Heroic Leadership

by Chris Lowney

  This mindset wasn't a mental trick they played on themselves. They were consciously committed to extracting every kernel of potential from every moment and had the foresight to see what could happen when that commitment was multiplied many times over. So one teacher at a time, one student at a time, one year at a time, one school at a time, they created the world's most extensive and highest-quality education network. If all politics is local, as Jesuit-educated Tip O'Neill once observed, so too is all heroic leadership. Great results emerge one motivated individual at a time.

  Magis-driven leadership inevitably leads to heroism. Heroism begins with each person considering, internalizing, and shaping his or her mission. Whether one works within a large organization or alone, no mission is motivating until it is personal. And it is sustainable only when one makes the search for magis a reflexive, daily habit. A magic-driven leader is not content to go through the motions or settle for the status quo but is restlessly inclined to look for something more, something greater. instead of wishing cumstances were different, magis-driven leaders either make them different or make the most of them. Instead of waiting for golden opportunities, they find the gold in the opportunities at hand.

  A magis-driven leader is not content to go through the motions or settle for the status quo but is restlessly inclined to look for something more, something greater.

  Heroes lift themselves up and make themselves greater by pursuing something greater than their own self-interest. Our classic heroic role models often do so through extraordinary bravery at uniquely critical moments. But heroism is not limited to these rare and privileged opportunities. They are also heroes who demonstrate the courage, nobility, and greatness of heart to pursue a personal sense of magis, to keep themselves pointed toward goals that enhance them as people.

  CHAPTER 1 1

  "The Way We Do Things"

  Four Core Values, but

  One Integrated Life

  he elements of a leader's life "fit together." A leader's life makes sense-first and most important to the leader, but to others as well. By figuring out what he or she is good at, stands for, and wants in life, the leader positions him- or herself to choose a career and a lifestyle that draw on those strengths, values, and goals.

  Moreover, the leader understands that his or her values and ways of working must form an integrated, self-reinforcing whole, or as Jesuits called it, a modo de proceder. In the Jesuits' case, their work and their life values of self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism reinforced one another in a virtuous circle: better self-awareness made for greater ingenuity, and so on around the circle. In the end, the leader's values keep his or her life feeling "pulled together" in a complex world. The leader is recognizable to self and to others as the same person, animated by the same principles, at home and at work. Personal leadership is not a grab bag full of 101 discrete tricks and tactics. Rather, leadership is a way of living in which basic life strategies and principles reinforce one another.

  This is easy to say but harder to practice. For most people, each day brings new crises calling for new and different solutions. How can a person possibly feel "pulled together" when everyday stresses and work demands pull him or her in so many different directions?

  Nothing better illustrates the power of self-reinforcing principles than the reality of intense, constant change. Ingenuity-driven Jesuits embraced change. But they would have drifted aimlessly without anchoring self-awareness. The link between self-awareness and ingenuity, stability and change, epitomizes self-reinforcing principles in action. Two recent academic research efforts have highlighted not only the link but also the payoff for organizations that get it right.

  PRINCIPLES THAT REINFORCE ONE ANOTHER

  Harvard Business School professors John Kotter and James Heskett mounted a four-year research project to dissect the commonly held but often flimsy assumption that "strong" corporate cultures breed performance success. If corporate culture is defined as an identifiable set of shared values and practices, do strong-culture companies outperform others? Well, yes and no. The researchers noted in Corporate Culture and Performance that strong cultures sometimes damage company performance by causing employees to reject new ideas and approaches: "A culture can blind people to facts that don't match its assumptions-.-.-. and-.-.-. an entrenched culture can make implementing new and different strategies very difficult." 1

  But a strong corporate culture can also spur outstanding results, when three key characteristics fall into place:

  • The culture is strong not just on paper but in a tangible way that guides day-today employee behavior. When a retailer successfully instills in his or her company a customer service culture, employees instinctively go the extra mile to meet customer requests.

  • The culture is strategically appropriate. A detail-oriented culture emphasizing operational controls is better suited to a lowmargin precision manufacturer than an advertising agency.

  • Most critically, the culture promotes adaptability. The culture doesn't block change; it promotes it.

  Kotter and Heskett describe the organizations that got it right: "The leaders got their managers to buy into a timeless philosophy or set of values that stressed both meeting constituency needs and leadership or some other engine for change-values that cynics would liken to motherhood, but that when followed can be very powerful."2

  They adhered to a "timeless philosophy or set of values" that incorporated some "engine for change." Say, for example, something like "traveling through the various regions of the world at the order of the [pope] or of the superior of the Society itself, to preach, hear confessions, and use all the other means it can-.-.-. to help souls" (emphasis added).3 Successful cultures tap the motivating power of deeply held beliefs-in the Jesuit case, personal commitment to helping souls. But they also encourage change and innovation-the willingness to do whatever and go wherever. Kotter and Heskett found that strong cultures succeed only when both values come together. And companies that successfully embedded both attributes in their corporate culture outperformed those that didn't by a huge margin: "Over an eleven-year period, the former-.-.-. grew their stock prices by 901 percent versus 74 percent [for the latter], and improved their net incomes by 756 percent versus 1 percent."4

