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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Editor's 1-Minute Essay
Leadership & Decision-Making
return to "Leadership" main-page
Thoughts concerning Leadership and Decision-Making might fill a library, and so this writing will focus on one primary point for us to consider. Allow me to introduce it by way of a short proverb:
open a channel
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In the “Editor’s 1-Minute Essay, Surrender & Acceptance,” I drew upon a short phrase from Captain Picard on the bridge – “open a channel!” This pithy comment helped me to solidify the most important element of my message, that of maintaining an open spirit allowing Universal Intelligence to reach us.
"Open a channel" must be pressed into service again.
"Open a channel!"
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Also, to help us navigate through such a vast subject, I will suggest that you refer to closely-related topics on Word Gems:
Choice
Spirituality (three essays)
Authority
Certainty
Creativity
Intuition
The heights of creative human achievement, including leadership and decision-making, related to all fields of enquiry – the fine arts, science, religion, politics, business, sports – cannot be accessed by mortal strength alone.
The pinnacle of skill, whether that of dexterous hands or intellectual acumen, will not be invaded solely – I say, solely -- by working very hard, by diligence and study, by knowledge accumulation and experience, by willpower and grit. These have their place but fortitude alone will not take us to where we want to go.
Great creative conquest will not be ours by “thinking very hard,” trying to come up with something novel. It’s quite the opposite. The biggest breakthroughs for humanity occurred not from those who could think harder than others but by ones who had learned how to stop thinking.
“no-mind”
It’s called the area of “no-mind.” It’s not that thinking is unimportant. It has its place. But so much of what we call thinking is quite dysfunctional; just a repetition of “sad movies” of the past or day-dreams of success in the future. Much of this is laced with anger, despair, criticism, and other ego-repair mechanisms.
Thinking, study, knowledge acquisition, all have their place, but the sphere of human thinking is but one aspect of our intelligence; indeed, the minority interest. We find a higher intelligence for ourselves via the “true self” linked to Universal Intelligence, Universal Consciousness. And those who’ve learned how to slow down and mute the chattering “monkey mind” are the ones who’ve achieved greatest creative success.
Father Benson in his channeled books says the same. He reports that every significant work of painting , or music, or writing, or scientific achievement, any burst of wisdom in any field – we will include leadership and decision-making – is no “Lone Ranger” effort but a joint operation with attending Spirit Guides who seek to impart information.
“open a channel”
And this is why we need to learn how to “open a channel” to Universal Intelligence. If we try to do things solely on our own, that is, merely as an expression of the egoic mind, the product won’t be very good, it won’t be great, it will soon be forgotten as something banal and unimportant.
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Editor's note:
Lesson #47 of the Course In Miracles’ Workbook is entitled “God is the strength in which I trust.” It speaks quite directly to decision-making. Here is an excerpt:
If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?
Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak? God is your safety in every circumstance…
The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors, but it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence which you need, and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness that confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.
The Course then instructs us to spend a few minutes centering ourselves, going within, attempting
to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a sense of deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.
This is the essence of successful decision-making to sustain us today, when we cross over, and a million years from now.
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leadership as “opening a channel”
If someone says, “I’ve worked really hard to study everything in my field. I know a lot. I’m ready to lead others,” then, with this pronouncement, without something more, they disqualify themselves.
It’s not because all of that study wasn’t important. The information is good. But without the wisdom to apply it, it will all fall flat.
Here’s how it’s done in the afterlife, on the higher levels - read the account by Elizabeth Fry - however, essentially, this is how it works:
Nobody over there glories in being a leader. Nobody, with his or her head on straight, tries to lord it over others, or would even want to appear to be important. That’s just poison to the spiritually-minded. Everyone wants to be in harmony, one with another; everybody wants to promote unity and good-will.
And yet at times, when, for example, a service project is being planned and people come together to share their strengths, the service-group will have a leader.
How does this happen? Do they “run for office” and “campaign”? No, none of that barbarity goes on over there. Leaders rise to the fore in a very natural way.
Each member of the group, having examined his or her own self in terms of strengths and weaknesses, intuitively comes to see who should lead the project. To those who know how to “open a channel,” it’s no mystery, and it very quickly becomes obvious who needs to be directing things.
And the next time, depending on the nature of the project, it will likely be somebody else who will serve as “leader.” There’s no competition. No one even wants to think that way; but only, who is best fitted for the task at hand? And, granting all this, once inventories of innate talents have been taken, the larger issue always becomes – is the putative leader mature enough, wise enough, spiritual enough, to maintain an “open channel” to Universal Intelligence so that the best decisions, for all concerned, will be implemented?
the “open channel” is more important than knowledge
Again, we don’t want to minimize knowledge by any means, but knowledge per se can be gained rather quickly with advisors and expanded brain-power. The really hard part is, “Do you know your limits, are you spiritually advanced enough, have you put away pride and arrogance enough, to realize the necessity of accessing Universal Intelligence?”
