As our world grows more chaotic and unpredictable, leaders are asked questions for which their professional training did not prepare them.
How do I plan when I don’t know what will happen next?
How do I maintain my values when worldly temptations abound?
Do I have a purpose to my life?
Where can I find meaning in my life?
Where can I find the courage and faith to stay the course?
Humans have sought answers to these questions for as long as we’ve been around. It is a fundamental human characteristic to look at the circumstances of one’s life and ask, “Why?” No matter how poor or desperate we are, we always need to assign a reason to why things are as they are. Every culture has its rituals and spiritual practices to answer this fundamental quest.
As our age has become more chaotic and complex, we’ve turned for answers to the contemporary god worshipped by Western culture, science. We’ve asked science to explain how to deal with chaos, catastrophes, and life’s unpredictability. We want science to teach us how to prevent the sudden events that suddenly destroy lives and futures. We want science not just to explain chaos but to give us tools for controlling it. We want science to stop us from aging and dying and to get us out of all life’s challenges.
But of course, this god of science can only fail us. Chaos can’t be controlled; the unpredictable can’t be predicted. Instead, we are being called to encounter life as it is: uncontrollable, unpredictable, messy, surprising, erratic. One of my own spiritual teachers commented, “The reason we don’t like life is that it behaves like life.”
I know that leaders today are faced with enormous challenges, most of them not of their own doing. As times grow more chaotic, as people question the meaning (and meaninglessness) of this life, people are clamoring for their leaders to save and rescue them. Historically, people often given away their freedom and allow dictatorship when confronted with uncertainty. People press their leaders to do anything to end the uncertainty, to make things better, to create stability. Even leaders who would never want to become dictators, those devoted to servant leadership, walk into this trap. They want to help, so they exert more control over the disorder. They try to create safety, to insulate people from the realities of change. They try to give answers to dilemmas that have no answers. No leader can achieve this, and it drains energy out of those who try.
Leadership through command and control is doomed to fail. No one can create sufficient stability and equilibrium for people to feel secure and safe. Instead, as leaders we must help people move into a relationship with uncertainty and chaos. Spiritual teachers have been doing this for millennia. Therefore, I believe that the times have led leaders to a spiritual threshold. We must enter the domain of spiritual traditions if we are to succeed as good leaders in these difficult times.
I believe that several principles describe the essential work for leaders in this era. I label this as “spiritual” work because each principle has been the focus of spiritual inquiry for centuries; these perspectives are found in nearly all spiritual traditions. It is in these traditions that we can find our answers.
Life Is Uncertain
How can we understand that change is just the way it is? In Buddhist thought, the source of true happiness comes from understanding this fact. Instead of holding on to any one thing or form, we expect that it will change. Good things, bad things—they come and go in this ever-changing world we live in. With this perspective it’s easier to move on rather than cling desperately to old practices. But generally, we cling to what feels familiar until it no longer works for us. As a leader, it doesn’t help to get angry when people cling to old ways. It’s much more helpful to encourage people to reflect on their personal life experiences, to notice that they’ve changed many times in their life. People do know how to change. They also may notice that, at those times when they’ve let go and surrendered to uncertainty, they haven’t died.
Life never stops teaching us about change. As leaders, hopefully we can be patient guides and coaches so that people discover their own experience with life’s true nature.
Life Is Cyclical
Poet David Whyte has noted, “If you think life is always improving, you’re going to miss half of it.” Life is cyclical—we pass through different moods; we live through seasons; we have times of rich harvests and times of bleak winter. Life uses cycles to create newness. We move from the old to the new only if we let go.
Instead of fleeing from the fearful place of chaos or trying to rescue people from it, leaders can help people stay with the chaos, help them walk through it together, and look for the new insights and capacities that always emerge.
