Christian spirituality and Christian

spirituality
contemporary business
leadership
Andre L. Delbecq 345
Santa Clara University, California, USA
Keywords Belief, Leadership, Executives, Values, Religion
Abstract In what way does Christian spirituality impact contemporary business leadership?
This short article provides examples of some executives whose personal spiritual tradition deeply
informs and shapes their leadership. Themes reported include a sense of leadership as a calling,
the desire to integrate deeply held personal values with the leadership role, and spirituality as a
source of courage when facing daunting challenges.

Introduction
There is always an interest in how an individual speaker defines spirituality.
My definition is:
The unique and personal inner experience of and search for the fullest personal development
through participation into the transcendent mystery.
It always involves a sense of belonging to a greater whole, and a sense of longing for a more
complete fulfillment through touching the greater mystery (which in tradition I call God)
My test of authenticity is the extent to which progress in the spirit of journey manifests itself
in loving and compassionate service.
Since Robert Silvers asked each participant to speak from our individual
spiritual traditions, I will discuss my interactions with executives in Silicon
Valley with whom I have also shared religious reflection in the context of Santa
Clara University as a Catholic and Jesuit institution. This is necessarily only
my perspective and that of those executives I will report on. Christianity itself
speaks with robust and diverse voices. Witness within the Catholic tradition
diverse voices:
From the mountains: The Desert Fathers, John of the Cross, and the contemporary Carmelite
Thomas Merion
From the valleys: St Francis and the contemporary Teilhard de Chardin
From the City: Augustine, Aquinas, Ignatius, Newman, and the Contemporary Mother
Theresa
There are also the great reformer voices of Christianity, Luther, Calvin, Wesley;
Black Christian spirituality (King), and Feminist voices (Dorothy Day,
Rosemary Ruether).
These remarks were delivered at the 1998 August Academy of Management meeting in San Journal of Organizational Change
Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, 1999,
Diego. They have also been reprinted in Portuguese in Comportamento Organizational e Gestao, pp. 345-349. # MCB University
1999. Press, 0953-4814
JOCM When I first began my intense study of Christian spirituality I was a bit
12,4 taken aback by the diversity of the Christian voices. Then I reminded myself
that God is infinite. So should there not be a infinite variety of voices speaking
His language?
There is, of course, the common denominator among all the voices. God is
love, and he who abides in God abides in Love and God in him. Love of God and
346 Neighbor rests at the heart of Christian spirituality.

The inspiration of business leaders

Let me forthrightly state that my interest in spirituality in the context of
business leadership did not flow from my own inner inspiration. Rather it came
from experiencing the intense spirituality of senior executives in Silicon Valley,
and their selflessness of service flowing from the richness of their individual
inner journeys.