  Two Stanford academics applied very different methodology only to uncover strikingly consistent findings. James Collins and Jerry Porras culled a sample set of what they called visionary companies, distinguished by their track records and identified by direct competitors as industry leaders. The research questions were simple: What made these companies visionary? And were there success factors common to great companies across a wide range of industries? Unlike the Harvard researchers, they didn't go out looking for the effects of corporate culture. But corporate culture is what they found. The distinguishing mark of the visionaries was not great product ideas, financial controls, or even superior management; rather, it was the same package of cultural traits identified by Kotter and Heskett. Collins and Porras concluded that above all else, visionary companies linked an identifiable ideology with an unrelenting drive for progress: "In building and managing an organization, the single most important point to take-.-.-. is the critical importance of creating tangible mechanisms aligned to preserve the core and stimulate progress" (emphasis added).5

  The paradox is that the energizing power lies precisely in the combination of nonnegotiable core beliefs and a willing embrace of change.

  The paradox is that the energizing power lies precisely in the combination of nonnegotiable core beliefs and a willing embrace of change. These would seem to be opposing impulses that could lead only to contradictory, confused behavior. Strong, deeply held values and beliefs might suggest a conservative instinct to shrink from change, while a change-ready attitude might imply a willingness to abandon any belief in the relentless drive to stay ahead of the curve. It would seem that melding the two instincts, whether in an organization or in a person, would court disaster.

  But
the Harvard and Stanford researchers discovered exactly the opposite: outstanding performance occurs only when both traits are merged. Neither impulse alone generates the positive energy that results when the two are conjoined. There is a complementar ity, a creative tension generated by the cohesion of the opposing tendencies. Collins and Porras portray "preserving the core" and "stimulating progress" as the two halves of the ancient yin-yang symbol. In the Jesuit case, both values are woven into the core mission: help souls by remaining flexibile, mobile, and innovative as well as consistently dedicated to the mission. The values don't conflict; they reinforce each other.

  Why it works is no great mystery. In Leaders, Warren Bennis explains how vision and core beliefs spur innovation and creativity. Against the assumption that organizations with strong cultures become cultlike places peopled with zombies incapable of original thought, Bennis argues that a clear vision is the compass that enables confident risk taking, autonomy, and creativity:

  A shared vision of the future-.-.-. helps individuals distinguish between what's good and what's bad for the organization, and what it's worthwhile to want to achieve. And most important, it makes it possible to distribute decision making widely. People can make difficult decisions without having to appeal to higher levels in the organization each time because they know what end results are desired.6

  The same is equally true of self-leadership. Well-defined anchoring goals and values enable ambitious, even drastic innovation and adaptability. De Nobili pursued a more thorough acculturation strategy than his contemporaries would have dared, but not because he was less cognizant of core Christian beliefs. It was exactly the opposite. By clearly demarcating the boundaries he wouldn't cross, de Nobili understood the playing field within which he could experiment with confidence.

  HOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER

  Four earlier chapters each explored a strand of the unified Jesuit culture, their modo de proceder. This chapter weaves them into their one cultural fabric. Warren Bennis and the Harvard and Stanford academics help by providing concrete, bottom-line support for what might otherwise feel mysterious and quicksilver.

  Key to attaining self-awareness is identifying motivating core values and beliefs. But ingenuity encourages the embrace of new approaches, strategies, ideas, and cultures. While they may seem contradictory, these two leadership pillars of self-awareness and ingenuity are intimately linked. Energy is created when they fuse. They are not two appealing entrees plucked from a menu of leadership tactics but two dimensions of one integrated, self-reinforcing way of living.

  This can sound like so much New Age gobbledygook. It even sounds like gobbledygook when leading business scholars toss around notions like a timeless philosophy or set of values that incorporates an engine for change or the yin-yangish, Zen-like advice to preserve the core and stimulate progress. But it becomes decidedly less like gobbledygook as soon as one focuses on the payoff: growing stock prices "by 901 percent versus 74 percent."

  Whatever the equivalent of 901 percent total financial return was for a sixteenth-century religious company, the early Jesuit team surely reached it-precisely because their leadership values fit together in a self-reinforcing modo de proceder.

  Self-awareness facilitates ingenuity

  Those who know where they're going and what's nonnegotiable liberate themselves for confident, even radical, experimentation. Consider de Nobili's dramatic but focused innovation. In contrast, those who don't know their nonnegotiable goals and values become loose cannons-they have plenty of firepower but no clear target. Or, paralyzed by indecision at each fork in the road, they shun risk, tread only well-beaten paths, and fall short of their potential.

  Ingenuity enhances self-awareness

  As self-awareness enabled Jesuit ingenuity, ingenuity and living through change deepened self-understanding. Deeply rooted in the rhythm of Jesuit life was the belief that personal growth and development were possible, that those attempting to "run at full speed towards perfection" were not stuck on a treadmill but moving forward. Not only did self-awareness dispose a Jesuit to ingenuity, but new ideas, cultures, and personal challenges presented never-ending opportunities to refine self-understanding. It's safe to bet that Xavier and the thousands more who left Europe's cultural homogeneity for unfamiliar environments a world away learned as much about themselves as they did about foreign cultures.

