My last post was the basis for a workshop I conducted at the International Association of Management, Spirituality and Religion Conference at the University of Arkansas on May 19, 2017. The intense discussions during and after the workshop have led me to further thoughts on the very important question of how we can unlock our leadership capacity. While my concept of transforming the crucible to a chalice clearly resonated with the participants, the personal experiences that were shared in the session shows that each of us develops our own way to cope with complexity.
As I faced challenges during my entrepreneurial career, I managed even without analyzing the mechanics of how I did so. Somehow, I made it through, long before I understood my chalice path to clarity. As I will relay at the end of this note, I survived more by intuition than by deliberate process. Today, the concept of a “crucible of complexity” and the path to the other side, as described by Oliver Wendell Holmes, resonates with me and I can see elements of it even in earlier ordeals. Being aware of the necessary process now makes it much more likely that I will employ it consciously in the future. I hope that by sharing it, my understanding will help others navigate complex situations and perhaps reach better decisions.
A number of inherent conditions come with the passage through complexity, regardless of whether we avail ourselves of the crucible-to-chalice metaphor:
1. Gaining clarity “on the other side” does not, in itself, represent leadership. It is only insight. But this insight affords us a unique opportunity to lead. Yet only if we choose to act on this clarity can we capture the “leadership moment.” We do so the moment we lend voice to this insight.
2. In that instant, if the moment is right and our insight is on point, we are expressing the thoughts that are latent in the minds of all the participants: When we lend voice to our clarity we are helping the group recognize a path to resolution of the complexity.
3. We have an opportunity to lead, yet we are also undertaking an obligation to the others with whom we “resonate.” They put their trust in us. This results in an understanding that is unwritten: A covenant that we will do our best to carry through. It is critical that we be aware of this covenant if we are to be good leaders.
4. While the ability to capture the “essence” of the group in the leadership moment is crucial, we should not rely on it alone. We need to have the discipline to check in with all team members to make sure there is also common clarity in understanding the path forward. I have often failed in this because, in the pressures of the moment and the dynamics of action, I have assumed too much.
5. The ability to lead does not necessarily require hierarchy: As long as there is an understanding of leadership and followership and a collective team goal, any member of the team can become the de-facto leader for that endeavor. If that happens within an already established leadership context, so much the better; if not, it is an opportunity for new leaders to emerge.
6. I emphasize followership because I find that we spend a lot of time on leadership development and training and not enough time on its counterpart, followership development and training.
7. The “leadership link” between leader and followers is strengthened by the leader’s willingness to be vulnerable: To accept shortcomings and fears. It creates in the leader a greater capacity to be fully in the moment and allows a true connection. If the situation is of real import, and the clarity we articulate comes from that deep “point vierge” described by Thomas Merton in the wonderful passage I quoted in my previous post, we do well to expose this deep place. It opens the corresponding deep place in others in the group, thus enhancing the strength of the mutual commitment. It also creates a “safe space” for more intimate dialogue and a strong bonding. It has the potential to create unbeatable teams.
8. Willingness to be vulnerable is not only important for good communication between the team and us: It is important to our own inner growth. This is especially necessary when we are facing failures. The times when I have been willing to admit vulnerability to myself have enabled me to traverse difficult situations better and have led to profound personal growth. To accomplish this, I have had to own my experiences, especially my failures. They have become my most real teachers.
9. Admission of these failures has also increased the chances that others on my team would step in and supplement my shortcomings, thus increasing our odds for success.
10. Being open to our own shortcomings and being forthcoming with our vulnerability are also important ways for us to teach others. To the extent that one’s voice comes from that deep “point vierge,” it will engage the listening and receiving capacity of others more intensely. This is true both for teammates in a leadership situation and for students in a learning situation.
I mentioned that the crucible-to-chalice metaphor is only one way to “see the way.” In essence, it permits us to view the path through complexity as a sacred task rather than a burden. It enables us to better cope with the unknown.
As I said at the outset, I have had many difficult and complex situations in my career without the benefit of the crucible-chalice perspective, and somehow I did know the path. I relayed one such situation, which occurred in 1990, at the opening of my Arkansas workshop. One of our major investors and partners abruptly withdrew from the relationship with our company and plunged us into the worse crisis of our fifteen years in business. With the cancellation of their contract, we lost much of the funding for several key technical programs and faced the need for dramatic actions to survive. One of those actions was to lay off 25% of our staff of 85 scientists and engineers, most of whom I had personally attracted to join our company with the inducement that I had wanted them to share our dream of building a unique scientific and engineering discovery organization. It was the worst moment in my entrepreneurial experience, truly the “dark night of my soul”, to borrow a very apt term from the catholic tradition (1).
At the workshop, I asked the participants to take a few moments and reflect on events in their professional or personal lives that they would similarly consider as dark nights of their souls. I did not mean for these moments to be public, I just wanted them to use these personal experiences to engage more deeply in the topic. Nevertheless many did share, and this enormously enriched our subsequent conversation. It made very real to the group the transformative step that I described in my previous post as my way to cope with the sort of complexity that threatens to freeze our ability to think and act. I used a graphic to convey my concept of the transformation of crucible to chalice:
This visual conjured a better image than my words to convey the transformation that had, in effect, enabled me in 1990 to survive that dark night, find simplicity on the other side of complexity, and lead the company forward. I had “intuitively” converted a burden into a sacred task, and driven by our team’s common goal, that revelation eventually enabled us to not only recover, but to blossom.
As several of the workshop participants relayed their own experiences, we considered them in the context of the crucible of anxiety and the need to overcome the resulting inner forces. When we examined the hurdles that can prevent us from gaining clarity on the other side and acting on this clarity, a list emerged:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of embarrassment
- Fear of the unknown
- Too anchored in the current perspective
- Too shocked by the dark night
- Inability to expand our horizons
- Lack of trust in ourselves, in others
- Resistance to change
- Lack of preparation
- Lack of acceptance of the knowing that comes with full immersion in change
These are the barriers that block the path forward!
I ask you to reflect on the following questions:
- Think back to your own experiences of the “dark night of the soul.” How did you cope?
- Does the crucible-to-chalice metaphor help you gain clarity on your predicament?
- Have you experienced moments when you have seen clarity but have held back from voicing it? Do any of the hurdles in the list above apply?
- What have you learned about yourself from these experiences? Can you make them into your best teachers?
- Can you clear away your own barriers?
In my last post, I wrote about the role of meditation in helping me with these questions. Recently, I ran across a passage from one of my favorite authors, Pema Chödrön, in her book How to Meditate. She suggests that all we need to do to clear our path is get out of our own way:
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“In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your own wisdom to manifest, and this happens because you’re not repressing this wisdom any longer. When we learn how to relax into the present moment, we learn how to relax with the unknown.”
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(1) For an explanation of the term “Dark Night of the Soul” see Eckhart Tolle, or you can go to the source: The Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross.
Ricardo Levy 