I have grown a profound Respect and Love for all the Religions I came across throughout my Spiritual Journey, as long as they do not consider themselves as the sole owners of the Only Truth! I was educated as a Catholic, then taught by a Family Friend to understand and respect Islam, became (or thought so) Taoist, then Buddhist, in my adolescence, to later meet the Afro-Brazilian rite of Candomblé, through a Brazilian Friend. Candomblé strongly revering other Faiths, it encouraged me to deepen my respect and understanding for my initial Faith… Back to square one! If I am referring, here, to a recent blockbuster, “Conclave”, suspected by some of anti-Catholic manipulation, it is without any religious aspects attached. In those times of polarisation, I feel the need to state it!
“Over the course of many years in the service of our Mother, the Church, let me tell you: there is one sin which I have come to fear above all others: Certainty! Certainty is the great enemy of unity, Certainty is the deadly enemy of Tolerance; Even Christ was not certain at the end… “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he cried out at his agony at the 9th hour on the cross. Our faith is a living thing, precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt! If there was only Certainty and no doubt, there would be no Mystery and, therefore, no need for Faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts, and let him grant us a pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on!”
A leader who doubts
When I heard the Cardinal’s prayer, I thought of the many of us, awaiting the nomination of a new business or political leader… Would you prefer to welcome (I apologise for the unfair reference to him) Steve Balmer as he appears hereby?
Or would you incline towards a leader, equally determined but progressing through carefully crafted doubts, questions, information as the legendary Henry Fonda in 12 angry men?
One of the best (I rarely use them) educational videos on negotiation and conflict management, “From No to Yes” reinforces that: doubts, questions and information are the three techniques to assert a healthy leadership in a difficult conversation. As we noticed during the COVID epidemic, leaders who pretended to know faired worse than those who had taken a humble position whilst continuing to lead.
The difference between a leader addicted to Certainty and one embracing her doubts is about Leading when (I think) I know or Leading when I don’t (need to) know.
A Leader who sins and asks for forgiveness
Far from wishing for the emergence of a leader not walking the talk or publicly disrespecting the company’s values, employees far more appreciate a strong leader who has the strength to lower their guard and be vulnerable (not weak, nor fragile). Vulnerability and self-disclosure were amongst the attributes of leaders creating a culture of Psychological Safety and, ultimately High Performance, following Google’s Aristotle’s Project. That is, in business or political terms, what “a Leader who sins and asks for forgiveness” is all about!
A Leader who carries on
Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” would never exist, if it weren’t for the ordeals of Fall and Recovery. “The Fall & Recovery is part of the healing process” once explained a psychiatrist to me, when she saw me disappointed of the relapse of a drug addict youth I was taking care of. Campbell explains well that what makes us “carry on” (i.e. stand on our feet again after a defeat) is the strength of our Deep Intent (labelled bliss in his literature). A leader who carries on is able to “meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same” as Rudyard Kipling said in his celebrated poem “If…”. And she carries on because she is moved, supported, motivated by a powerful Deep Intent.
May we, on our Leadership Journey, be that leader “who doubts, who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on!”
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