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Thomas V.
Kunnunkal, SJ An
expert educationist and administrator (St Xavier's 3. Some
Myths about Leadership: The Illusion (a) that the whole world consists of separate, unrelated forces and that I
must work alone in that hostile, unfriendly situation, in my given
responsibility; that the "enemy" is
out there and so put all the blame on that enemy. As a result,
I can remain safe and secure; (b) that the
essence of administration lies in being in charge and constantly
taking action, actions and more actions, many of them reactive,
in a stressed effort to keep everything under control, thinking
that as a good administrator, I am also a good leader; (c) that the core of leadership is all about planning,
organizing and controlling, (I need
to do all three, but I must go beyond. Leadership is in fact the
opposite of managing, even though, as leader, I need to pay close
attention to what is happening); (d) that quality is a mere technique. (Actually,
I do not realize that no matter how good, quality is much more than
that); (e) that I can get things done from the outside, even
when I am dealing with educated personnel as in a school or college,
parish or other institution. Even though their door is locked from
inside and I need to request them to open it, I hold on to my belief
that I can smash my way in. (It may work for a time ‑ I may
also find myself in jail); (f) that the important thing for me is
to become totally involved in all the problems and situations that
are happening without pausing to ask why they are happening in the
first place; (g) that refusing to
see current reality for what it is, or, worse still, creating
my own version of it, I change it; (h) that I am what my position is (Principal or Manager
or Parish Priest, etc.), limiting my person and my vision to the
four small walls of my present title and position and so not being
able to perceive that I am much more than that. (i) that I am conditioned
by circumstances that actually obtain around me and so gradually
settle into the status quo, saying: ‘What can I do? It is
the bad situation outside'. I then live the parable of the boiled
frog. (a) His spent thirty long years of preparation in (b) He came from a small lower middle class
home; lived in a small village; he did not have the facility to go
to a special school for education but learned to read and write from
Mary and Joseph; they explained the meaning of the Word of God to
him; he also listened to God's Word and the commentary in the synagogue
and participated in the great festivals in the temple; he learned
to work with his hands, and gained the skills of a carpenter; he
learned from Mary how to pray and later spent long hours in personal
prayer. Through his daily contact with people, listening to them,
he came to know their condition, mindset and value systems; he noticed
how those in authority (political or religious) exercised power,
often abused their positions and used their status to gain personal
advantages. It is essential for a leader is to know the
current reality. The (c) A crucial turning point on his mission
journey was the discovery of Yahweh‑God as his dear Father, his Abba‑experience. No more a God
at whose sight you die, no more a God far away in heaven, but Yahweh become a very dear Father Who
remained with him, as an indwelling Spirit. He received the great
insight that intimacy is redemptive, that God saves
his people (all of them) in his fidelity, which in the Bible is referred
to as his justice. God stands irrevocably faithful to God's commitment to people. There
is no substitute for personal experience, no books, no talks or anything
else. Jesus directly experienced his Abba‑Father calling him
to mission. Much energy is packed inside a personal call. (d) He faced what are called the ‘messianic temptations’. In fact these are the foundational temptations
in life that we all go through, in one form or other. Through his
spiritual discipline, Jesus became equipped to deal with the bread temptation of seeking instant satisfaction
and comfort; he was offered
the lure of a big name and fame or the prestige
temptation, but rejected it; and, most of all, he was able to
deal with the greatest corrupter of people's morals, the power
temptation. All this her did as a fully
and truly human being, with the resources available to him as a human
closely united to God. While a pilgrimon hearth
his divinity was veiled from him. His silent years also helped him
to internalize the three attitudinal requirements of consecration
for mission: radical inner
freedom, so that he did not cling to anything (being poor); radical
concern for others so that there was no exclusion of any (being
chaste); and radical availability
to all (being obedient) and so he became a great instrument for
God's mission. (e) How does one discover one's vocation in
life? Spirituality is the lens through which you see life and then
decide. The hallmark of any authentic spirituality is its ability
to remain in contact with the real contexts of life and then, after
discernment, respond in a concrete fashion. Jesus
discovered his mission through a prolonged appointment with his deeper
and inner self and with God in the real contexts of his time, at
the crossroads of a personal experience of current reality, on the
one hand, and
his own vision, desire and aspiration to contribute to life, on the
other hand. There he gained insight into his own vocation and mission.
