Overview

 

Voluntary Spiritual Leadership

The Gospel must be enculturated. My culture is primarily that of the social sciences rather than of the humanities, philosophy and theology. Hence my preference for *spiritual leadership* rather than alternative vocabularies such as ministry, discipleship, or apostolate.

1. Leadership for social psychologists means person A influencing person B in ways that person A desires. It is not the same as management which deals with coercive power. Leadership and followership (discipleship) are two sides to the same coin. In the two person situation, person A can only be a leader if person B decides to follow. We are all both leaders and followers. Leadership is very situational, it should not be thought of as a personality trait.

2. Servant leadership is our awareness that we are always both leaders and followers, we discern when we should step out and lead, and when we should (or should not) follow.

3. Capital is accumulated labor. The most important ways we accumulate labor are not as physical capital (things), or financial capital (money, stocks, etc.) but as human capital (skills, and talents) social capital (institutions and social networks) and cultural capital (language, ideas, beliefs, values).

4. In the Catholic tradition we accumulate labor not only as persons by also as communities of persons, i.e. the Common Good. The elegance of the concept of capital (i.e. accumulated labor) is that it describes both persons and organizations.   Each of us as persons can be described well by our human capital (talents and skills), our social capital (our institutions and social networks), and our culture capital (disciplines, professions, nationality, religion). Like Catholicism, the United States, our city, our parish can be described by their human capital, social capital, and cultural capital. A great benefit of the discipline of social psychology is to see the personal and the organizational as two sides to the same coin.

5. Spiritual capital is the asset of a relationship to the transcendent. In the Western tradition, we accumulate spiritual capital by the pursuit of the One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

6. Time is the greatest resource; we are all equal in that we have 24 hours in a day. Do we waste time or do we accumulate it? Do we accumulate our labor as physical possessions, money, or talents and skills, social networks, and cultural products? Do we accumulate our labor for ourselves only or for others? “Giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces. Time governs spaces, illumines them and makes them links in a constantly expanding chain, with no possibility of return’ is a beautiful description of spiritual leadership by Francis in the JOY OF THE GOSPEL.

7. Spirituality (the personal pursuit of the transcendent) and Voluntarism (forming free associations) are the twin foundations of American spirituality.

8. Elitism: clericalism is only one form. Elitism due to credentialing is very pervasive. As one academic colleague once said “every time I see a doctor when I have a baby I lose 100 points from my IQ).  Spiritual worldliness (pursuit of status, money and power for spiritual motives) and spiritual pride (turning divine gifts into OUR accomplishments) are pervasive.