Hindu Dharmic Leadership

At Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025, Ed Anobah spoke on dharma (right-acting) leadership as a means of making progress in solving societal problems using Hinduism’s spiritual tradition of bhukti (devotionalism).  Anobah based his talk on the book, Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness by D. T. Swami. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says that what great people do, other people follow. What constitutes healthy, impactful leadership? The ideal leader in Hinduism is also a great sage, like Plato’s notion of a philosopher king. Leadership that deals wholistically with the human condition by exemplifies the character of a leader, which does not mean that only highly educated persons can or should be leaders. Rather, “everyone is a leader,” potentially, and “we are all leading our own life.” Each of us is a leader potentially for other people on the interpersonal level. Each of us can inspire other people. Anobah claimed that certain universal principles of leadership can apply across the board. I submit that this view is vulnerable to being too utopian when it is applied in the business world. Being realistic as to possible practical difficulties and even limitations in applying dharmic leadership in business (and government) is advisable. Even there being different metaphysical assumptions can get in the way, practically speaking, as compassionate leadership runs up against the profit-motive in business. 

The full essay is at "Hindu Dharmic Leadership." 

Self-Delusion Enabled by Religion: Former U.S. House Minority Leader Tom Delay and Monopolist John D. Rockefeller

It is hardly news that religion, even one based on divine love reaching down to “love thy neighbor,” can be stretched or simply ignored as needed by the desires for power and money. When these two are both engaged, religious rationales may be attempted nonetheless. I have in mind here the cases of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and the monopolist John D. Rockefeller. Just in evoking their Christian faith to justify their sordid conduct in politics and business, respectively, these two men may be seen as astounding cases of the length to which adherents can go in using religion even in spite of obvious hypocrisy.

On January 10, 2011, Tom DeLay was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He had used a political action committee to illegally send corporate donations to Texas House candidates in 2002. Prosecutors claimed the money had helped Republicans take control of the Texas House. That in turn enabled the Republican majority to push through a Delay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004, strengthening DeLay's political power. In the face of this charge, DeLay simply repeated his longstanding claim that he did nothing wrong. "I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did," DeLay said in a 10-minute speech to the judge.[i] This statement is not unlike those of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the monopoly Standard Oil, which was accused in the late nineteenth century of restraint of trade. For his part, Rockefeller saw himself as a Noah or Christ figure in that he was trying to save struggling refiners from ruin by buying them up.

Ida Tarbell, Rockefeller's chief critic, believed the titan was under a sort of self-delusion. For example, Tarbell, whose father was an oil producer who resisted Rockefeller's grasp, pointed out that the titan's "Christ-like" efforts to "save" drowning refiners included ironically drowning those who refused to come aboard Standard Oil. Did Noah kill any animals who refused to come on the ark? Did Christ drown any people who refused to be saved? Clearly not. Rockefeller's application of religion to his monopolization is thus suspect in terms of his actions. It is possible that Delay suffered from a similar rationalization or state of denial.

Just as Rockefeller, who attended Church more than once a week through his 90s insisted that things are right between him and his God, DeLay pointed to his faith in Jesus as, in effect, rendering the verdict nugatory in terms of what really mattered. To be sure, DeLay probably did view himself as innocent of criminal conduct. "This criminalization of politics is very dangerous" he charged, "It's dangerous to our system. Just because somebody disagrees with you they got to put you in jail, bankrupt you, destroy your family."[2]  Antithetically, Gary Cobb, the lead prosecutor, averred that DeLay had "put his principles, ideals and beliefs above the laws of Texas." Particularly when one's religious beliefs are invoked along with a criminal defense (i.e., that it was politics that was being criminalized), one should be on guard against the possibility of self-delusion. 