In his long hours of prayer, he heard in the depth of his self the
call from Yahweh‑God, his dear Abba. (f) If intimacy
with God is redemptive, then intimacy with others, whom his
Abba loved so tenderly, is also redemptive. This was the logical
connection that Jesus made. It became the heart of the Good News.
Experts on leadership today constantly talk about developing good
relationships for effectiveness, and mention the need of a covenant
relationship between the organization and all its members,
not just a contractual one. Trust is the cornerstone of this. This
is the Japanese paradigm, that once you
join our family (school or organization) you belong to it for life;
that you agree to live together, that you will not exploit one
another, but cooperate with one another and with the institution,
to fully live. How beautifully Jesus demonstrated this in his ministry,
by calling his disciples friends and companions, not slaves. From
Genesis to Revelation, the first and last books, the Bible stresses
God's close relationship with creation. Entering into an intimate relation with others became
Jesus' new way of life.
His vision was to restore the integrity
of God's original creation. He was pained to see how much disintegration,
disconnection and de-alignment had taken place through human
actions, ways of thinking and acting. (g) Jesus concretized his vision of building the (h) Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Jesus was an enthusiastic and passionate leader. There
is great power in a vision and mission when it is internalized as
one's calling in life, not just as a task or an imposed responsibility.
Jesus was burning with desire for his mission (Lk 12:49‑50),
it was his food and drink (Jn (i) His
major responsibility as a leader was to be a steward and mission. This is what is often referred to both in Christian
and business books, as servant
leadership, namely total commitment to the mission or the organization. When vision and mission are shared, they generate
great power. We also see in Jesus an admirable absence of any
effort to boost or promote his own ego. (j) The focus in his leadership was to convert
vision into mission by concretizing it into a practical programme of action that contributed to a transformation of attitudes and values. He disconnected
leadership from
titles and positions and connected it firmly to mission. This
called for a major paradigm shift then, as it does
today. He firmly made leadership an inside
job of building a shared vision, motivating and supporting his
companions to work collaboratively for it. He got them say a firm
Yes to that sacred call. (k) An original contribution of Jesus to leadership
thought and practice was that he did not link leadership belongs
to pre‑determined categories, like the élite, the educated, those
with titles and high positions, etc. Instead through the choice and
development of his leadership team he showed that the
most ordinary persons can become true leaders. Look at the list of those whom
he chose to be leaders! If this was told in a story, people would
call it fantasy! He patiently worked with them so that they recognized
that their first and essential step was to develop
personal mastery, or develop themselves before trying to develop
others. They were first to control themselves by self‑discipline
before trying to discipline others, which, in any case, can be done
only in a tiny peripheral way, or for a short term. Rather, he made
them deeply committed to the development of both self and others. (l) What was the approach that Jesus used for
their inner transformation? Having
presented his vision and mission of the Kingdom to them, explaining
it through many parables and private conversations, he gave them
space and time and thus created the climate for change and growth.
The greater the internal space we occupy, the happier we are. He
empowered them and made it possible for them to grow by providing
them this free inner space. His action was often an accompanying
action, supportive and forgiving. He called them his friends, not
slaves. For him, first things came first and not second or third. Building
up or developing others was his first priority
as a leader. (m) Modern leadership studies insist on delegation
of responsibility with the power to take the needed decisions and
execute. Jesus the leader delegated
power and authority. He sent his disciples on mission, with minimum
of external support but internally empowered and assured them that
they could do what he did and in fact would do even greater things
(Jn 14:12). This is true leadership. Providing space
for others to grow and to execute, Jesus created seconds and thirds
to carry his mission forward. Even Judas got his share of free space.
