that sees the dream”
—John Nance Garner
“A presence that releases feelings
of mystery and marvel” —Rudolf Otto
“The breath of living spirit” —Hildegard de Bingen
“The essential and enduring character” —Aristotle
“The wise silence to which every part is related”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The source of light and movement” —Dame Julian
“The entryway to a life of imagination”
—Marsilio Ficino
“Consciousness” —Descartes
“The first principle of life” —Thomas Aquinas
“The exquisite realization of life” —Walt Whitman
“The source of our enthusiasm and inspiration”
—Carl Jung
“The gray matter of the brain in action”
—Milan Kundera
“The source of all change and transformation”
—Plato
“The inner voice” —Albert Schweitzer
“What is most alive in your own house”
—A Sufi master
vii
Introduction
Am I living in a dysfunctional
organization?
Yes. You are. Might as well step up and own it right now.
Not only are you working and learning in a dysfunctional
organization, you are also living in a dysfunctional home
within a dysfunctional community. Indeed, you are dys-
functional yourself. Why such an aggressive confrontation?
Because, if you don’t see that you are trapped, how can
you ever get out?
Before you become too offended by this confrontation,
you might want to hear what some intellectual giants such
as Camus, Nietzsche, Carkhuff, Reich, and Gurdjieff have
said about the kind of lives we are living and the kinds of
communities we are building.
In his introduction to The Plague, Camus says,
Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaint-
ance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how
they love, and how they die. In our little town all three
are done on the same lines, with the same feverish,
yet casual air. The truth is that everyone is bored, and
devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work
hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their
chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life
is, as they call it, doing business.
Naturally they don’t eschew such simpler pleasures
as love-making, sea-bathing, going to the pictures.
But, very sensibly, they reserve these pastimes for
Saturday afternoons and Sundays and employ the
rest of the week in making money, as much as
possible. In the evening, in leaving the office, they
forgather, at an hour that never varies, in the cafes,
stroll the same boulevard, or take the air on their
balconies. The passions of the young are violent
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The Manager’s Guide to Spiritual Leadership
and short-lived; the vices of older men seldom range
beyond an addiction to bowling, to banquets and
socials, or clubs where large sums change hands
on the fall of a card. These somewhat haphazard
observations may give a fair idea of what our town
is like.
However, we must not exaggerate. Really, all that
was to be conveyed was the banality of the town’s
appearance and of life in it. But you can get through
the days there without trouble, once you have formed
habits. And since habits are precisely what our town
encourages, all is for the best.
Habits. Camus was right. We have all established mech-
anical habits that prevent us from seeing the amazing
possibilities that constantly unfold in front of us. Perhaps
the biggest obstacle to developing corporate soul is the
collection of habits we have formed and to which we are
enslaved.
Is it academic?
To whom should we turn to help us break our mechanical
habits and start to awaken to the possibilities of healthy
communities? Academics? Educators? In Thus Spake
Zarathustra, Nietzsche raises questions about those
sources of transformation.
I have moved from the house of the scholars and I
even banged the door behind me. My soul sat hungry
at their table too long; I am not, like them, trained to
pursue knowledge as if it were nutcracking. I love
freedom and air over the fresh earth; rather would
I sleep on ox hides than on their decorums and
respectabilities. They watch each other closely and
mistrustfully. Inventive in petty cleverness, they wait
for those whose knowledge walks on lame feet: Like
spiders, they wait. I have always seen them carefully
preparing poison; and they always put on gloves of
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