Both Rockefeller and DeLay had immense power, and their respective views of non-culpability bore on their use of power. The ends justifying the means rationale allows for a slippery slope, which in turn can enable delusion with regard to culpability. Of course, in DeLay's case, an investigator could have simply looked at the money exchanges and compare them to the law. According to The New York Times, "a jury determined that he conspired with two associates to use his Texas-based political action committee to send $190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns."[3] Yet as clear as this sounds, it is surprising how divergent DeLay and Cobb were with respect to their respective interpretations. If we take the verdict as correct, we might find it troubling that DeLay not only denied any culpability after the verdict, but also went on to invoke his salubrious condition in virtue of his religious faith. Such an invocation can easily turn into a justification, with the result being that great wrongs, such as the Crusades, can be done in the name of a religion of love. Followers of Jesus, who says not to lift a sword, have done just that in droves through history. DeLay invoked his religious faith and yet acted like one of the money-changers in the Temple. Rockefeller drowned struggling rivals who refused to be bought by Standard Oil, the great “combination” that Rockefeller himself designed as an alternative to destructive competition. Clearly, religion can be manipulated or ignored by even its adherents. Yet it is also possible that religion itself, being pliable on account of the presence of interpretation, support or enable its role in hypocrisy.

For more on John D. Rockefeller's use (or exploitation?) of religion, see God's Gold, available at Amazon. 

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1. James C. McKinley, “DeLay Sentenced to 3 Years in Conspiracy and Money-Laundering Case,” The New York Times, January 10, 2011.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Business and Religion: Financial Ethics Found Lacking in the Vatican's Institute of Religious Works

In probing corruption leads in the Vatican Bank, Italian financial police stumbled onto a plot in July 2012 to smuggle €20 million into Italy. The alleged culprits included a monsignor, a financial broker, and a former member of Italy’s secret service. For his part, the cleric was said to have had people pretend to give him donations of €560,000 so he could furtively pay the financial broker for his role. Crime, Italian politics, and the Vatican Bank: hardly a novel discordant tune even then. That not just any bank, but that of a church, could stray so far from what would reasonably be expected from a bank whose formal name is the Institute of Religious Works still boggles the mind. 
The intersection of ethics, religion and business is fraught with complexity.  A religious verdict from ethical premises is possible nevertheless. Generally speaking, religion does not boil down to ethics. John D. Rockefeller was unethical in restraining trade when he ran Standard Oil. Yet pressing the railroads for excessive rebates and drawbacks (compensation from the railroads serving other customers) does not de-legitimate the titan’s claim to have been a Christ-figure in saving “drowning” competitors. Theological inconsistency, rather than unethical conduct, would be needed to expunge Rockefeller’s industrial-religious identity. Such inconsistency can be found in Rockefeller having forced competitors unwilling to be bought out into bankruptcy; Jesus did not inflict harm on people who refused to follow him. Human ethical systems cannot limit God, which is omnipotent.
Divine-sourced ethical principles, such as those in the Ten Commandments, are regarded as religious in nature, rather than merely soured in a human ethical system. Accordingly, were Rockefeller to have broken one of the Ten Commandments in running Standard Oil, his commercial-religious identity could be assailed. In the case of Msgr. Scarano at the Vatican Bank, his clerical, not to mention Christian, identities are vulnerable to the allegations that he bore false witness and stole money from the Vatican. That Kant concluded from his ethical system that lying can never be ethical is irrelevant. However, that Kant’s categorical imperative can be re-stated as, Treat other rational beings not just as means, but also as ends in themselves, suggests that Kant’s theory can be understood as the Golden Rule, which is binding in religious terms. Hume’s theory that determining something as unethical “just is” the psychological sentiment of disapproval finds no such corresponding theological ethic and is thus invalid in assessing the commercial-religious identities of either Rockefeller or Scarano.
As with Rockefeller, the case of Scarano begs the question, how can a person so religiously inclined so delude oneself in such matters?  If driving a car well were important to me, I would be double sure that my driving is as flawless as possible. I would ask friends to ride along or follow me from behind to assess my driving. Were one of them to tell me that my passing skills leave much to be desired, I would work on them—maybe even take a driving lesson. Of course, no one can be a perfect driver. So too, Scarano cannot be sin-free. Even so, were I to be a really bad driver and yet represent myself as highly skilled, people would naturally wonder about my state of mind. At the very least, the sustained cognitive dissidence (i.e., allowing for or ignoring hypocrisy in one’s conduct) likely in Scarano’s mind raises the question of the clerical screening process for mental health.
Moreover, that the Institute for Religious Works has been embroiled in charges of corruption time and again suggests that cognitive dissidence has come to characterize the Vatican’s culture. Considering the questionable prioritizing of avoiding a scandal over defrocking and turning in rapist priests, a pattern of cognitive dissidence can be suspected. The question is perhaps what religious works would look like. From this answer, the question would pertain to how finance could be put into service without undercutting the religious nature of the works.
In conclusion, ethical conduct, religion and finance are a tricky business not easily disentangled. A preliminary point can nevertheless be made with some certainty. Specifically, unethical conduct does not necessarily invalidate a religious identity in a person’s commercial or financial role. The ethical principle would have to be part of a divine decree, such as in the Decalogue, to contradict the assumed commercial religiousity.  A human-constructed ethical theory or principle cannot by definition limit God’s omnipotence (i.e., all-powerful), whereas God’s making of a moral divine decree cannot contradict God’s nature, or essence. Both Rockefeller and Scarano can be found culpable in religious-ethical terms bearing on Christianity even though it is possible to be both unethical and religious without contradiction.