From experience Jesus knew that synergy
performs many miracles, that we
will do more and do better, if we do things together. Hence he taught them to integrate
rationality and intuition, head and heart, firmness and compassion,
individual capabilities and the pooling of energies. Jesus the leader
actually lived the modern paradigm of ‘managing from the left
brain (planning, organizing, and measuring) and leading from the right
brain'. As a result, his disciples found that their percentage
of performance was not
just 30 or 60, but 100, 200 or more. (Look at the apostolic times!) (n) A beautiful quality of Jesus was that he remained in a learning mode. He also learned
to delay gratification, the
satisfaction that comes from achieving one's objectives. He was patient
and waited for others to reap the fruits of what he had sown. (o) A key in the strategy of Jesus was
his focus on what happens inside a
person. He was intensely keen about emotional
development, namely development of the heart, of attitudes and values. He
perceived that emotional development holds the key to a greater degree of leverage in life and in attaining one's own full
potential, thus furthering a larger movement outside. True, the mind
has its high place, but he knew that it is the
heart that holds the key that opens most doors in life. So, his
distinctive contribution was to introduce the inner or attitude
revolution. He made leadership essentially an inside job, from
where it could flow to the outside. (p) Empathy,
listening, communication, teaching, and accompanying are the means Jesus constantly used to instruct,
energize and motivate. He was committed to develop a sense of ownership and belongingness among
his disciples and so built up a tight team. As leader, his
focus was on people and not on things. People
first, things second. The
disciples happily discovered that this created
magic in the community. The same focus is found today in true
leaders, especially in business. The children of this world seem
to be smarter than those of the Kingdom! (q) There is obviously a place for formality,
for rules and norms; for rituals and ceremonials. But these come
second and cannot be allowed to hijack the inner reality. With great
inner freedom, Jesus demythologized religion and de‑ritualized
it and made faith (not
religion) the novel gift he brought. This too called for informality.
Isn't true that insistence on mere
efficiency is killing the humanity, Christian sense and spirituality
of many institutional heads? Jesus was not afraid to get rid of mindless
rules and long‑standing norms that had become out of date.
It is delightful to see him engaged in de‑bureaucratizing what was held
as sacred and untouchable, but was irrelevant, such as the many man‑made
Sabbath rules (Lk 18:8). (r) Jesus broke the paradigm that thinks that
big is important and demonstrated that small
is beautiful (Lk 21:1‑4). He
saw that world transformation cannot bypass the majority people of
the world. So he gave emotional, psychological and spiritual space
and credit to everyone. He saw that his special charism and mission was to work with the ordinary people, the Janta, the poor of Yahweh, who then as now
form the vast majority of the world population. They are the non persons, with no face, no name, no
publicity, though they toil night and day ‑ without recognition.
Jesus publicly proclaimed that he came to "save" these
lost persons and give them a second life, make them be born again.
Do not immediately think of eternal salvation, for his concern was
more holistic and reality-based. His concern was to bring respect
and dignity, love and peace to those women and men whom others despised
and who discounted themselves as persons of no worth. The quest for
these "lost persons" (the lost son, lost coin and lost
sheep, in Lk 15, sometimes referred to
as the good news of the Good News of Jesus) and their rehabilitation
into the Kingdom community lay at the heart of his mission (Lk 4:18‑19). (s) Many in administrative positions find it
impossible to be leaders since they overcrowd their
lives with routine management functions of daily work. They think: "Jesus
was hard working and so are we. He went about doing good and so do
we." Work has become addictive. Jesus showed how well he managed his priorities and so found time
for all that was important. After a day's hard work, he would find
time (long hours) to pray. People in need mattered to him and so
he was available, during the day or at night. Unlike many of today's
administrators, he was not afflicted by the ‘urgency
disease'. (t) Transparency,
openness and integrity were virtues he insisted upon. How many
secrets regarding his mission did Jesus keep away from his disciples
(Jn (u) As a leader Jesus was a model. He knew that action speaks much
louder than words. His life was all first‑hand. Today too many lead second hand lives, practice
others' values and become puppets on a string, or behave like the
boiled frog in the parable. Jesus was fully an authentic person,
with no gap between what he was and what he said and did. He lived
the three key elements of the Kingdom spirituality. Koinonia, or communion, led him naturally to diakonia, or service, and the two together resulted
in his becoming a martyrion, or witness and model. His disciples
did the same and they transformed society and its people, as we read
in Acts 4:32‑35. (v) His desire to contribute to society kept
Jesus' energy from self-obsessive behaviour patterns
and focused it towards something far greater than his self. Once
he experienced that communion with God made the inexhaustible resources
of the Spirit available to him, out of this experience of connectedness
and abundance he could say so simply and with full assurance: "Your
faith has healed you; go home in peace!" Though it surprised
many of those present, he was not in the least surprised that it always happened.
Fully human, Jesus never said: "I
am not good enough". 6. Conclusion Ref.: VIDYAJYOTI, Vol. 68, n. 3, March 2004,
pp. 167-176. |