Heroic Leadership

by Chris Lowney

  Our father [i.e., Loyola] is not a little displeased with your reverence, and the more so, that the faults of those who are loved are always more serious to those who love them.-.-.-.

  What is more, he has told me to write to you and tell you to attend to your own office, which if you do well, you will be doing more than a little. You are not to trouble yourself in giving your view of his affairs, as he does not want anything of the kind from you unless he asks for it; and much less now than before you took office, since your administration of your own province [Italy] has not done much to increase your credit in his eyes. Examine these mistakes in the presence of God our Lord, and for three days take some time for prayer to this end. Then write, if you admit that they are mistakes and faults. Choose also the penance you think you deserve; write it out and send it to him. But do no penance in this matter before you receive the answer of our father.4

  Lafnez didn't have to employ his singular, almost divine intellect to realize that it was time for a helping of humble pie. In his response, he plunged headlong into overzealous proposals for the penance he thought he deserved.

  I now choose-.-.-. that for the love of our Lord you relieve me of the care of others, take away my preaching and my study, leaving only my Breviary [i.e., prayer book], and bid me come to Rome, begging my way, and there put me to work in the kitchen, or serving table, or in the garden, or at anything else. And when I am no longer good for any of this, put me in the lowest class of grammar and that until death, without any more care for me (in external things), as I have said, than you have for an old broom. This penance is my first choice.5

  Loyola was not about to take up an overscrupulous Lafnez's request to beg his way to Rome "to work in the kitchen, or serving table, or in the garden." Lafnez was not going to be underutilized in a company committed to "refuse no talent, nor any man of quality." Loyola's anger had probably passed well before Lafnez's penitential letter arrived. If Loyola imposed any punishment at all, it was nothing so drastic as the over-the-top ideas Lafnez had dreamed up.

  Lainez's talent was as clear to his colleagues as it was to Loyola. When Loyola died, Lainez was elected his successor.

  A COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE

  Lafnez, the papal adviser and Italy country manager, was only the most prominent of a long line of New Christian Jesuits. He embodied a principle for Loyola, that a person's qualities were more important than his or her lineage. While other religious companies shunned New Christians, Loyola snapped them up as the Jesuits' gain: uncontested talent for a growing company. Henrique Henriques had been booted out of the Franciscan order upon revelation of his Jewish heritage because Franciscan rules did not allow descendants of Jews or Moors to be members. Loyola scooped him up, eagerly hurdling the additional obstacle of obtaining the Vatican approval that was required before one could admit someone dismissed from another religious company.

  Henriques more than vindicated Loyola's trouble. He's an oftforgotten Jesuit, sandwiched between the company's two more prominent heroes in India-Xavier and de Nobili. But his contributions were no less vital. True, Xavier opened up India for the Jesuits, but it was Henriques who authored the first Tamil grammar ever published in Europe, enabling generations of Jesuits to extend Xavier's legacy productively. De Nobili tested the boundaries of Christian expression by incorporating imagery and language from Hindu classics, but it was Henriques's original Tamil catechism that jump-started de Nobili's work. Granted, Henriques's Tamil wasn't perfect. When he innocently (but naively) chose the word misei for "Mass," he left his Tamil audience, already befuddled at the Europeans' physical appearance and strange habits, wondering why the western preachers were continually rattling on about the holy sacrifice of the "mustache" (the meaning of misei in Tamil).

  The New Christian Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes made an equally valiant effort to master Vietnamese. Like predecessor colleagues in Japan, China, and India, Rhodes entered Cochin China (southern Vietnam) primed for acculturation. Yet Rhodes made a fundamental contribution to his host culture that surpassed even Ricci's accomplishments. He helped fashion a romanized script for the Vietnamese language to replace the adopted Chinese characters that had been used up to that point, and centuries later the script was formalized as the quoc ngu (national script) of Vietnamese. For his efforts, he won a posthumous tribute accorded very few westerners-a statue commemorating Rhodes was erected in downtown Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

  Not only in faraway India and Vietnam but also all across Europe, New Christian Jesuits became prominent drivers of the fast-growing young company's operating style and vision.

  The policy of admitting converts didn't go without notice. The manager of the Jesuit college at Cordoba wrote headquarters explaining why students weren't joining the Jesuits upon graduation: "Those possessing the [priestly] vocation enter the Dominican monastery of San Pablo which, they say, is a community of caballeros, whereas in our school only Jews turn Jesuit. Prejudice on this point is so strong that whenever anyone is bold enough to join us, he is looked upon as one who has received the san-benito [i.e., the yellow tunic that Inquisition officials draped on false converts from Judaism]."6

  Despite the pressure, Loyola remained committed to recruiting aptissimi, whatever their origin. When the country manager for Spain complained that the liberal attitude toward Jewish candidates was jeopardizing the company's reputation at the royal court, he received a tart reply from Loyola's secretary: "If in consequence of the attitude of the Court and King you deem it impossible to admit converts in Spain, send them here as long as they be of good character: In Rome we do not trouble ourselves as to the origins of a man, only his qualities."7 The underlying message was clear, and Spain continued to admit qualified converts.

