Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

From the President

Recently CHHSM President and CEO Bryan Sickbert wrote to the steering committee of the Faith Based Leadership Institute about his vision of leadership formation. This essay is derived from that memo:

Leadership formation is a process of continuously "calling out" a person's latent leadership gifts and potential. Rather than acquiring a specific skill set, leadership formation requires in-depth exploration of one's experience of self and others. It has something, but far short of everything, to do with the development emotional intelligence as described by author Daniel Goleman. To Goleman, there are four components of leadership knowledge—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skill—that a good leader needs in order to manage effectively.

The late author and poet John O'Donohue critiqued Goleman's emotional intelligence as a product of the "ideology of functionalism" that dominates postmodern society. In other words, emotional intelligence is a technique for getting things done. It manages human emotion and spirituality to serve an external utility. It is management, not leadership; competency, not formation.

O'Donohue rejected the functional notion of leadership as "getting things done." Instead, he posited that real leadership awakens and releases human presence and imagination. An organization, therefore, cannot be made merely functional without depleting the energy of human experience—the very energy that causes the organization to thrive.

In a world that values function over spontaneity, O'Donohue's brand of leadership is a frightful prescription for chaos and uncertainty. Faith-based leadership, however, turns functional leadership on its head, regarding uncertainty as a powerful product of our faith in God's gifts of human spirit and creativity.

In her book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for Turbulent Times, Margaret Wheatley suggests five questions that contemporary leaders can embody and embrace O'Donohue's vision of real leadership:

  1. How do I plan when I don't know what will happen next?
  2. How do I maintain my values when worldly temptations abound?
  3. Do I have a purpose to my life?
  4. Where can I find meaning in my life?
  5. Where can I find the courage and faith to stay the course?

The life-long search for answers to these and other similar questions is the path of leadership formation.

Bryan W. Sickbert
President/CEO

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