Spiritual Leadership

During a course I was leading recently on executive coaching, one of the participants raised an unexpected question: How, she wanted to know, is it possible to bring spirituality into leadership and into the executive arena?

The question immediately reminded me of a time years ago, when I was first beginning to move into leadership coaching, and I asked a mentor of mine what the difference is between executive coaching and life coaching. He replied with a big grin, “It’s all life coaching, it’s just the executive doesn’t know it yet!”

And you know, the more coaching I do the more I see how spot on that answer is. Executive and leadership coaching focuses on helping people make positive changes in behavior, and that is always an inner game.

So the question of bringing spirituality into leadership is not about bringing religion or religious beliefs into the workplace. Forget that. I believe it is a question of addressing a much more fundamental issue: there is a yearning, a thirst, to experience in organizational life, from the highest offices to the cubicles of middle management, a new kind of governance.

Not only more ethical or responsive governance (though these too are important) but one that is simply more humane. To put it in “spiritual” terms, there is beginning a call for leaders who themselves are consciously connected to the essence of life and are acting through the wisdom, integrity and compassion that such connectivity brings. Leaders who are compelled to govern not because of the grand ego benefits that power and influence brings, but because of the recognition that their core purpose is nothing more than the empowerment, the uplifting of others.

This is what is sorely missing and what is now being called for (softly at first, mind you). This has nothing to do with religion but with the communion of the human mind with something greater than itself; something from which are drawn inspired ideas and the energy and fortitude to bring them into existence. And beyond that, the recognition that that same essential source lies within each of us, marking each of us as unique, special, and fully worthy.

There is no shortage of capable mean and women who have the intelligence to lead, nor is there a shortage of ideas. We are awash in them. What is needed are leaders who actively nurture an inner spiritual life, free from dogmatic and religious considerations, and simply live the expression of that within their organizations. Much as they would breathe.

It is interesting the debate in the United States on the religion of President Obama: is he Christian, is he Muslim? Rather than being grateful that the leader of the free world has any spiritual life whatsoever, people become deeply obsessed with the form his that spiritual life takes, and cringe at the notion that it be anything other than Christian.

Maybe it’s just me, but I get the distinct impression that Obama is neither Christian nor Muslim. What I see is a man who pays lip service to being of the former to placate the huddled masses who bay for blood at the idea that spiritual lives can be rich and rewarding in any other direction. A few things are evident for me: Firstly, Obama has a spiritual life. Secondly, Obama is beyond religion, meaning that his spiritual life transcends the need for adherence to any particular code of belief. Thirdly, there is no way he can speak about this without being dethroned.

Yet the greatest values of humankind—the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness—are ceaselessly actualized when we quietly look within for answers. There is not a trace of shame or embarrassment in this; rather it is the source of our greatest strength, courage, and wisdom. The quality of our thoughts and actions increase when we access the stillness within and ask, ‘What is needed of me at this moment?’, and move with what comes up.

Returning to the original question of how to bring spirituality into leadership, my answer is this: bring it into yourself first. And from your space of connectedness bring your light into organizations that need it—as a coach or a leader—and simply be the light. Nothing more is required. It is not necessary to actively, overtly “bring it in”, nor to impose it in any way. It is your presence that brings it in, it is your presence which attracts people to you who recognize that somehow you are different, and it is your presence which ultimately affects everything.

Life is good!

Leon