In September of this year, I’m going to be starting my thesis for a master’s degree, and I plan to research and write about how companies propel financial success through leadership practices that use the fact that we are all gods. When I say that we are all gods, I’m referring to the fact that we’re creating our reality in ways we’re only beginning to understand. I use the term “Divine Leadership” to refer to the leadership style that acknowledges this. I’m working on the language so that it’s understandable, so would really appreciate your feedback and dialogue.
Definition
Divine leadership is founded on the belief that there’s something occurring in our world that goes far beyond what the scientific method would lead us to believe, far beyond our typical business reductionism thinking of formulas, models, and strategies that supposedly lead to business success. It is founded on the following concepts:
- Our thoughts, beliefs and intentions are creating our reality, in addition to what we do in the material world.
- We all have access to limitless resources, which have the capability of providing unlimited solutions and innovations.
- Our being is interacting with our reality, shaping it and determining its success, so that our external reality reflects our inner state of mind.
Divine leadership embraces the following principles and actions:
When employees have the intention to succeed and the belief that they can succeed, they will help drive success. Businesses should:
- Create a business mission that is compelling to employees so that they emotionally buy in.
- Create a collaborative and positive work environment so that employees work well together with minimal politics, conflicts and fear. In a positive environment, employees are more likely to want to succeed and believe in success.
- Help employees directly confront and eliminate their personal fear and negative emotions, possibly by sponsoring events such as vision quests.
Since employees are gods, give them the space to create. Businesses should:
- Govern rather than control employees, where governing creates boundaries but allows employees to create freely within the boundaries.
- Create a sense of not knowing everything, which opens a space for new ideas to emerge from employees.
- Create a culture of dialogue, where employees of all levels openly discuss issues, with true listening and respect for opinions.
What we send out is what we get back. When we benefit others, we are benefitted in return. When we act based on a belief in abundance, we receive abundance in return. Businesses should:
- Define a mission that makes a positive contribution to society and provides a genuine service with true value to customers. Make it clear that the business exists for reasons beyond just making a profit.
- Embrace environmental protection at a level beyond what is needed to comply with regulations.
- Establish prices from a foundation of abundance, where there is a fair deal for all parties. Pay fair prices to suppliers and offer fair prices to customers.
- Embrace external partners, such as suppliers, as members of the team with long-term relationships and proliferate collaboration. For example, establish open-ended contracts that stand as long as the supplier is competitive.
Very interesting thought. We, all of us regardless of our place in the corporate strata, are more productive and focused when we are content and valued. It suprises me that this practice is not more common place. Best wishes with this endeavor!
I really appreciate all of the definitions and values that you are promoting here, but I don’t see the direct connection with the “divine.” Empowering employees and creating a sense of collaboration; promoting benefits to society, and creating win-win relationships is found in many other leadership frameworks.
How are we gods? And how will knowing this help us actually accomplish those goals?
I definitely would like to see you develop this farther and have an impact upon all leaders who come to this blog!!
Greg, thank you for your points…those are helpful. How about if I restructure the bullet points around concepts that are more explicitly divine, such as:
• Our thoughts, beliefs and intentions are creating our reality, in addition to what we do in the material world.
• We all have access to unlimited resources, which have the capability of providing unlimited solutions and innovations.
• Our being is actively interacting with our reality, shaping it and determining its success.
Based on these concepts, divine leadership would embrace the following principles and actions.
When employees have the intention to succeed and the belief that they can succeed, they will help drive success.
• Create a business mission that is compelling to employees so that they emotionally buy in.
• Create a collaborative and positive work environment so that employees work well together with minimal politics, conflicts and fear. In a positive environment, employees are more likely to want to succeed and believe in success.
• Help employees directly confront and eliminate their personal fear and negative emotions, possibly by sponsoring events such as vision quests.
Since employees are gods, give them the space to create.
• Govern rather than control employees, where governing creates boundaries but allows employees to create freely within the boundaries.
