The Contemplative Leadership Initiative
Purpose: To address the leadership crisis found throughout the guiding institutions of society.
Goal: To influence the direction of leadership in all its manifestations, by integrating the principles and practice of contemplative leadership into mainstream leadership thinking and training.
A Description of Contemplative Leadership
Leadership is a process of influencing the direction, actions, and opinions of others to achieve the purposes of a group or organization. Self knowledge is the leader’s most important leadership asset Becoming deeply conscious of who they are and what influences their leadership requires a special effort and discipline.
Contemplative leadership is a way of leading that evolves from living in right relationships with self, others, nature and God. These relationships are the source and focus of a leader’s awareness, influence and vision. They guide a leader’s ethical behavior, create trust, and provide the deeper meaning and purpose for achieving a group or organization’s mission. Contemplative leadership seeks to realize human potential and improve the human condition.
“Contemplative” and “Leadership”
“Contemplative leadership” brings together worldviews, perspectives and experiences that initially seem incompatible. Some people are naturally drawn to the “contemplative” aspect of this phrase because they have personal experience with contemplative practice or see the need for transformation in themselves, others and the larger society. Others may have a concern that “contemplative” seems too “soft” and subjective to be useful for the complexities of organizational life, or fear that “contemplative” may be connected to religiosity and proselytizing, and prefer to stay with a traditional focus on behaviors, skills, and processes.
Yet it is the very contradictions that are created by “contemplative leadership” that hold the potential to resolve the leadership crisis found throughout the guiding institutions of our society today.
Beatrice Bruteau in The Grand Option writes,“Many people say that is difficult to practice contemplation in our secularized society. But our society is ‘secularized’ precisely because contemplation is not adequately practiced. These two work in a circle: the general environment of our consciousness either supports or hinders our contemplative life, and our contemplative life (or lack of it) gives (or fails to give) spiritual dimensions to the surrounding world.”i
Contemplative leadership invites us to let go of dualistic thinking about being either contemplative OR active and engage the tensions created by living contemplatively in the midst of active daily life and leadership. The ability to live within the tensions requires a human and spiritual maturity that is a life-long process Our natural tendency is to resolve the tension prematurely before it can teach us. Yet successful leadership today requires a willingness to develop a level of inner growth and awareness capable of meeting the complexity of today’s world.
Transformation is a natural unfolding process that comes from opening mind, heart, and will to allow deeper levels of reality to take root. As leaders become more conscious of strong attachments to beliefs, illusions, attitudes, and assumptions of both external and internal “realities”, they develop a greater capacity to observe, choose, and respond. This in itself is a contemplative practice!
i Bruteau, Beatrice, The Grand Option, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.