  The tension in Spain was real and intense, not simply the invention of a weak-willed, anti-Semitic country manager. Loyola got his own earful on the subject from the count of Eboli, one of the country's leading courtiers. But Loyola did not yield: "I am told that Your Lordship is displeased that we admit so many `New Christians' to our company. The company may and must not exclude anyone.-.-.-. It may refuse no talent, nor any man of quality, whether he be `New Christian' or noble knight or another, if his religious comportment is useful and conforms to the universal good."8

  The watchwords that paced Loyola's team to success are no less relevant to any company today in any industry. Find as many as possible of the very best, the aptissimi. And welcome all talent, whether they are "noble knight or another." What separated Loyola's team from the rest was not merely that they were willing to "hire" the talent that other religious orders shunned, but that they saw human talent and potential where others didn't even look for it. Love was the guiding vision that enabled them to do so.

  THE ESSENCE OF LOVE-DRIVEN LEADERSHIP

  How is it that while most of Christendom looked at Henrique Henriques-or Diego Lainez, for that matter-and saw unworthy converts, Ignatius Loyola saw potential recruits and colleagues? Or that Loyola could so brazenly challenge European power brokers and the mindset of his era by declaring that his Jesuits would "refuse no talent, nor any man of quality, whether he be `New Christian' or noble knight"?

  That's love-driven leadership: the vision to see each person's talent, potential, and dignity; the courage, passion, and commitment to unlock that potential; and the resulting loyalty and mutual support that energize and unite teams.

  That vision had first taken hold during the Exercises, when the culminating meditation reminded each Jesuit of his own potential and dignity, of the divine energy giving him "existence, life, sensation, and intelligence; and even further, making [him God's] temple." The meditation then urged each recruit to consider how the very same energy quickened all the earth's creatures, "giving them their existence, conserving them,-.-.-. and so forth."

  In other words, Loyola was saying: first look at self; then regard others. No one perceives others accurately without first achieving healthy self-regard. Appreciate your potential, unique
talent, and fundamental human dignity. Then see others, their birthright nothing less than the very same human dignity.

  Still, love is not merely seeing, but doing something about what one sees. The Contemplation to Attain Love not only endowed Jesuits with a worldview but committed them to make that worldview a living, day-to-day reality for those they encountered: "Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words."9

  Love, in today's business world, drives the manager who takes the time he or she doesn't have to help the passable employee do better or to initiate the awkward conversation that forces the high-performing boor to confront his or her grating behavior.

  Love as vision and commitment? What about simpler lessons learned in Sunday school, when love entailed less complicated duties, such as being nice to your neighbor? The commitmentindeed, the passion-to develop human potential goes further than simply being nice. Love leads to confrontation when human potential is disrespected, wasted, or frustrated. Love emboldened Loyola to challenge the count of Eboli, and love compelled Jesuits to take on colonial settlers in Latin America, as following pages will show. Love, in today's business world, drives the manager who takes the time he or she doesn't have to help the passable employee do better, to help a promising junior employee chart a career path through the company, to initiate the awkward conversation that forces the high-performing boor to confront his or her grating behavior.

  Love sometimes even causes confrontation within a family or team. Despite Loyola's generous assessment that to no one else "does the Society owe more than to Master Lafnez," it surely didn't always feel that way to Lafnez. His run-in with Loyola over staffing was far from the only confrontation he ever had with his mentor. Indeed, an exasperated Lafnez once complained to a colleague, "Lord, what have I done against the Society that the saint [Loyola] treats me so?"10

  What had he done? Perhaps nothing more than fall short of the vast potential Loyola saw in him. The Jesuit Pedro Ribadeneira once described Loyola's management approach: "To those who were still children in virtue Ignatius gave milk; but to those who were more advanced, bread with the crust; while he treated the perfect more rigorously still, in order to make them run at full speed towards perfection."11 This description, if a bit sappy, captures the unmistakable passion for excellence that animates loving leaders. For Loyola, leading was about helping others "run at full speed towards perfection." Or, in other words, it was about the commitment to see others realize their full human potential.

  Of course, most tyrannical managers could cook up similar selfjustifications. Maybe those maniacs driving the rest of us insane are just helping us run at full speed toward perfection. Yet no one is calling what they do love-driven leadership. What makes Loyola different? Perhaps this: his motivation was developing others to achieve a common Jesuit agenda, not using others to achieve a self-interested agenda. In another part of Lafnez's penitential letter to Loyola was its most telling phrase: "I really accept in love what is said in love." And Lafnez, like anyone, paid attention to what was said in love, that is, by managers who inspired the trust that they were supporting rather than manipulating their subordinates. More important than what a manager says to extract improved performance from team members is the attitude that motivates him, as Loyola's secretary counseled one Jesuit manager: "For [criticism or feedback] to be successful it will help much if the corrector has some authority, or acts with great affection, an affection that can be recognized. If either of these qualities is absent, the correction will fail" (emphasis added).12

  What distinguishes love-driven leaders from tyrants? "Great affection" coupled with the passion to see others "run at full speed towards perfection." Love-driven leadership is not urging others forward without concern for their aspirations, well-being, or personal needs. Nor is it being the nice-guy manager who overlooks underperformance that could damage a subordinate's long-term prospects. Instead, love-driven leaders hunger to see latent potential blossom and to help it happen. In more prosaic terms, when do children, students, athletes, or employees achieve their full potential? When they're parented, taught, coached, or managed by those who engender trust, provide support and encouragement, uncover potential, and set high standards.