Source: Gilles Castonguay and Liam Moloney, "Vatican Bank Probe Leads to Three Arrests," The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2013

For more on Rockefeller's application of Christianity to his monopoly, as well as more generally the history of Christian thought on business, see my book, God's Gold, available at Amazon.

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Ethical Leadership in the Roman Catholic Church: The Case of the Chilean Abuse Scandal

Leaders taking an ethical stance, even en masse, may find themselves risking their very positions, including the associated perks. In May, 2018, “all Chile’s 34 [Roman Catholic] bishops offered to resign en masse . . . after attending a crisis meeting with [Pope Francis] over allegations of a cover-up of sexual abuse” in the South American state.[1] The pope could have accepted all of those resignations. Instead, he accepted the resignations of three Chilean bishops, including Juan Barros of Osorno, Cristian Cordero, and Gonzalo Garcia, a month later. The ethical leadership, I submit, was not evinced in the pope’s decision to get rid of the three sordid clerics, but, rather, in the other bishops who had been willing to take a stand even at great personal loss. Indeed, the pope admitted he had made “grave mistakes” in the Chilean sexual abuse scandal. Had he been guilty of protecting his friends?

Cicero’s natural variant of friendship, or amicitia, places family and friends closest, whereas Jesus’s notion of neighbor love places an emphasis on the misfits, weak, and vulnerable. Taking a stand on behalf of unknown kids, for instance, above close friends, especially if in risk to one’s own interests, evinces the sort of benevolence “with a cross” preached by Jesus. Christian ethical leadership involves taking a stance that is neither convenient nor easy, whereas love of friends and family—of people who are dear to us—is of less ethical value in such leadership.

Even in a Christian organization, Christian leadership may not be evinced at the highest level, even in a position that is principally that of leadership. The Chilean bishops upended the pope, who was left with admitted that he had made grave mistakes even as he was insisting that his Church would not tolerate clergy molesting children. Stark action, such as en masse resignations, may be needed when an organization’s culture, even if only principally in certain countries, is itself part of the problem. Inertia, in other words, can be very difficult to move, even when it is squalid in an organization with a Christian mission. In such a case, ethical leadership must almost inevitably involve taking painful stands at possible great cost to oneself.

See: Christianized Ethical Leadership, available at Amazon

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[1] Reuters, “Pope Francis Accepts Resignation of 3 Chilean Bishops Following Sex Abuse Scandals,” The Huffington Post, June 11, 2018.

