Time Tested Leadership Principles!

Dean Robert Manuel, a wonderful, innovative leader at Georgetown University, gave me Heroic Leadership, a book by Chris Lowney, whom he has worked with for a number of years. It is about the leadership of the Jesuit order of priests, who have been providing leadership around the world since their founding in 1540. Yes, that’s right, for 460 years now.

In the interest of brevity, I will mention just some of the principles or pillars of Jesuit leadership that are particularly meaningful to me.

Self-Awareness is key.
What are my values? Who do I want to be? What do I want to accomplish as a leader? What are my blind spots, weaknesses that could be adversely affect my leadership? How can I cultivate the habit of self-reflection and learning, which will help as I strive for continuous improvement?

Note that self-reflection is best as a daily practice. A key to the power of self-awareness is asking yourself, “How I am received by others, by my clients, my co-workers, who are my internal clients, and by those out in the communities in which I hope to be an influence and a presence?”

We must be high energy.
High energy is driven by our personally motivated goals, being the leader and role model we wish to be.

We must devote ourselves to excellence and remain open to new ideas.
As our world changes, we must change with it, putting reality above our egos; there may be a better way to do something. Welcome improvements. Realize that seldom do things go as we would like, and so our leadership must be improvised. Be cool, do the right things, make the best decisions, and be a role model.

Our motivation should come from a passion to work for reasons beyond money or status.
This is when we can find significance as well as success in our work.

Practice love-driven leadership, which means:
• The vision to see each person's talent and potential
• The courage, passion and commitment to help unlock that potential
• The resulting loyalty and mutual support that energizes and unites teams

Remember, we are all leaders. We influence. We can help others succeed. And so, let us strive for a corporate culture of encouragement and understanding where:
• Everyone one of us is a leader
• Everyone of us is leading at all times
• We must support and trust the leaders we lead

Daniel Goleman, a modern day expert on leadership, explains his principles of emotional leadership, which fit well with those of St. Ignatius Loyola, 16th century founder of the Jesuits. Goleman, very appropriately, preaches the critical importance of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill. I encourage you to read Goleman's Emotional Intelligence paper, available from Harvard Business School.

With these principles in mind, we must strive to be our very best, and as a leader, a mentor, a coach to develop these same qualities in our people.

How you can practice self-awareness
Sheila Lirio Marcelo, CEO of Care.com offers very helpful advice for self-awareness: to journal. Frequently, after conversations and meetings, ask yourself, “How did I feel? How was I received? How did I make people feel?” This will raise self-awareness about our leadership style and will likely lead to improvement, being better at realizing how we are received.

My call to action is that we each focus on our self-awareness. Practice it daily. It will make a difference!