LEADER PROFILE NINE
ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA
St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), seems to have been one of those rare human beings born with a natural instinct for leadership. Throughout his remarkable life, whether on the field of battle or in service to his God, Ignatius consistently demonstrated the many skills that make a successful leader. He could be tough, fearless, loving, dogged in his determination, and kind.
Above all else, St. Ignatius was admired and respected by friends and foes alike.
The arc of Ignatius’s life is as remarkable as the man himself. Few men in history have ended so far from where they began. Until he was in his early thirties, Ignatius was as far removed from the spiritual world as he could possibly have been. And it was only by chance that he ended up following a far different path.
Ignatius was born in 1491, the youngest of thirteen children in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa in northern Spain. As a young man, he was something of a scoundrel. Gambling, drinking, chasing women, fighting—those were young Ignatius’s primary endeavors. At one point, following an altercation, Ignatius was forced to flee his town. He was eventually brought back and made to stand trial, but thanks to the influence of higher-ups, the case against him was dropped.
It was through violence that Ignatius became a man of love. At age thirty, as an officer defending the town of Pamplona from the French, Ignatius was severely wounded in both legs when struck by a cannonball. Although the injuries eventually healed, surgery left one leg shorter than the other, causing him to walk with a limp for the remainder of his life.
While recuperating, Ignatius asked for something to read. He wanted romance novels, but instead was given a copy of the life of Christ and a book on the saints. Reading those books was the beginning of his spiritual journey.
He made his confession at a Benedictine shrine, then spent the next ten months living alone in a cave, praying, contemplating, and shaping the ideas that became known as the Spiritual Exercises. Later, while standing on the banks of a river, Ignatius had a vision, one that revealed to him that God can be found in all things.
At thirty-three, now determined to study for the priesthood, Ignatius returned to school. It was while studying at the university that Ignatius’s zeal—and his somewhat unorthodox beliefs—brought him to the attention of the Spanish Inquisition and landed him in jail for forty-two days. He was released but was viewed with such skepticism by certain Dominicans that he was only allowed to teach the simplest religious truths to children.
This unwillingness to conform to the most traditional Catholic beliefs often got Ignatius in hot water with his superiors. For instance, after founding the Jesuits, Ignatius never set fixed times or duration for prayers. It was his belief that if God can be found in all things, then all times are times of prayer. This, of course, was seen as heresy by many Catholic leaders and was one of the reasons why many were opposed to the formation of the Society of Jesus.
Formal approval for the Society of Jesus was granted by Pope Paul III on September 27, 1540. Initially, there were eight members and they unanimously elected Ignatius to be the group’s superior. Ignatius would spend the remainder of his life overseeing the growth and expansion of the Jesuit order. By the time of his death in 1556, the number of Jesuits had swelled from eight to more than a thousand and they had opened schools in such distant places as Germany, India, Italy, and the Netherlands. Ignatius directed this growth from two small rooms that served as his living quarters and his office.
What kind of leader was Ignatius? Well, for one thing, as we’ve already seen, he wasn’t afraid to march to the beat of a different drummer. By discarding the notion that an individual’s destiny was carved in stone, arguing instead that each person could, through religious zeal and extended spiritual searching, attain a state of enlightenment, he challenged the entrenched beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Ignatius was also a great believer in communicating with those within the order. During his fifteen years as superior general of the Jesuits, he wrote more than seven thousand letters. Unity of purpose and vision was seen by Ignatius as vital to the success of the Jesuits and their goals.
He was a stringent believer in putting the good of the group ahead of an individual’s desire for glory or success. In this way, Ignatius was reverting to his old military philosophy. Without a doubt, Ignatius would have been a successful coach, because his approach, that of getting each individual player to sacrifice personal glory for the good of the team, is at the very heart of coaching. Ignatius was able to do that and that’s leadership.
Ignatius was never a thinker on a grand scale. Instead, he had a singleness of purpose and an extraordinary eye for detail. He was known to rewrite letters up to twenty times, crafting them over and over until he was satisfied that his message was as close to perfect as possible.
Like most great leaders, Ignatius could be confusing and paradoxical. Although he was famous for being kind and loving toward those who gave him problems, he could, on occasion, be excessively harsh and demanding toward those who were holy and humble. Also, he could be sarcastic or biting in his remarks. But in the end, one of his greatest strengths as a leader was that he treated all people equally, with respect and dignity, and as individuals. He didn’t differentiate, and he never labeled people as friends or foes. He loved them all equally.
Ignatius, the former scoundrel and soldier, was beatified in 1609 and later canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 12, 1622.