Video Transcript: Heroic Leadership

I want to talk to you now about a kind of leadership principles that come out of a  movement that did an amazing did amazing work, and I guess continue to do  so. But Chris Lowney, he was studying to be a Jesuit priest, and then he left that and went into business, and he worked for a major company. And as he worked  for that major company, he realized that there are principles in the Jesuit  understanding of leadership that really could and should be applied to the  business world today. And he calls it heroic leadership, and it's something that  greatly benefits and is necessary for us if we're going to be transformational  leaders. Again, just as a reminder, leadership is more than overseeing  transactions, leadership is visionary. Leaders embody values and ideals  important to groups. They help people transcend self interest and invest  themselves in the needs of others. And so transformational leaders have a big  picture focus. In this sense, leadership means to be the focus on the process of  leadership development, helping individuals maximize their abilities to influence  others. There are three dimensions of leadership that we have talked about  already. One has to do with servant leadership, another has to do with credible  leadership. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. There's nothing you see in me that you cannot become. Must be credible leadership. But now I want to focus on Heroic  leadership and heroic leadership. In heroic leadership. Chris Lowney points out  leadership principles that guided the Jesuits. He calls it a 450 year old company  that changed the world and they and they really did. They went places that other other believers would not go, and they made incredible inroads, particularly in  Eastern, Eastern countries, leadership principles. Here's one. We are all  leaders, and we lead all the time. Every person has often untapped leadership  potential. The Jesuit model rejects the one great man model of leadership for a  simple reason. Everyone has influence, and everyone projects influence good or bad, large or small, all the time. Think about this as you think about the youth  that you serve. Everyone has influence. Everyone. Projects influence good or  bad all the time. So the tendency among leadership gurus is to highlight those  whose leadership intersected with great moments of history. Say, like a Winston  Churchill World War II or Mandela during the apartheid in South Africa. Leaders  may rise During such times, but they do not wait for world changing defining  moment opportunities to come to them. Leaders seize all available opportunities to influence and make an impact. So leadership is defined not by the scale of  the opportunity, but by the quality of one's response. Think about that with the  youth that you serve, leadership is not defined by the scale of the opportunity, it  is defined by the quality of one's response. Here's another principle. Leadership  comes from within. A leader's most compelling asset is who he or she is, a  person anchored by core beliefs, values and purpose, and who therefore faces  the world with clarity. And vision. This vision is more than clever words fashioned into a mission statement. It is intensely personal, the hard won product of self  reflection. Who am I? What do I care about? What do I want and how do I fit into

the world when we move into our third section in building cathedrals, we'll be  looking at a process called master planning, and we're going to be talking about  purpose and core values. And that's not just putting words on a page. It has to  reflect what you really believe, what you see, what you want, what how you fit  into this world of urban youth. It's, it's a hard one statement. It's a hard one  belief, if you do that, that is going to it will become a compelling asset for you,  your work with youth will not just be a job, it will be a calling and an adventure.  Leadership is not an act, it's a life. This may jar some of your thinking, but think  about this. Conventional wisdom ties leadership to tasks, thinking of it as  something to be turned on or off, depending on the context. But leadership is not a task or a job. Leadership is real life. The early Jesuits talked about nuestro  modo de proceder, our way of proceeding, their actions flowed from a worldview and priority shared by all members of the Jesuit team. Leadership was their  compass for living. Leadership is real life, and that's what you bring to the youth  that you serve. Here's another one. Leadership Development is an ongoing  process of self development. The Steps to Becoming a leader. Message is so  prevalent today are misleading. Steps may enlighten, but they do not produce a  leader. No strong leaders are avid learners. Leaders, the leadership  development is a never ending work in progress, in need of continual maturing  and growth. So those are the principles. How do we move from principles to  competencies? What competencies do we need to have in order to be  transformational leaders? Well, the first one Lowney talks about is self  awareness. Leaders must order one's life. Leaders mold themselves and others  into leaders who understand personal strengths, weaknesses, values and world  view, ingenuity. Leaders mold themselves and others into leaders who  confidently innovate and adapt to embrace a changing world. We they called it  live with one foot, raised always ready to respond to emerging opportunities.  The third one is love. Leaders mold themselves into leaders who engage others  with a positive and loving attitude. They face the world with a confident, healthy  sense of themselves as endowed with talent, dignity and value. Leaders  passionately commit to honoring and Unlocking Potential found in themselves  and others, and then they create loving environments, bound and energized by  loyalty, affection and mutual support. And then the final one is heroism. Leaders  mold themselves into leaders who energize themselves and others from heroic  ambitions. They encourage one another to endeavor to conceive great resolves  and elicit equally great desires. Heroic leaders imagine an inspiring future and  strive to shape it rather than passively watching the future happen around them,  they elicit great desires by envisioning heroic objectives. In what ways is your  ministry heroic? In what ways are you endeavoring to conceive great resolves  and elicit equally great desires. What are you envisioning for when you look at  the Youth you serve? What do you see? Do you see rocks? Do you see  employment, or do you see cathedrals in the making. That is what God wants 

you to see. So the implications leadership is visionary. Leaders embody values  and ideals important to the groups. Helps people transcend self interest, invest  themselves in the needs of others and have a big picture focus. Youth leaders  

embrace principles that lead to transformation. Everyone leads. Leadership  comes from within. Leadership is not an act, but a life. Leadership Development  is an ongoing process of self development, and finally, youth leaders grow  competencies in self awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism. That's the  transformational leader, that is the person that is in sync with God's agenda,  becoming a transformational leader might be difficult for you if you have  functioned for a long time in a transactional mode, but I would encourage you  that that can change. You can change. Once you get these ideas of what  transformation is, how it works, and your role in God's transforming agenda,  then you can slowly begin to stop being conformed to the patterns that you have been taught with relate to related to leadership, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind. If you do that, you will prove what God's will is, and you  will prove you will begin to walk like Jesus and have the kind of influence on  young people that will bring about transformation.