Dare Great Things

It has been said that success is more difficult to handle than failure.  For those of us striving for success this can be hard to hear.  How can I be successful with success and why do worldly honors trip up more people than difficulty and challenge?  St. Thomas Aquinas tackles this question when he treats the virtue of magnanimity.  How can Christians really strive after greatness and stay humble?  This is the secret of the virtues and the secret that St. Thomas teaches about in his Summa Theologica.

The topic of leadership is not always popular among Christians.  In particular because many Christians see leadership as the antithesis to humility.  Afterall, how are you supposed to remain humble while deploying all of your gifts in the sight of others?  How are you supposed to remain humble while seeking after success?  St. Thomas Aquinas gives some amazing insights into the virtue of humility and shows that it is actually essential for every leader and that in fact true leadership can make you humble.

Living a life according to virtue is difficult for anybody.  But those in roles of leadership are under particular scrutiny by those whom they serve.  Everyday their every decision has impact on the lives of those who are underneath them.  For this reason, leaders have a special need for the virtue of justice.  By justice each person is given what is their due.  But justice presents special challenges both in its acquisition and in its practice.  Thank goodness for God’s grace. 

Whether we are leading a family or a business, all leaders have to do things they don’t want to do.  As soon as we assume the mantle of leadership we assume the mantle of facing things that could hurt us – that could take valuable time away, valuable resources away or even inflict pain at different levels of our life.  This means that leaders have to be brave.  St. Thomas Aquinas describes the virtue of bravery as fortitude and this third of the cardinal virtues is what we are focusing on today.

If you were to take a poll of famous topics for leadership talks, temperance would not rank in the top ten.  For most people temperance has a negative connotation, as if it were something that would stifle our energies or keep us from the fullness of life.  St. Thomas Aquinas has a very different vision for temperance.  According to him, temperance is necessary for the full life and has the power to guarantee that we attain the real good and excellence for which we are called.  This is why studying it is so important for us today.

If there’s one thing that organizational leaders share in common it’s the need to know how to advance when no one else does.  Being at the top means being in charge and being at the top means making decisions that will influence the entire organization for the better or for the worse.  The goal, obviously, is to make decisions well and this ability is much more than instinct.  For the ancients, they called it the virtue of prudence.  I’d like to look at St. Thomas Aquinas and what his teaching on prudence has to teach us today.

There is a lot of talk today in Catholic circles about virtuous leadership.  This is a good thing but do we know why virtue is important?  Why does Catholic teaching emphasize virtue so much and why should it be important to business leadership?  In this second of a six part series I lead our participants through an examination of the importance of identity for leadership and the importance of virtue for identity.  If we are going to admit that leadership comes from who we are and virtues help define who we are, then we see the importance of virtues for leadership.

Today, talking about character based leadership has become something fashionable.  Books, podcasts, seminars all focus in on on the term virtue.  By so doing we feel like we have checked of our Christian box in leadership and that we can safely move on.  But the issue is actually much more explosive.  Character influences leadership in ways that are profound and fruitful.  The question is why?  In this first of a six part series I would like to look at the question more deeply. 

Work is a constant in everyone’s life.  While we can enjoy it or we can suffer from it we cannot avoid it.  But how can I make it better both for myself and for the people that I manage and the people who benefit from it?  And if I work in business how can I ensure that my business remains ethical – truly focused on the true good?  The key is to look at work and business from the human perspective.  It is something done for the human person – for the benefit of everyone else.

Leaders don’t get to be in the positions they have by doing nothing.  Instead they are men and women of action.  But does this mean they have to leave their people behind?  Is there a way to unite both action and productivity?  In the Catholic imagination the two are linked.  In the 13th century a Dominican friar named St. Thomas Aquinas gave valuable insight into this very question by comparing human leadership with God’s governing of the world.

It goes without saying that those in leadership want to lead well, but what are the elements that make a leadership effective, good, and even pleasing to God.  Without a doubt St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica gives us some valuable insights when he talks about how God leads the world.  If our leadership could be patterned on God’s we’d be sure to be doing something right.  In this second of my six part series, I focus on how good leadership makes the people who follow us more fulfilled in who they are.

People of faith in leadership positions find themselves in a quandary: “How do I live my faith when my job is vowed to be in a secular situation?”  After living that way for many years sometimes we can feel that faith does not actually have a place in the workplace after all.  The roots of Catholic leadership go very deep.  St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica lays a surprisingly relevant foundation for Catholic principles.  I can’t wait to unpack them with you in this series of six talks delivered for the St. John Leadership Network. 

The power of a leader is as much about your connection with your people as it is about your vision and your drive.  People follow those who trust them and they trust those who show the character and the drive necessary not only to succeed but to succeed at doing what’s right.  This is the difference that Christ makes.  In this sixth and final episode of our six part series on The Difference Christ Makes we look at the unique impact Jesus gives to his followers in their connectivity with others and how that applies to our businesses.

Leaders are people of action.  They are those who have the vision to know what they want to do, the intelligence to choose how to do it, and the dedication to carry the job through.  It’s this last part that is a challenge for many.  As soon as we begin the process of change, challenges will arise from every side.  How do we form the heart and the drive sufficient to carry our actions through to success.  In these circumstances the Christian faith shines beautifully and gives Christian leaders and advantage. 

There are many aspects about the Christian faith which we could find surprising.  Not everything that God does is immediately self evident to us.  But something that never ceases to amaze me is that God insists that we take action.  Not only does he say, “Do not be afraid,” but He doesn’t let us off the hook.  Leaders have to make decisions constantly and engage themselves in operations that can sometimes be risky.  Why does God do this?  And where can we find the courage to embrace the risk and still dare the deed?

Making decisions is one of the most important aspects of leadership.  Our people count on us to make decisions and to make them well.  And the decisions of a leader can jeopardize or bless the entire organization.  But making choices is not something that comes easy.  How do we know which of the many possible good things to choose from is the right one?  For a Christian, Christ comes to bring us clarity.  But what does this clarity look like?  How are we supposed to know what God’s will is and what we are supposed to do.   

We all know that Christ makes a difference.  But what difference does he make in leadership?  Is there anything distinctively difference about the way Christians approach leadership with the way seculars approach leadership?  What difference does Christ make?  In this second of a six part series we examine the impact of Christ upon our creative energies.  Our ability to think outside the box and to create a whole new context for our ideas.  Surprisingly this is something we have done throughout the history of the Church and something we will keep doing today.

While the demands of leadership are the same in every context, the way we approach leadership can be different.  A Christian leader leads differently than his secular counterpart.  From visioning an idea to implementing a strategy, through carrying out and executing a plan, a Christian leader simply leads, frankly, differently.  In this first of a six part series I examine the difference that the Christian spirit demonstrates in leadership.  I attempt to answer the question, “What difference does it make if I believe?”

Daring great things is where leadership begins but leadership ends in the hearts of those that follow us.  Its not enough just to be doing things or doing them well, we have to do them in a way that other people can associate with and make it their own.  How do I make my great accomplishments a legacy that other people can benefit from?  We have to learn how to make our spirit come alive in the hearts of others.  Ironically, has to be concerned about his followers.

Before we do anything it is important to stop and plan how we are going to do it.  Afterall, failing to plan is planning to fail.  Part of this planning includes looking at where we could actually falter along the way.  And understanding the reasons we fail can become a big reason why we succeed.  In this fourth talk of the series we look at one of the biggest reasons we fail: fatigue, burnout, and being frustrated along the way.