Spiritually Intelligent Leadership
Came across this article a few months ago in Leader to Leader and have been kind of letting it simmer. Danah Zohar postulates 12 Principles of what she calls Spiritually Intelligent leadership. Here are six of them:

• Spontaneity: Living in and being responsive to the moment
• Being Vision- and Value-Led: Acting from principles and deep beliefs, and living accordingly
• Compassion: Having the quality of "feeling-with" and deep empathy
• Celebration of Diversity: Valuing other people for their differences, not
  despite them
• Tendency to Ask Fundamental "Why?" Questions: Needing to
  understand things and get to the bottom of them
• Sense of Vocation: Feeling
  called upon to serve, to give something back.

Zohar says this first about leadership:

I think that great leadership depends primarily on vision--not just any type of vision, but one that we can appreciate intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually…

One reason that visionary leadership is in short supply today is the value our society places on one particular kind of capital--material capital… But for leadership to inspire long-term, sustainable enterprises, it needs to pursue two other forms of capital as well: social and spiritual. Material capital is the top layer, social capital lies in the middle, and spiritual capital rests on the bottom, supporting all three.

When looking at the list of the principles it stands out that what is spiritual is being

• open and
• creative and
• flexible and
• seeing life as having meaning and purpose.
  

It struck me as I wrote that sentence that this does not often describe “religion.” Religion has often been

• status quo,
• traditional,
• seeking to conserve what was.
  

While it often seeks to give meaning to life, the fact that it becomes “ritualized” makes it less than what Zohar is talking about.

In other words, as many have been telling us for years, there is a big difference between being spiritual and being religious and that one does not necessarily lead to the other - in either direction.

I have a hunch that this is at the heart of some of the spiritual and religious movements we are seeing in the church and the society. Whether it be the “spiritual program” of the 12-Steps or the Emergent Church vision or the Missional Church service, they are trying to capture some of the essence, the basic, core principles of what is spiritual.

It will be interesting to continue to watch them evolve.