A Megachurch Pastor and Sexual Assault: A Compromised Christian Leader

“A Memphis megachurch pastor received standing ovation during a church service on Sunday after he admitted that he had engaged in a ‘sexual incident’ with a high school student 20 years ago in Texas.”[1] That the woman had made the man’s prior misdeeds public just days before throws into doubt whether the pastor deserved the ovation by his loyal flock. Prompted by the firing of Matt Lauer, the anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, the woman emailed the pastor more than a month before his public acknowledgement at his church; he had not responded to the woman’s email to apologize. Letting his flock in on the secret hardly added much value to the man’s character, for damage-control is not laudatory. The standing ovation connoted not only praise on the man and a revalidation of the pastor’s continuance as a religious leader. That a Christian leader could be validated as such, rather than invalidated and thus shown the door, throws into question the integrity of religious leadership itself.

What is distinctive about specifically religious leadership? Moses is a distinctively religious leader because in the story of Exodus he follows divine decrees in leading his people out of Egypt and handing over ten basic laws. That five of them are moral in nature means that moral infractions can legitimately count against religious leadership in the Abrahamic religions. Yet the Book of Job tells us that God is not bound by what we take as ethical; omnipotence cannot be limited by anything, including moral commandments applicable to us mere mortals. As Kierkegaard’s analysis of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling suggests, religiosity can seem absurd from the lower perspective of morality. Following the divine decree to sacrifice Isaac is not murder in religious terms, yet the act would be highly unethical as murder in terms of ethics and public legal justice.

Morality and theology are clearly distinct, yet at the same time related. This is why assessing the impact on the ethically-sordid pastor’s religious leadership is so difficult. In Christian terms, morality is salient in the preaching of Jesus. Yet love as agape (i.e., divine self-emptying) and even as caritas (i.e., human love directed to loving God) do not reduce to morality. In directing the girl to perform oral sex on him and touching her naked breasts twenty years before his acknowledgement, the then youth minister had not only acted immorally, but also violated the sort of love that Jesus exemplifies and preaches in the Gospels. That sort of love, being theological in nature, cannot reduce to moral or even emotional love; religious love as depicted by Jesus is God itself, as Augustine and Calvin emphasize in their respective writings. What is theological love as distinct from moral and emotional love? The self-emptying aspect of agape love provides an opening, yet not even the metaphysics of divinity voluntarily self-emptying of itself reaches the distinctly theological.

To decide whether the pastor’s religious leadership was compromised or outright deflated, the nature of theological love must first be known—in this case, as depicted and taught by Jesus. That the youth minister had not followed the Golden Rule is a good indication that in acting selfishly at the expense of the high school student, he had violated a divine decree on love, or God itself. Furthermore, in refusing to atone, the man had for twenty years (or more) kept himself reconciled with the woman and thus with God, and thus he remained at a distance from God. That the public acknowledgement was predicated on the woman making the incident public suggests that the pastor remained unreconciled in his heart, and thus with God. The standing ovation, giving the pastor a pass, thus suggests that a religious congregation can be misguided regarding not only morality, but also the very nature of religious leadership itself.

For more, see Spiritual Leadership and Christianized Leadership.

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[1] Matthew Haag, “Megachurch Pastor Admits to Illicit ‘Sexual Incident’,” The New York Times, January 10, 2018.

The Essence of Leadership

In The Essence of Leadership, leadership itself is reformulated in such a way that what emerges—the essence of leadership—is distinct from related phenomena, including management, presiding, and mentoring. This is not to say, however, that leadership bears no relation to strategy—hence the complex concept of strategic leadership, which is not without risks. Leadership itself contains risks, which a focus on the essence of leadership, rather than, for instance, taking leadership as simply about having influence, can arguably minimize. Such risks include the cult of the leader, to which charisma and attributions of heroism are especially susceptible, and the distorting impact of ideology, such as in Burns’ version of transformational leadership. Shaking out the risks and distinguishing leadership as a unique phenomenon are ways of pointing back to the essence of leadership, which applies in virtually any culture. That is, the essence is cross-cultural. Taking comparative religion as a stand-in for cultures, I demonstrate that the essence of leadership can be informed by Taoist, Buddhist, and Judeo-Christian principles.

