The Seven Capacities of Leadership Overview--Part 11

An Afterword on Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve

As I was talking with my wife tonight about an interview she'd seen on Larry King Live, I realized that my overview of Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve is not complete. Why?

I guess it is my 'social conditioning' to avoid mixing business and spirituality, but, in fact, the issues we face cannot possibly be solved without reuniting the two subjects. Mind you, I do not believe religion has a place in business. I do not support religion. Not because religion itself is 'bad.' But every form of religion I have seen as expressed by humans separates--it is separtive.

True spirituality, defrocked of the ideology of religion, unifies and is inclusive. And that is what is called for now. So until I can see a religion being expressed by humans where the stated (or implied) message is not "we've got it and you don't," I do not support religion. However, I will always support spirituality in any venue, including business, so long as the expression of it is inclusiveness (which is the Christ Principle in action.)

There is a darkness in the world today (as there has been for some time), call it evil if you will. (I hesitate to use the word, and not because I am afraid of it but because I believe it is so misunderstood.) And the problem is, we don't know what to do about it. We think we need to clobber it, destroy it, eliminate it or, if that isn't possible to avoid or ignore it and "focus on the positive". I could write quite a bit about all of this points, but I won't because doing so is tangential to this Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve. We all know the darkness is there, that it must be dealt with, and that to all intents and purposes, we have not yet found an effective way to do so. That is the point.

“The only devils in the world are those running around in our hearts. 
That is where the battle should be fought.”  Ghandi

So where is the darkness? The darkness is in you and in me. Yet our social conditioning is to be terrified of it, to deny it, to gloss over it, to lock it away in a room and never open the door, to act like it isn't there, to disown it, or just about anything you can think of other than to face it. But in the end, there it is. And there you are. And there I am.

“A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.” Carl Jung
 
"All things, to give light, must endure burning." Goethe

The darkness we see out in the world is no more than a reflection of the cumulative darkness in each of us as individuals. Whether you agree with that or not, just consider it. Because, if that were true, do you begin to see the solution? Is that solution, perhaps, what it means to pick up one's own cross and follow the way of the Christ?

In aggregate, the darkness seems overwhelming in proportion. Like we have to wait for some force much greater than us to save us from it. That's a strategy, to be sure. But frankly, I don't think it is prudent to rely on that as the only strategy. Not when we can also perhaps actively do something. I'd rather to all I know to do, both passively and actively. As my friend Gary says when we'd go onto the competitive field of battle "to leave it all on the field of battle."

The power to work with the darkness is in you and in me: our job is to transmute the darkness in our selves. So let's talk emotional intelligence. All the studies say you should want to be emotionally intelligent for a lot of really good, pragmatic reasons. But that isn't the full picture of what emotional intelligence is.

To cut to the chase, you cannot possibly actually gain emotional intelligence and not end up  transmuting the darkness in your self. In short, all the un-emotionally intelligent things you do stem from the fact you have not yet transmuted that darkness.

"If you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you.”

The Gospel of Thomas

Your darkness is simply your unrealized potential, and embedded therein is your greatest gift.

Thus, my overview of Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve was incomplete because I didn't mention that one of the most important reasons you need to evolve is because when you evolve you transmute the darkness in your self. And when you do that, you transmute it for the entire world. That is one of the most important reasons why I want you to care about your own evolution, aside from all the intensely practical and pragmatic business reasons to do so. And if you are a true leader, you know your responsibility extends far beyond the walls of your business. At least, leaders who believe such are those leaders I am writing for and trying to reach.

"And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image [as the Lord] from one degree of glory to another."   
2 Corinthians 3:18

What does it mean, my friend, to unveil your face? What would you see? How might you do that? Who would you become? Answers I cannot answer for you, but that you can know, from your own personal experience. Isn't that incredible, that you and I can know that for ourselves? About the only thing I can tell you, and I speak from personal experience: you'd evolve.

And that is the Afterword on this Leadership Capacity 6: Evolve. Now I feel we can move on to number 7.

(c)2008 Otis Woodard