I am glad that I didn\u2019t just read the title or description for this book. I am glad that I didn\u2019t stop reading after the introduction section, or even the first chapter. Because my first impression of \u201cHeroic Leadership\u201d, a guide to \u201cbest practices\u201d for the business world based on the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) was not positive.<\/p>\n
Chris Lowney, the author, begins by recounting how, \u201cafter living for seven years as a Jesuit seminarian, practicing vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Jesuit general in Rome, I morphed into a corporate man\u2026 the following Monday brought a new career in investment banking.\u201d[1]<\/a> Talk about going from \u201csignificance to success\u201d, rather than the other way around!<\/p>\n The background and biography of Lowney led me to a skeptical approach as I read this book. I was waiting for him to reveal, how his whole Morgan Stanley Investment Banking career was really somehow part of a \u201cmarketplace ministry\u201d of some kind. Or, how, he used his position in that industry to lead corporate titans toward the God of grace and mercy. Or, how, after walking for years in the (expensive) shoes of an investment banker, he returned to his roots and gave it all away, or somehow leveraged it for a greater good. But this \u201cbig reveal\u201d moment never came.<\/p>\n Instead of a personal transformation story, Lowney demonstrates in his book, the values and characteristics of the Jesuits and how they relate to leadership across a variety of organizations and settings. One of the \u201cbig ideas\u201d in this book is about \u201cself-leadership\u201d, or self-knowledge and how all the rest of leadership can flow out of this starting point. He writes, \u201cA leader\u2019s most compelling leadership tool is who he or she is: a person who understands what he or she values and wants, who is anchored by certain principles, and who faces the world with a consistent outlook. Leadership behavior develops naturally once this internal foundation has been laid. If it hasn\u2019t been, mere technique can never compensate.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n The way that Jesuits achieve this \u201cself-leadership\u201d, or how they remain anchored in who they are with God and for others, is primarily through the Ignatian exercises, specifically the \u201cExamen\u201d. As Mark Thibodeaux writes in his recent book \u201cReimagining the Ignatian Examen\u201d, it was created to be, \u201ca very short (\u201cquarter of an hour\u201d) twice-daily prayer that can be prayed at any time that is most convenient.\u201d[3]<\/a> It includes \u201cthe three R\u2019s\u201d, Relish, Request, Review, Repent, and Resolve. Through this continual feedback loop of honest self-reflection and reliance on God, the Jesuit (and anyone who uses the Examen) can then move out into the day ready to live and serve fully.<\/p>\n In one anecdote about the use of the Examen, Lowney shares how Loyola once sharply rebuked some of his followers because they wanted to pray \u201ctoo much\u201d. His vision for ministry was for \u201cprayer on the run\u201d, coupled with deep engagement with the world. Jesuits, he said, \u201cshould be simul in actione contemplativus<\/em> (\u201ccontemplative even in action\u201d).[4]<\/a><\/p>\n In setting up the Jesuits, Loyola described a wide-open mission for his company. \u201cThe aim and end of this Society is, by travelling 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\u2026 to help souls.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n I loved reading the stories of the early Jesuits and the ways that they took their contemplation, prayer and faith, and journeyed with it, out into the wider world. Within a decade of starting out, there were Jesuits operating on 4 continents, they learned local languages, took on local cultures, and were on the look out for any opportunity for ministry. What a picture of what \u201cleadership with a global perspective\u201d is all about!<\/p>\n I found myself underlining passages from the book to share with key leaders in my own congregation. The lessons contained in this book overflow from these pages and right into our own time. Sections with titles like \u201cMaking it up as he went\u201d and \u201cembracing the world rather than retreating from it\u201d offer the kind of freedom to experiment and try new things that I seek for myself and my church.<\/p>\n The Jesuit modo de proceder<\/em>, or way of proceeding or \u201chow we do things\u201d is inspiring to read and challenging to try and live out. It includes, \u201cbe mobile, open to new ideas, blind to national borders, mutually supportive, and relentlessly disposed to continuous improvement.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n As I reflect on my own leadership and context, I wonder how well I have passed on those kinds of lessons to my own people, and even, how well I really live them out myself. After all, the \u201creal life Jesuits\u201d of the 16th<\/sup> century didn\u2019t have the luxuries that we enjoy today. In his novel \u201cSilence\u201d, Shusaku Endo explores the lives and ministries of Jesuits who attempt to share the gospel in 16th<\/sup> century Japan. The story has all the contours of the \u201cvalues\u201d of the Jesuits, they boldly cross seas and borders, they step into foreign cultures and learn languages. But in Endo\u2019s story, they face terrible persecution as a result.<\/p>\n In one passage, a group of Christians (including their Jesuit missionary leader) are called on to go through with an external show of renouncing their Christian faith. It isn\u2019t \u201creal\u201d they are told, but they must \u201ctrample\u201d on a picture of Jesus. \u201cIt\u2019s a tiring business; but the sooner you go through with it, the sooner you get out of here. I\u2019m not telling you to trample out of conviction. If you just go through with the formality, it won\u2019t hurt your beliefs.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n When the people in the story refuse, they are persecuted, tortured and even killed. \u00a0The kind of persecutions that Jesuits (and other missionaries) have faced is something that I have no real experience of. Reading Lowney\u2019s book was not only educational, but it was also exciting, it caused me to think of new ideas and dream new dreams, but all of this took place in the comfortable confines of my local Starbucks.<\/p>\n For today, I am an \u201carmchair leader\u201d, just reading, writing and thinking about these topics. But my prayer is that as I learn the lessons of leadership, that there will be more border-crossing, language learning, and cultural engagement ahead in my ministry and for my church. \u00a0And maybe someday, there will be for Chris Lowney as well.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Chris Lowney,\u00a0Heroic Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 1.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Chris Lowney,\u00a0Heroic Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 19.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ,\u00a0Reimagining the Ignition Examen<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2015), ix.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Chris Lowney,\u00a0Heroic Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 147.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Chris Lowney,\u00a0Heroic Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 144.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Chris Lowney,\u00a0Heroic Leadership<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 223.<\/p>\n