Source: The Essence of Leadership

Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical

The spiritual business leader who searches for personal and profes-sional integration is the chief beneficiary of this booklet, which can also be taken for a way to promulgate meagerly a new theory on the phenomenon of religion that stresses its uniqueness and distinctiveness. I begin with spirituality in order to find cleave distinctive nature off any reduction to ethics. In distinguishing spirituality from ethics, I look at religious experience of transcendence as a more suitable basis for spirituality. Next I’ll look at the business literature on spiritual leadership—scholarship that conflates such leadership with ethical leadership. I extract residue from that extant literature that can serve as a launching pad for an account of spiritual leadership that is grounded in transcendent religious experience.

The book: Spiritual Leadership in Business

Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical

In this essay, I provide a synopsis of my booklet on spiritual leadership in business. In the text, I suggest that while it may convenient in the business world to conceptualize spiritual leadership as being essentially ethical in nature, this convenient tactic does not do justice to the distinctly religious basis and connotations of spirituality. By religion, I do not mean only theism, or even just organized religion (i.e., religious organizations); rather, I have in mind religious experience—whether through prayer, meditation, worship, or another means that is oriented to yearning beyond the limits of cognition, sentiment, and perception—as if an inherently limited human brain were nonetheless “hard-wired” for beyondness itself whether or not a transcendent religious object (e.g., a deity) exists. Rather than expunging spiritual from its native terrain and reconfiguring it to fit within a secular context as ethics, we can relate the religious sense of spirituality to the secular world of business with due deference to their respective natures rather than muddling them into something murky.[1]

The full essay is at "Spiritual Leadership in Business."

The booklet, Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.

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1. By analogy, the notion that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine—a theory coined at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E.—involves taking the human as human and the divine as divine rather than reconfiguring one term to suit the other. Just as one essence, or ousia, has a human element and a divine element, spiritual leadership can be reckoned as having a religious and a secular element. One essence can contain a notion of spirituality that is religious in nature and a theory of leadership that is been derived in a secular context. 

Biblical Positive-Thinking Applied to Leadership

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”[1] This biblical verse captures the extraordinary optimism of Norman Vincent Peale. Belief, expectation, and faith—his pillars of the Christian religion—are internals that can move mountains and thus get results. This biblically-based recipe for positive thinking can be applied to leadership, which, after all, is results-oriented. Its desired objective is of course the realization of a vision. Simply put, if religion can be used to do better in a job as Peale insists,[2] this holds for the task of leading other people, which consists of formulating and selling a vision.

The essay is at "Biblical Positive-Thinking." A fuller version is a chapter of Christianized Ethical Leadership. 

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1. Phil. 4:13. Cited from Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (New York: Touchstone, 2015), p. 3.

2. Norman Peale, Power of Positive Thinking, p. 48

Faith Leadership Over Ethical Leadership

Leadership under religious auspices can be distinguished from ethical leadership. The shift from ethical to religious principles is more involved than merely swapping one kind for another. The dynamics pertaining to faith are distinct. Kierkegaard makes this point very well in his text, Fear and Trembling. In short, an individual of faith must go it alone when the paradox of faith violates ethical principles.

The full essay is at “Faith Leadership and Ethical Leadership”

Pope Francis Goes on the Offensive against Conservatives: Credible Christian Leadership?

Credibility is absolutely essential to viable leadership, whether in religion, politics, or business. A leader who undercuts one of his or her promises effectively expunges it of any worth and is essentially a “lame-duck” leader thereafter unless he or she puts difficult effort into becoming worthy of being trusted again. It does not take long for followers to get the message if one of them who relied on the promise is punished for doing so. Chairman Mao is infamous for having made such a promise in the Hundred Flowers movement. Unfortunately, he killed many Chinese who relied on Mao’s word. A similar dynamic, though much less extreme, occurred just after a synod in 2014 called by Pope Francis, who in this respect can be likened to Mao. Fortunately for the Catholic pope, his own religion offers him a way out.

