{"id":29723,"date":"2022-12-01T13:10:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T21:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29723"},"modified":"2022-12-01T13:10:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T21:10:14","slug":"living-with-courage-and-wisdom-when-it-counts-the-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/living-with-courage-and-wisdom-when-it-counts-the-most\/","title":{"rendered":"Living with Courage and Wisdom When it Counts the Most"},"content":{"rendered":"

James O\u2019Toole is a well-known professor and long-time thought leader in the world of leadership and ethics. His background in social anthropology has prepared him well to interpret social, political, and economic change to both business and elected leaders. He has also consulted with and\/or coached numerous organizational leaders and their teams through times of discontinuous change. In his 2015 white paper, \u201cSpeaking Truth to Power,\u201d[1]<\/a> O\u2019Toole references ethics lessons and insights from the ancient Greeks and relates them to contemporary ethics challenges\u2014in particular, the different dimensions of speaking truth to those who hold positions of power.<\/p>\n

He especially lands on this key insight from Aristotle, writing, \u201c[Aristotle] goes on to say there are times when anger is called for and appropriate. In fact, if one does not become angry over a grave injustice, he says one cannot be considered virtuous. The secret is in knowing when to be angry and then how to direct it usefully. The virtuous person, he says, becomes angry at the right time, over the right issue, and to the right degree.\u201d[2]<\/a> He continues, drawing contemporary insight from MIT social scientist Albert O. Hirschman who wrote in the early 1970s, \u201c\u2026that employees who disagree with company policy have only three options: \u2018exit, voice, and loyalty.\u2019 That is, they can 1) offer a principled resignation, 2) try to change the policy (speak truth to power), or 3) remain loyal \u2018team players.\u2019\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier in his white paper O\u2019Toole shares why most employees get pushed to the point of considering one of these three options. It often boils down to leaders being \u201c\u2026unwilling to test their operating premises about such (often taboo) subjects as (1) the nature of the working conditions they offer employees, (2) the purposes of their corporation, and (3) its responsibilities to various stakeholders.\u201d[4]<\/a> All too often, when someone dares to press the leadership of an organization on their operating premises, that same leadership either perceives the employee as being disloyal or dismisses the employee as an angry malcontent.[5]<\/a> The antidote that O\u2019Toole prescribes to leaders so that they can respond in a more differentiated manner to uncomfortable feedback from employees is to cultivate \u201c\u2026the \u2018feminine\u2019 virtues of humility, inclusion, vulnerability, service to others, and respect for people.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

For those who are seeking to speak truth to power, O\u2019Toole commends these points of reflection and discernment based on the work of Stephen Carter:<\/p>\n

\u201c1. It has to be truthful<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It must do no harm to innocents<\/li>\n
  2. It must not be self-interested (the benefits must go to others, or to the organization)<\/li>\n
  3. It must be the product of moral reflection<\/li>\n
  4. The messenger must be willing to pay the price<\/li>\n
  5. It must not be done out of spite or anger.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It is a tall order to live such a life of courage, wisdom, and integrity when weighing all the above factors, especially when one is under duress and experiencing the soul-killing pain of organizational toxicity. My husband and I have wrestled through these dynamics multiple times over the years of serving in all too human institutions. We have tried to learn from each one and sought to more wisely speak truth to power the next time around. We have experienced the accusations of disloyalty or being malcontents. We are in the midst of discerning a courageous, wise, and integrous path forward right now with our current organization. We have, so far, sought to offer constructive feedback, continue with our work while sitting in the tension of an organization that is in process, and contribute to our organization\u2019s change process when we are given the opportunities to do so. Thus far, we have not been pushed out. And there are ways we are seeing some positive changes in how staff are being treated and in how our organization is sorting through its values and resultant priorities and strategies. In the meantime, we continue to also prepare for a new season of ministry, trusting God\u2019s timing for this and stretching ourselves in this journey with our current organization\u2014taking responsibility for how we each show up in difficult conversations, working on our differentiation, and praying for the needed courage, wisdom, and integrity. I have written this using \u2018we\u2019 because it is a shared discernment journey as husband and wife. At the same time, we each have our own individual internal leadership-of-self work to do. I am grateful for the framework and space this program has given to me for my work. My husband has received a similar gift in the residency he is doing this year. So, onward in the journey of speaking truth to power and truth to ourselves.<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> O\u2019Toole, James. 2015. \u201cSpeaking Truth to Power: A White Paper – Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.\u201d October 15, 2015. https:\/\/www.scu.edu\/ethics\/focus-areas\/business-ethics\/resources\/speaking-truth-to-power-a-white-paper\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Ibid, 12.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Ibid., 3-4.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Ibid., 11.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Ibid., 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    James O\u2019Toole is a well-known professor and long-time thought leader in the world of leadership and ethics. His background in social anthropology has prepared him well to interpret social, political, and economic change to both business and elected leaders. He has also consulted with and\/or coached numerous organizational leaders and their teams through times of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2469,2474,2032,2459],"class_list":["post-29723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-james-otoole","tag-leadership-of-self","tag-self-differentiation","tag-speaking-truth-to-power","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29724,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29723\/revisions\/29724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}