• Create a sense of not knowing everything, which opens a space for new ideas to emerge from employees.
• Create a culture of dialogue, where employees of all levels openly discuss issues, with true listening and respect for all opinions.
What we send out is what we get back. When we benefit others, we are benefitted in return. When we act based on a belief in abundance, we receive abundance in return.
• Define a mission that makes a positive contribution to society and provides a genuine service with true value to customers. Make it clear that the business exists for reasons beyond just making a profit.
• Embrace environmental protection at a level beyond what is needed to comply with regulations.
• Establish prices from a foundation of abundance, where there is a fair deal for all parties. Pay fair prices to suppliers and offer fair prices to customers.
• Embrace external partners, such as suppliers, as members of the team with long-term relationships and proliferate communication and collaboration. For example, establish open-ended contracts with suppliers that stand as long as the supplier is competitive in price, quality and customer service.
Now that speaks to me!
I really like how you use the term “govern” rather than control or manage. That has an interesting connotation and sense of responsibility. Perhaps a bit more authoritative than “steward.”
“…prices from a foundation of abundance” really resonates with me. I think a great deal of trouble has been caused from the paradigm of economies of scarcity. Abundance is actually a very important ecological concept too.
“Since employees are gods, give them the space to create” is the best sentence and I look forward to seeing how you further describe this!
Jackie, these are very interesting ideas. I like the idea of using the word divine with employees. This concept definitely has some parallels with Buddhist and Hindu thought. The word “employees” however seems out of place. It seems to imply a hierarchy which I think you are trying to get away from. How about using “associates” or “colleagues” instead of employees in order to create more respect for “divine associates”.
I would also suggest change the sentence “we are all gods” to “we are all divine”.
The “unlimited resources” idea seems to conflict with the idea of “limited environemntal resources” that we need to look out for. Maybe some type of separation needs to be created between physical and intellectual(divine) resources. This is hard to do because there is a great deal of interaction between the two and we frequently trade one for the other.
At some level, however, the concept of “money” is fictional and only supported by our collective belief in the value of a “dollar”. Because we believe in it, it works and we trade money for our ideas and services to each other. The person who provides better and more services needed by more people, seems to get more money and has access to more physical goods and resources.
The wealth of the mind as you say is infinite but is (or needs to be) translated into goods and services desirable to society that make society better off as a whole. The problem might be that the accounting model does not take into account all costs of creating something. Some real costs (such as costs to the environment) are ignored and the activity continues to be valued by society even though it is hurting something in unmeasured ways. Most value producing activities today are run under the auspices of a corporation which is a pathalogical device that can only think of maximizing its profit, not total value created for society which would take into account all costs.
But this is about Divine Leadership. So part of it might be to create a good mission that associates can buy into. But part of it might be to measure the “true” value of an activity by taking into account the true costs of the activity on whoever they are imposed..
I look forward to more on this concept..
I agree with others that this is a wonderful concept. It is also the most primal considering that we are all born with a sense of wonder and an explorative and fearless mindset. We lose this sense of wonder somewhere along the way and it gets further mired in metrics and mundane as we enter the world of business.
There is a lot of talk about X and Y generations entering the workforce and how they are markedly different in their outlook towards work-life balance.
How do your leadership concepts enable this new generation to collaborate and create their best?
How do we enable these ‘divine associates’ to discover their true potential and turn us into a society where businesses thrive and let others thrive in complete harmony?
I think it can be done if we allow each person to believe and exercise their ability to create and contribute. There are three basic needs that each person should focus. I call these the 3C’s
Career
Community
Corporation
I believe that beyond the above three everyone needs to reflect on their true purpose (North Star) and how it ties with the above three. The responsibility of a leader is to facilitate the success of an individual in each of the above three areas. The responsibility of the individual is to make sure they are in the right place on the right job at the right time. Your concepts of leadership fit right into providing a framework that allows each employee to accomplish their true purpose and in doing so benefit others around them.