In the Hundred Flowers Campaign, which began in May 1956 under Mao Zedong, the Chinese government permitted, and even encouraged, intellectuals greater freedom of thought and speech. Mao used a famous line from Chinese classical history as the campaign’s slogan. “Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend.”[1] It was not long, however, until Mao came down harshly against those intellectuals who had used their new freedom to criticize the Communist Party. Had another opening been made and free discourse encouraged, doubtless few intellectuals would have been critical of the party under Mao.

Similarly, Pope Francis presided over a synod of bishops on whether the Roman Catholic Church should relax its stances on divorced and gay Catholics. Debate at the 2014 meetings was indeed open, with both liberal and conservative bishops making their arguments. The pope came out in favor of allowing divorced and remarried church members to receive Communion and of welcoming gay Catholics back. Among the more vocal conservative bishops was Cardinal Raymond Burke. He was instrumental in watering down the synod’s concluding summary statement. Before the synod, the pope had removed him from a position that had given him substantial influence in appointing new American bishops. In the wake of the synod, the pope removed Burke from being the head of the Vatican’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; the Cardinal found himself appointed instead to the ceremonial position of chaplain for the Knights of Malta, a charity group.[2]

The problem with the demotion is that the pope had called another synod for 2015 in which the bishops will make final recommendations on the same topics. Any conservative bishop wanting to climb the Vatican hierarchy would of course remember Burke’s fate and either adopt the Pope’s reforms or remain silent at the second synod. In other words, Francis undercut his own claim that the bishops should feel free to express whatever view they have rather than be sycophantic.

In Kantian terms, the demotion makes the pope’s maxim of tolerance self-contradictory, and thus the demotion is unethical. To be sure, religion does not reduce to ethics, and the history of religion is replete with gravely unethical acts. Theologically, both the pope and Burke could truly reform their Church by applying benevolentia universalis (universal benevolence, or neighbor-love) to the other. Pray for those who persecute you. Do not do anything that would cause your brother or sister to stumble. Practice agape, which is self-emptying love. Presumably a person’s ideology is among the first things to be poured out. Viewing the matter of Church reform as a distant second to the spiritual value of aiding those persons who attempt to prevent your ideology from becoming actualized is, I submit, more important than whether a religious is a reformer or a conserver.

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1. Enclyclopedia Britannica, Hundred Flowers Campaign." (Accessed November 8, 2014).
2. Jim Yardley, "Pope Demotes U.S. Cardinal Critical of his Reform Agenda," The New York Times, November 8, 2014.

Shepherd Leadership: Protective Caring Beyond Profit

Unlike the word servant, which has been so much applied to business leadership, shepherd is used in the New Testament exclusively in reference to leaders.[1]  Jesus is described as both “the great shepherd” and “the good shepherd.”[2] This is not to say that the analogy applied only to Jesus himself. After his resurrection, for example, Jesus tells Peter to do the work of a shepherd.[3] Peter in turn urges church elders to be shepherds of God’s flock.[4] So too does Paul at Ephesus.[5] Can a Christian CEO apply the attributes of being a shepherd to leading a business organization? I contend that such a fit can indeed be made.

The complete essay is at “Shepherd Leadership.”

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[1] Richard Higginson, Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Management (SPEK: London, 1996), p. 48.

[2] Hebrews 13:20; John 10:11.

[3] John 21:15-19.

[4] 1 Peter 5:2.

[5] Acts 20:28; See Higginson, Transforming Leadership, p. 48.