In Christian traditions, times of chaos have been called “dark nights of the soul.” In our present culture, we call these “clinical depressions.” I prefer the spiritual framing. In the dark night, we feel devoid of meaning, totally alone, abandoned by God. (Christian mystics believe that God consciously gives us these dark nights.) These dark times are the conditions for rebirth, for a new and stronger self to emerge. You probably have walked through many dark nights, and I encourage you to think how you changed, what new capacities you possessed when you emerged back into the light.
Meaning Is What Motivates People
Nothing motivates us humans more than meaning. I’ve seen many disillusioned and depressed staff groups develop high levels of energy and insight when they were asked to think about the meaning of their work. Consultant Kathy Danne-miller always asked groups to think about how the world would change because of the work they were doing. In such brutal times as these, when good work gets destroyed by events and decisions far beyond our influence, when we’re so overwhelmed with tasks that we have no time to reflect, it is very important that the leader create time for people to remember why they’re doing this work. What were we hoping to accomplish when we started this? Who are we serving by doing this work?
I have always been astonished by the deep meaning people ascribe to their work. Most people want their work to serve a greater good, to help other people. It doesn’t matter what the work is; we’d rather be doing it in service to other people. In certain professions, such as health care, education, and nonprofits, or whenever we feel “called” to our work, it is easier to remember the meaning of it. But we seldom have time to pause for a moment and remember the initial idealism and desire to serve that led us into our profession. However, our energy and rededication are only found there, in our ideals.
Service Brings Us Joy
Over the years, I’ve interviewed people who participated in disaster relief. I’ve always been astonished to notice that no matter how tragic and terrible the disaster, they always spoke of that experience with joy. They’ve led me to realize that there is nothing equal to helping other people. In service, we discover profound happiness. We all witnessed this in the days after September 11. As one survivor stated: “We didn’t save ourselves. We tried to save each other.”
The joy and meaning of service is found in every spiritual tradition. It has been expressed very simply in an ancient Buddhist teaching. “All happiness in the world comes from serving others; all sorrow in the world comes from acting selfishly.”
Courage Comes from Our Hearts
Where do we find the courage to be leaders today? The etymology of the word courage gives the answer. Courage comes from the old French word for heart, coeur. When we are deeply affected, when our hearts respond to an issue or person, courage pours out from our open hearts. Please note that courage does not come from the root word for analysis or for strategic planning. We have to be engaged at the heart level in order to be courageous champions. As much as we may fear emotions at work, leaders need to be willing to let their hearts open and to tell stories that open other people’s hearts.
We Are Interconnected with All Life
Every spiritual tradition speaks about oneness. So does new science. As leaders, we act on this truth when we’re willing to notice how a decision might affect others, when we try and think systemically, when we’re willing to look down the road and notice how, at this moment, we might be affecting future generations. Any act that takes us past the immediate moment, and past our self-protective ways, acknowledges that there’s more to life than just us.
I learned a wonderfully simple way to think about our actions from a woman minister. She told how any time she makes a decision, she asks herself, “Is this decision going to bring people together? Will it weave a stronger web? Or will it create further disintegration and separation?” I like to ask another question as well: “In what I am about to do, am I turning toward others or turning away? Am I moving closer, or am I retreating from them?”
We Can Rely on Human Goodness
This is the first value of The Berkana Institute, the leadership foundation I cofounded in 1992. As Berkana does its work in the world, we rely on the great generosity and caring of humans. We know that there’s more than enough human badness in the world, but the prevalence of badness only pushes us to rely even more on human goodness.
In your own leadership, what qualities of people do you rely on? I believe in these dark times that we can rely only on the hope, resiliency, and love that is found in the human spirit. Many people through history have suffered terribly, and many continue to suffer right now. Those we remember and admire— Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Ann Frank, war veterans, Holocaust survivors, genocide victims, cancer survivors—demonstrate what is best about us. We love to hear their stories because they illuminate what is good about being human. Vaclev Havel, the president of the Czech Republic, says that hope is not a result of the condition of our lives. It is fundamental to being human. (The state motto of South Carolina is similar: “If I breathe, I hope.”)