  Jesuit recruits first inventoried personal weaknesses and changeblocking "inordinate attachments" during the meditative Spiritual Exercises. But the self-learning continued with real-life experiences. Doing dangerous work, failing in an important assignment, struggling alongside irritating colleagues, brainstorming solutions to seemingly insoluble work challenges: all are prize opportunities to learn one's fears, attachments, and personal resources. It's not surprising that Loyola went ballistic when told that Spanish Jesuits were prolonging their daily meditations. Not only were they giving short shrift to the company mission of helping souls, but they were also depriving themselves of the rich self-knowledge that came with being contemplative in action-learning by doing, reflecting daily on life, and learning from change.

  Heroism inspires ingenuity

  When Loyola informed Portuguese Jesuits that "no commonplace achievement will satisfy the great obligations you have of excel ling," he created heroic expectations that could be met only through change and innovation on a dramatic scale. By way of illustration, imagine any modern corporate setting. The manager who sets an expense reduction target of 10 percent gets his team wondering where to buy cheaper pencils: 10 percent means safe, mainstream thinking. An expense reduction target of 40 percent, however, is "no commonplace achievement" but a heroically ambitious target that requires outside-the-box thinking. With this goal, no one is thinking about cheaper pencils anymore; it's time to conceive radically new ways of doing things. The heroism that gripped Jesuits led to the same radical thought patterns. So it wasn't enough for Jesuit teams in Paraguay to advocate marginally better treatment of indigenous people within the encomienda system; they rejected the whole system to establish the radically new reduction model. The tradition of thinking outside the box began when Loyola himself jettisoned the centuries-old model of religious life to invent a completely new kind of religious company.

  Self-awareness gives rise to love and heroism

  Xavier-and the Paraguay teams, and thousands of teachersknew themselves through the Spiritual Exercises to be talented and uniquely dignified persons: they had self-love. Knowing themselves as loved transformed the way they looked at others. They were no longer driven by the sterile dogma that everyone was created by the same God; it became personal. Because they were anchored by an appreciation of their own dignity, they developed an appreciation of the aspirations, potential, and dignity of others. And so self-awareness gave rise to the love that spurred the heroic efforts of the Paraguay teams. And supportive colleagues helped them sustain that heroism.

  When we explore just a few permutations of how the four pillars reinforce one another, their power becomes clear. It becomes increasingly difficult to see where one principle gives way to another, where, for example, self-awareness ends and ingenuity begins. It's easy enough to detect a color spectrum with a prism, but without the prism, one is left only with light. So too with the Jesuit modo de proceder. One can freeze-frame momentarily this way of doing things in order to analyze its key parts-self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism-but at the speed of life these four separate principles dissolve into one integrated approach.

  How LEADERSHIP SHAPED A LIFE DESPITE DRAMATIC CIRCUMSTANCES

  This model may seem a bit too pat and neatly packaged. Here are four reinforcing principles-adhere to them, and presto!: an integrated, fulfilling, carefree life.

  Loyola and every Jesuit surely knew that this was not how things worked in reality. The most fitting exemplar of this integrated, four-pillared approach to life is, ironically, the Jesuit hero who sometimes seemed to lose track of those principles. As the early J
esuits navigated life's rapidly flowing, uncharted, winding waters, even sound navigational principles couldn't help them solve every problem. Insoluble problems emerged, as did dilemmas that had no attractive solutions. Johann Adam Schall von Bell lived in that real world where complicated life choices are compounded by human weakness. At his best, he paced the Jesuits in China to wins that not even the imaginative Ricci could have contemplated. Yet Schall made missteps as well. In that respect, he's the ideal subject for our closing leadership lesson learned from the Jesuit team: no one will successfully honor life principles during every moment of a life lived in vigorous pursuit of those principles. The challenge is to honor those principles over the course of one's life (if not during its every moment), buttressed by mechanisms that refocus one on core principles after the inevitable human stumbles.

  Jesuit astronomers in China

  "The news of Mr. Terrentius has displeased me for the loss to our society as much as, on the other hand, it has pleased me for his holy resolution and for the gain to the other society, to which I owe so much." 7 Galileo could afford such a generous sentiment. It was 1611, and he was riding high, thanks in no small part to the society to which he owed so much. That is, the Jesuits.

  The society that "lost" Mr. Terrentius was the Academy of the Lincei, a selective society for top scientists. Much as Loyola prided himself on making the already highly selective Jesuit entrance standards ever more stringent, even he couldn't match the Lincei Academy's candidate filter. Galileo was admitted to the academy in its eighth year as only its sixth member. A week later the academy accepted the Swiss mathematician Johann Terrenz Schreck, also known by the Latinized Terrentius. The controversial Galileo had been doubly vindicated: on top of his own admission, the newly admitted Terrenz just happened to be one of his star pupils.