Servant Leadership Christianized

Although servanthood is a very important biblical concept for leadership, according to Richard Higginson, the role of servant “is not reserved only for those who are leaders. Christians in general are “servants of God” and are expected to serve other people.”[1] Moreover, to be ethical in a servant style is not distinctly Christian; leaders who are not Christian can nonetheless operate as servants. The term servant does not in itself have a religious connotation. Yet under theological auspices, a distinctly theological sense of servant leadership can be understood and practiced. I contend that such servant leadership is something more than the notion that has been popularized.

The complete essay is at “Servant Leadership Christianized”

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[1] Richard Higginson, Transforming Leadership: A Christian Approach to Management (SPEK: London, 1996), p. 48.

Religion in Ethical Leadership in the Secular Context of Business

In Peter Berger's terms, the sacred and the profane are like oil and water. In Augustine's terms, the heavenly and earthly kingdoms are two distinct realms, a Christian being only a pilgrim passing through the latter, hence not to be "of it" while in it. I contend that such "white and black" dichotomies are artificial, and thus ill-fitting as paradigms in which to situate religion and ethical business leadership. Perhaps a devoutly religious CEO can unabashedly apply ethical elements of his or her religion without severing them from their theological underpinnings, and therefore without the need for subterfuge. I suspect that the legions of the CEO's subordinates would feel more, rather than less, respected. 

I bristle at the notion that Servant Leadership is distinctly or uniquely Christian. Gandhi, for example, intentionally borrowed from Jesus's teachings as well as Jain ethics to forge active non-violent protest. A leader of a business can genuinely be a servant, internally as well as in his or her conduct, without connecting the ethics to the distinctly Christian theological concept of agape--self-emptying love even unto the Cross. By the way, John D. Rockefeller viewed himself as a Christ figure in saving refiners from the destructive competition that had so ravaged the industry in the 1860s and early 1870s. He also likened himself to Noah--his Standard Oil being like an ark. Yet neither Noah nor Jesus killed the people (or animals) unwilling to be saved. "Save me from the followers of the Redeemer!" Nietzsche exclaims.

Interestingly, employees of a business leader who feels deeply the call of his or her faith on Monday rather than merely on Sunday may actually urge the CEO to apply his faith at full-throttle, rather than selectively as Rockefeller did. As distinctively Christian (meaning shaped by distinct theological concepts), though still respecting the otherness of the others rather than trying to convert them, Christian ethics at the helm need not be a threat, whether implicitly or in practice. A well-grounded, distinctive ethics can actually protect rather than threaten secular followers. In other words, I don't think Greenleaf's wan notion of servant leadership goes far enough because the secular exterior is in want of its native theological content. Ironically, the restoration of a vertical alignment would render the ethics stronger, and thus more rather than less in the interest of followers and even exterior stakeholder groups. 

Perhaps the optimal recipe consists of integration not only of word and deed and of interior and exterior, but also of ethics and the undergirding theology (which gives the ethical edifice a more refined shape). Pitfalls do indeed exist; but with respect for both the religious and secular integrities of followers, tension can be obviated. "Be whom you are," similar to the Buddhist preachment of being in the moment, is inherently respect-gathering, I submit, as long as the personal space of others is respected unconditionally too. 

caritas naturalis (seu agape), seu benevolentia universalis

Christian Leadership

In this essay, I attempt to characterize leadership that is informed by Christian theological and ethical principles. This is not to say that such leadership is applicable only in religious institutions. Nor is it the case that such leadership is merely a particular flavor of ethical leadership. As the Bible’s Book of Job attests, theology does not reduce to ethics, for such a reduction would make God subject to ethical principles, and therefore not omnipotent (i.e., all-powerful). To unpack the sort of leadership that can be said to be distinctly Christian, I analyze the investiture of Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013.

Generally speaking, Christian leadership is informed by the teachings as well as the example of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether he is “fully human, fully divine” as a god-man need not be answered in order to appropriate the teaching and lived example (i.e., on Earth). This does not mean that we are reduced to ethical principles. For example, the theological concept of agape, or self-emptying love, informs the teaching to love one’s neighbor, even one’s enemy. Such love does not reduce to ethical conduct, but is theological in nature.