We Need Peace of Mind
All spiritual traditions teach us ways to find peace of mind and acceptance. In the research on mind-body health, cultivating peace is a prerequisite for health. And who do we like to be around? Do we seek out angry or peaceful people? Do we find relief in noise or in quiet? As leaders, we need to find ways to help people work from a place of inner peace, even in the midst of turmoil. Frantic activity and fear only take us deeper into chaos. I’ve observed the power of starting a meeting with two minutes of silent contemplation. Or, when the meeting gets heated, of asking people to stop talking and just be silent for a minute. It’s amazing how differently people come back into the fray if we’ve had those moments to pause.
Few of us want to work as frantically as we do; most of us hate meetings where tempers boil over. Brief moments of quiet can work wonders—silence is truly the pause that refreshes. Educator Parker Palmer tells of his initial discomfort at working in a Quaker organization, where they observed five minutes of contemplative silence before the start of every meeting. At one meeting, when there was a particularly contentious issue on the agenda, he was relieved to hear the leader announce that because of this serious issue, today they would not spend the first five minutes in silence. But then, to his dismay, he heard her announce, “Instead, we’ll be silent for twenty minutes.”
I’d like to offer a few simple practices that I have found to be essential to maintain a sense of focus and peace as a leader.
Start the Day Off Peacefully
I’ve raised a large family, so I laugh as I state this. But I’ve learned that I can’t expect to find peace at work. However peaceful I am as I leave my home, that’s probably my peak peaceful experience of the day. So I have a strong motivation to find peace before I begin work. There are many ways to cultivate peace at the start of your day. You can drive to work in silence or listen to a particularly soothing piece of music. You can reflect on a spiritual phrase or parable. You can take a few minutes to just sit, either meditating or focusing on a lovely object. You can look for something beautiful outside your window. As your day grows crazier, it helps to know what peace feels like. Sometimes you can even recall that feeling in the midst of very great turmoil.
Learn to Be Mindful
Anytime you can keep yourself from instantly reacting, anytime you can pause for just a second, you are practicing mindfulness. Instead of letting your reactions and thoughts lead you, you step back and realize you can choose your reaction. Instead of being angry, you hesitate for a moment and realize you have other responses available. Instead of saying something hurtful, you pause and give yourself more options.
Slow Things Down
If you can’t slow down a group or meeting, you can at least slow down yourself. I’ve learned to notice how I’m sitting. If I find myself leaning forward, moving aggressively into the discussion or argument, I force myself to sit back in the chair, even for just a moment. If I find my temper rising, I slow down and take just one deep breath. These are small things, but they yield big results.
Create Personal Measures
We all would prefer to be better people. We don’t like to be angry or fearful or to be creating more problems for other people. But how can we know that we’re succeeding in becoming people we respect? What are our personal measures? Some people create a measure such as telling fewer lies, or speaking the truth to people more often. Some notice when they are more patient or angry less often. I also use the question of “Am I turning toward or away?” as a personal measure of good behavior.
Expect Surprise
We’re old enough now to know that life will keep interrupting our plans and surprising us at every turn of the way. It helps to notice this wisdom that we’ve been forced to acquire. Surprise is less traumatic once we accept it as a fact of life.
Practice Gratefulness
Most of us have been taught this, but how often do you take time, daily, to count your blessings? The wonder of this process is that as we take this daily inventory, we grow in gratefulness. We start to notice more and more— people who helped us, grace that appeared, little miracles that saved us from danger. The daily practice of gratefulness truly changes us in wonderful ways. When you develop the practice of expressing your gratefulness to colleagues, your relationships improve dramatically.
I believe that, because you are human, you’ve already experienced the powers, fears, and joys that I’ve described. It is more important to access your own wisdom than to seek advice from anyone else. Life is a consistent teacher. It always teaches the same lessons. Change is just the way it is. Peace is not dependent on circumstances. We are motivated by meaning. We want to express our love through service. And when we believe that, as leaders, we are playing our part in something more purposeful than our small egos can ever explain, we become leaders who are peaceful, courageous, and wise.