How then do I perceive the Christian message informing executive

leadership?
A few illustrations of themes
Robert J. House and I first interviewed many of these executives as part of a
leadership study of CEOs dealing with rapid change environments in the 1980s.
As I have come to know these individuals more intimately in subsequent years,
there are some common themes from their Christian spiritual tradition which
inform their individual journeys as senior executives.
Theme 1. The Christian perspective on ``calling'' as an orientation to work
that adds a sense of vitality and purpose to their leadership journey.
The first and overarching theme is that business leadership for these
individuals is a calling to service, not simply a job or a career.
They share the pivotal Christian belief that all creation is redeemed and
good, and therefore being involved in co-creation through industrial enterprise
can be an act of love.
They see their own role and the function of their business enterprise as a
form of service, in this case the design and provision of goods or services which
meet important societal needs.
Theme 2. The integration of their spirituality with their work rather than the
separation between a ``private life of spirit'' and a ``public life'' of work.
These individuals share the ``Ignatian'' ethos of being contemplatives in
action; the Rahnerian notion of finding God in the everydayness of their
organizational challenges.
They see business as a dominant social institution at the turn of the century.
They are aware that the vast majority of individuals in modern societies find
the expression of their individual talents within the private sector organization
that community win or will not be experienced primarily within these
organizations, and that human solidarity will be impacted by the practices of
these organizations. Therefore, to them leadership in the private sector
organization is a role worthy of the highest form of servant leadership.
 This parallels the Ignatian notion of looking for where God is at work at a Christian
time in history, and selecting a contemporary institution as a place for service. spirituality
Let me mention three examples:
(1) Retailing: The Chairman and CEO of a retailing organization who
created one of the healthiest organizational communities I encountered
during my early years in California. A man growing up in very modest
circumstances, he established a major firm to provide quality and
347
fashionable goods at modest prices for people of limited means, and
employed and trained individuals with modest social-economic
backgrounds to manage his organizations. Within the company he
established a culture of generous service to the customer, and a mature
and respectful internal organizational ethos among a very diverse work
force. He exemplifies the Christian beatitude: clothe the poor, through
creating a remarkable corporation that does so, and employs the poor as
well.
(2) Data systems: Another of my heroes is a computer scientist who formed
one of the earliest firms providing databases to a variety of consumer
and scientific groups. He believed that knowledge should be shared, so
that a worker in Kenya should have the same knowledge resources as a
scholar at Oxford. With enormous courage, overcoming many technical
and market obstacles, he created and modeled the potential for sharing
information through computer technology truly being a contemporary
``educator/missionary'' across national boundaries.
(3) Bio engineering: I think of a woman executive in love with biological
science, adding an NMA to her credentials in biology, who through
creative financing of early stage bio science developments was as much
of a medical missionary as Albert Switzer. She was filled with a passion
to eliminate several diseases through her bio-science financial efforts.
Theme 3. Courage to stay the course and survive with dignity the special
challenges of executive leadership which are daunting to the best and the
brightest.
These leaders must continually strive to lead through a vision which is bold
and courageous, yet remain flexible in order to accommodate to continual
change. This calls for detachment from what is comfortable and familiar, often
taking them and their organizations into high risk paths.
For many of these executives (often introverts with scientific training in
Silicon Valley) this requires excruciating public presence, with constant need to
interface with diverse stakeholders.
Through personal reflection and meditation they manage to balance the
dangers of over-extension and burnout (illustrated the ``hero myths'' as
described in the work of Sonnenfeld).
In addition they experience the hyper criticism, public scrutiny, hard times,
uneven successes and many other trials of senior leadership.
JOCM Two examples:
12,4 (1) Environmental services: My MBA's favorite profile of executive courage
is the CEO of an environmental services company twice facing
bankruptcy due to changes in legislation and government support, who
remained dedicated to developing a breakthrough technology for
dealing with automotive emissions. His story of snatching success from
348 the jaws of defeat through rededication and inspiration of his
managerial team is one of overcoming the greatest of hardships. His
courage to deal with these setbacks, and ability to help the management
team remain focused on how to solve an important environmental
problem is truly inspiring.
(2) Finance services: A banking executive who created many of the enabling
financial structures for both early phase technology firms and for urban
reconstruction who envisioned banking as a way in enacting the great
works of mercy. Through his commitment to banking as a calling he
managed to sustain his political position through four ownership
transfers (in an era of mergers and turbulence) in order to sustain the
financial arrangements he had put in place to serve his clients.
The bonfires of executive vanity: pride, power and wealth
Obviously the story of executive leadership is not always a story of
unmitigated goodness. I find mischief and occasionally evil in the executive
sate as in all institutional sector. However, for many Christian executives, I
perceive and they report that their spirituality provides protection against the
many pitfalls of executive leadership.
As identified by executives at a NASDAQ conference, the major cause of
leadership failure is hubris. Or as Richard Hagberg the consultant on
leadership failure writes, pride leads to executive failure because it leads to
impatience, an unwillingness to build consensus, the inability to receive
criticism, and the unwillingness to endure periods of trail and uncertainty.
Humility as a Christian virtue looms large in the stories told by these
executives.

Conclusion
Let me conclude these brief remarks by pointing out that in the contemporary
business context illustrated by these brief vignettes of executives from Silicon
Valley, I often listen to executives who tell me they find inner strength and
wisdom in their Christian tradition which informs their leadership. It provides
them with wisdom to discern and to reach toward noble goals, with contagious
passion and courage that captivates their own and the energies of their
colleagues, with the ability to sustain concentration and commitment in the fact
of daunting problems, with discipline which allows them to reduce their own
egos and free themselves of debilitation obsessions, and with compassion that
leads to a recognition of their own unity with their fellow men in all the
stakeholder roles associated with business. For these executives, their
spirituality is the integrative force enabling them to engage in business Christian
leadership as a form of human service, thus transforming it as part of the path spirituality
for attaining their own union with The Transcendent Mystery. Nor do they
expect that this path will always lead to success, and they are certain it does not
allow them to avoid personal suffering. Thus spirituality is a quiet but
powerful force in their lives, not accounted for in most of our current
management literature. 349
Of course I do not claim that only Christian spirituality matters. I have found
Taoist Buddhist, Jewish and Hindu executives with a similar centeredness
transforming their leadership, but my task was to speak to Christian tradition,
whose impact I find to be a major motivational element in the journeys of many
Christian executives.