Hence, in his investiture homily, Pope Francis told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square,  "I want to ask a favor. . . . I want to ask you to walk together, and take care of one another. . . .  And don't forget that this bishop who is far away loves you very much. Pray for me." To care for one another stresses the universal applicability of neighbor love. Unlike Cicero’s notion of love as friendship, neighbor love is not extended primarily to one’s friends and family. If a stranger is in need of care, agape means self-emptying one’s own preferences for the sort of person deserving of help. As a child of God, any given person deserves care when needed and by whomever is in a position (e.g., proximity) to help.

Lest it be concluded that Christian leadership reduces to servant leadership wherein a leader serves anyone and serving can become an end in itself, Pope Francis provides a more distinctly Christian sort of leadership.

For one thing, the leader is to love humanity, rather than merely serve others. Loving humanity may imply viewing humans as creatures, and thus fundamentally vulnerable (rather than “bad” or “sin”). To see the creatureliness of man is to see the creature as limited, rather than as fulfilled.

Secondly, leadership informed by Christ’s teachings prioritizes certain conditions pertaining to some but not all of us—namely, that of weakness in terms of earthly condition. In his homily, “Francis said the role of the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics is to open his arms and protect all of humanity, but ‘especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison’.” Christian leadership is thus not sectarian or limited even to Christians; there is no creedal condition one must meet in order to receive care from a leader following Christian principles. In the Gospel of Mark, it is the stranger rather than the disciples that “get it” as far as Jesus’s message is concerned. The good Sumerian cares for the injured stranger on the side of the road while the priest walks merrily by.

By implication, Christian leadership embraces humanity rather than merely protecting the faith. Such leadership thus has credibility beyond the faithful. The weak, poor, sick, and marginalized to be cared for could be Hindu, Jewish or Shinto, for example. In fact, to the extent that Christians tend to marginalize people of other religions as “not saved,” a leader informed by Jesus’s teachings and example can be expected to make a particular effort to care for non-Christians. The first are last, and the last are first. Such is the paradox that comes out of the notion of agape, or self-emptying love.

It is important to note that the caring must go beyond symbolic actions. The miracle of the loaves and fishes feeds the hungry and is therefore not a mere rhetorical symbol of caring. This is not say that symbolic acts have no value in Christian leadership. In St. Peter’s Square before the Investiture Mass, Pope Francis hopped off his jeep to bless a disabled man and kiss him on the forehead.

 Before his Investiture Mass, Pope Francis blesses a disabled man.  NBC

Although such an act sets the tone of Christian leadership, caring is not merely attention and a kiss. Had the pope had an aide get a walker or a nice wheelchair to be delivered to the man from the pope himself after the Mass, the leadership of caring would have been actualized rather than merely symbolized. Such actualized leadership could include the formulation and execution of a new or invigorated program geared to feeding the poor, for instance. In this sense, organizational leadership informed by Christian principles has a dimension beyond caring on the individual level.

In short, Christian leadership does not simply mean “ethical leadership” or even “servant leadership.” The foundation of distinctly Christian leadership is love as agape, actualized as universal benevolence manifesting as care for one another, especially the weak and vulnerable. Such love sees humanity itself as vulnerable in the sense of being created (i.e., creatures), and particular persons as more vulnerable than others. Even in an organizational setting, the “lower level” employees can be cared for first rather than being marginalized as last. This prioritizing directs but does not trump the universality of neighbor-love, for even the rich executive is a creature and thus fundamentally vulnerable.  To love and care for vulnerability, rather than to ignore, harm or destroy the vulnerable is the calling of Christian leadership, for vulnerability is an intrinsic aspect of self-giving love, or agape.

Source:

Nicole Winfield, “Pope Francis Inauguration 2013: Catholic Leader Begins Ministry in St. Peter’s Square,” The Huffington Post, March 19, 2013.