Book Review: “Heroic Leadership”, Chris Lowney

Four hundred seventy years ago, a handful of friends banded together to start a new company. They had no money, no product, no track record of success and little experience. They simply agreed to work together as a team to “help souls heroically.” The result? In little more than 20 years they were arguably the most influential organization in the world, operating an expansive school system, exploring and mapping the globe, and advising European monarchs, the Chinese emperor, Japanese shogun and the Pope. Today (yes, today!), they have 21,000 professionals running 2,000 institutions in more than 100 countries.

Their founder was Ignatius Loyola (1469-1527), a 49-year-old Catholic priest with a history of personal tragedy and failure. Disillusioned, he spent a year of reflection and emerged with a new vision of the world, how to live with meaning, and how to build an organization. He founded what is now known as the Jesuits, the largest religious order in the world. Given this unprecedented success, Chris Lowney, in his book titled Heroic Leadership, examines what early Jesuits referred to as nuestro modo de proceder or, “the way we do things.”

The Jesuit organization was built on a model far different than the “command and control,” celebrity leader-hero model common today. Instead, it groomed every recruit for leadership and then turned them loose to pursue the company mission. The role of “superiors” is not to tell people what they should do, but to equip them with the skills to discern on their own. They ask theirs to lead not only at work, but everywhere and every moment. Leadership is not an act, job or role, rather a way of living. Leaders honor the truth above their egos and influence others by example. Leadership is not defined by the scale of the opportunity but the quality of the response. One cannot control their circumstances, only responses.

The Four Pillars that Support Great Leaders

Every person has the opportunity to become a leader … but it does not happen by chance. Great leaders possess four critical characteristics, and they work each day to strengthen and renew these characteristics in themselves and nurture them in others.

Pillar 1 – Self Awareness: Intelligence and technical skill are far less critical to success than a healthy, mature, positive self-awareness and self image. These critical personal assets are developed via an introspective journey of self reflection whereby answers are found to the life-giving questions of What do I care about? What do I want? How do I fit into the world? Further, a “healthy” self awareness is built on the following:

• All people, including you, have unique talents, abilities, potential and unalienable fundamental dignity.
• Articulated goals that provide purpose for daily living and allows one to “order one’s life.” Only persons who know what they want can pursue it energetically and inspire.
• Commitment to personal development and improvement. Dedicate one full week each year, and three times each day, to assess performance; review and assess personal goals; and give thanks for blessings, gifts, talents and the energy and opportunity to love and serve oneself and others.
• Monitoring of ourselves for blind spots and weakness. Demons fear discovery. Self observation and reflection will send them running.

Pillar 2 – Ingenuity: Leaders make themselves and others comfortable in a changing world. They eagerly explore new ideas, approaches and cultures rather than shrink defensively from what lurks around life’s next corner. They rid themselves of engrained habits, prejudices and cultural preferences that block rapid adaptive responses. They cultivate a sense of trust and indifference that frees one to, at every turn, select the response that will move them toward goal attainment. They also believe that:

• There is plenty of opportunity in the world.
• The keys to finding and unlocking opportunity are imagination, trust, ingenuity, adaptability and rapid response.
• Most problems have solutions. Imagination, perseverance and openness to new ideas will uncover them.

Pillar 3 – Love: Great leaders engage others with a positive, loving attitude and create environments energized by loyalty, affection and mutual support. With a healthy self image and a clear picture of what is important in your life, you’ll be free to truly give to others and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” In such an environment, employees work with passion and courage, energized by working with and for persons who value, trust and support them. Other tenets include:

• Love all, serve all.
• Love-driven companies refuse no talent nor anyone of quality, regardless of background or pedigree.
• Operate with greater love than fear.

Pillar 4 – Heroism: “Above and beyond” performance occurs when teams and individuals aim high and when leaders imagine an inspiring future and strive to shape it rather than passively watch the future happen around them. Leaders extract gold from the opportunities at hand rather than waiting for golden opportunities to be handed to them. Encourage employees to “elicit great desires”; envision heroic objectives; and embrace their innate, restless desire to achieve something more, greater. Other tenets include:

• Heroism begins with each person considering, internalizing and shaping his or her owner mission.
• With heroism comes missteps, but the greatest risk is to shrink from leadership and dissipate one’s potential.
• Leaders persevere and have the courage and will to keep going.
• All persons in an organization must unselfishly focus on the mission and be willing to take orders one day and lead the next.

In summary, the success of an organization depends on turning recruits into leaders. Solve that problem, and the leaders you have molded will solve the rest of the problems. Critical is that no mission is motivating until it is personal, and sustained motivation is only possible through daily focus and reflection.

Jesuit explorers were among the first Europeans to cross the Himalayas and enter Tibet, paddle the headwaters of the Blue Nile, and chart the Upper Mississippi River. They built the world’s largest higher-education network – more than 30 colleges in just a decade. By the late eighteenth century, 700 secondary schools and colleges sprawled five continents, including Loyola, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Boston College, Marquette and Xavier. Their students include Francois Mitterrand, Antonin Scalia, Fidel Castro, Bill Clinton and Vince Lombardi. Over the centuries, Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians changed the world as we know it. More then 450 years from its founding, the longevity alone is astounding. In comparison, only 16 of the largest 100 U.S. companies that existed at the turn of the century exist today.

Loyola’s core appeal was not his own leadership traits, but his ability to identify and unlock others’ latent leadership potential. He said, “Govern using all the love and modesty and charity possible so that teams can thrive in environments of greater love than fear.”