  When love-driven leadership takes root on a widespread basis, it energizes performances and creates unique bonds of team unity. Early Jesuits were globally dispersed, not conveniently corralled within monastery walls, as were Benedictine monks. Jesuits were well-educated, talented, ambitious, and opinionated men. Their top-down tactics brought regular interaction with influential academic, cultural, and political leaders who competed for their allegiance. In sum, the early Jesuits faced the same obstacles to unity that any large global company does. How was corporate unity forged among far-flung, talented Jesuit teams regularly exposed to competing viewpoints? Was it inspired by a splashy orientation program outlining the nifty corporate mission? By golden-handcuff pay packages that tied key Jesuits to the company? By deferred compensation plans with cliff-vesting provisions? By a monthly corporate newsletter? These all create ties of a sort, perhaps, but they fall short of what Loyola wanted-strong bonds of mutual affection that he called "unity of hearts." And unity of hearts began with leaders:

  Among other qualities, [the general's] good reputation and prestige among his subjects will be very especially helpful; and so will his having and manifesting love and concern for them.-.-.-.

  Further help will be found in his having his method of commanding well thought out and organized, through his endeavoring to maintain obedience in the subjects in such a manner that the superior on his part uses all the love and modesty and charity possible in our Lord, so that the subjects can dispose themselves to have always toward their superiors greater love than fear, even though both are useful at times.13

  The Jesuit team strove for an environment of greater love than fear. Loyola was-and is-challenging the prevailing wisdom that those foolish enough to operate with all the love and modesty and charity possible will only get eaten alive. Niccolo Machiavelli eloquently summarized that viewpoint, advising leaders, "If you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved." While Loyola's team focused on human talent, potential, and dignity, Machiavelli saw humanity through a different lens: "For it is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain.-.-.-. People are less concerned with offending a man who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared: the reason is that love is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape." 14

  The Jesuit team strove for an environment of greater love than fear. Loyola challenged the prevailing wisdom that those foolish enough to operate with all the love and modesty and charity possible will only get eaten alive.

  The Jesuits disagreed and took the road of love, to their great success and the benefit of those they served.

  WHAT RESEARCHERS SAY ABOUT MOTIVATION

  Four hundred years after Loyola and Machiavelli, social psychologist Douglas McGregor outlined a variation of the ideological conflict between the two. McGregor theorized that managerial behavior toward subordinates often reflects underlying attitudes toward humanity in general. "Theory X" managers assume, often at a barely conscious level, that humans are fundamentally "lazy and must therefore be motivated and controlled." 15 "Theory Y" managers assume that humans "are basically self-motivated and therefore need to be challenged and channeled." 16 For Machiavellian Theory X managers, the challenge is making them work. For Loyolan Theory Y leaders, the challenge is making them want to work.

  It's not some abstract theoretical distinction. MIT economist Paul Osterman's research convinced him that Theory X is playing itself out all the time in the American workplace. "Companies are finding that they can achieve their goals by maintaining a certain level of fear in the work force [i.e., of layoffs] an
d that leads people to work hard."17

  Loyola, Machiavelli, and McGregor all agree on this much: our basic worldview-our vision of humanity-will inevitably affect our day-to-day dealings. Our worldviews are rarely as clearly framed as those of Loyola or Machiavelli, but even when ill formed and barely conscious they steer behavior. If humans are "ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain," you'll treat them accordingly, ever wary of what damage they might wreak if not controlled, prodded, herded, or micromanaged by their bosses. But if a divine energy is giving them "existence, life, sensation, and intelligence; and even further, making [them God's] temple," you're going to support them, encourage them, even-dare one say it-love them.

  Both visions of humanity were on display when a small Jesuit team arrived in South America's Rfo de la Plata region.

  A TRIUMPH OF HUMANITY: THE REDUCTIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

  Diego de Torres Bollo was simply obeying the law. But obeying this law meant choosing sides. And the side he chose headed the Jesuits down a road with no turning back. By journey's end, thousands would be dead and Torres's Jesuit company would be expelled from a continent.

  In 1608, Torres arrived in the Rio de la Plata region as the newly appointed manager of a backwater. The Jesuit Paraguay province sprawled across an area almost half the size of continental Europe: all of modern-day Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay and slices of Brazil and Bolivia. The Americas' southern cone had disappointed virtually every gold-hungry colonial to set foot there. Early explorers had named its gateway Rio de la Plata (river of silver). Fat chance. Not only wasn't there much plata, but there wasn't much of anything else that mattered to Europeans. Where Lima dangled Inca gold, Asuncion (the first permanent settlement in the Rfo de la Plata area) offered little more than mud and mosquitoes.