And this is why Jesus said, “of my own self, I can do nothing.” This is the mental attitude - the central, most important posture - that every godly leader will adopt.
Editor’s note: The following was originally written for the “Creativity 1-Minute” page, but I include it here as it relates to the subject of leadership.
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creativity as the tawdry, the gaudy, the vulgar
Allow me to offer a few more words on the “Gordon Gekko” approach to art and creativity.
This merchandising and unrealistic view of creativity is promoted in many aspects of unenlightened human endeavor. Here’s one lipstick-on-a-pig example that’s rankled me for years, featured in this film:
Don’t get me wrong, I actually liked this movie as I’m a Trekkie from way back; also, I'm a Chris Pine fan and have featured him elsewhere; even so, I must protest to a certain tortured philosophy of leadership aptitude promoted here. It’s hard to stomach.
'whaaa-hoo' and ain't it great
A ten year-old James Tiberius Kirk has stolen the family’s antique Corvette and is now joy-riding at speeds approach 100 mph. In a whirlwind, he passes a footbound buddy and turns around to gloat. The intoxication building now, he not only ignores a hovercraft traffic cop, but barrels his way at breakneck velocity toward a dropoff cliff. But who is mindful of such trifles when one is a hero with nine lives?
In the midst of all this hubris and chaos, we find the lad, now thoroughly besotted with animal spirits, shouting “whaaa-hoo” at both high decible and regular interval, indicating that devil-may-care dangers are “fun.”
Some years later we find an older teen, James T., continuing his bacchanal lifestyle. He drinks a lot, he lives a nomadic lifestyle, he smirks, he’s a swashbuckling loud mouth, he laughs at his own jokes, he wants to fight six goons all at once because he’s such a tuff guy.
One day, however, Kirk is interrupted by a scout from Star Fleet Academy who knows talent when he sees it. He encourages young n'er-do-well to apply to the officers’ training corp because who could doubt that he’s “captain material” just waiting to be harvested. And during the years of study, Kirk, true to form, makes a reputation for himself of flouting authority and breaking the rules because that’s just how really creative people think and live, don’t you know.
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“Bravery without forethought causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull. Such an opponent, must not be encountered with brute force, but may be lured into an ambush and slain... Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance... If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him [causing him to reveal himself]... recklessness leads to destruction... show your dispositions and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat..."
Sun Tzu, The Art Of War
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All of this grandstanding is meant to not-so-subtly foreshadow the coming of a great starship captain. Why, it's so obvious to anyone that this boy is Pericles reborn, just about to hatch now.
script-writers who create characters like this have no idea what true leadership is or how high-grade creativity works
With scripts like this, we can hardly make it to the waste basket in time or to the editor's red marker.
Would you really want, in a military confrontation, to be led by a theatrical commanding officer who thinks that shouting “whaaa-hoo,” that “danger is fun,” become the marks of skillful leadership?
The truly great military strategists of history were thoughtful men, often quiet and pondering, agonizing over any material decision. Think of Spruance before the Battle of Midway, or Eisenhower approaching June 6, 1944, or Wellington that early morning in Belgium. Each of these theaters of war, the miscalculation concerning which, might plunge civilization into a new Dark Age. Imagine these commanders, if they were of the sort, to be singing and boasting and high-fiving. We might not be here today. So much for the air-head “whaaa-hoo” and the "fun."
formless, mysterious, soundless
The great philosopher-generals of history speak of primary preparation for battle in terms of cleansing one’s own spirit, of piercing introspection, of winnowing solitude. Consider these excerpts from Sun Tzu's "Art Of War", 500 BC:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”
“Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”
It is extremely interesting that Bruce Lee, probably the greatest martial artist in the last century, focused upon Sun Tzu’s instruction concerning making oneself “formless”:
"Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle... Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend... When the opponent expands, I contract, when he contracts, I expand, and when there is an opportunity, I do not hit, it hits all by itself... [Success is] not being tense, but ready... not being set, but flexible, liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come."
Authentic leadership, as with all forms of highest-grade creativity, center upon stilling the mind, accessing an inner wisdom, an elevated level of consciousness. This makes no sense to those who believe that getting ahead is "who you know," playing the Hollywood-high-school sensationalist, canvassing to be noticed, and shouting “whaaa-hoo.”
Actually, though, we’ve heard this all of our lives, haven’t we -- remember how they used to say, “It’s the thinkers, the ones who don’t say much, that you have to look out for.”
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