Dare Great Things For Christ

Let’s face it, work is hard, and a lot of people would prefer not to work if they didn’t have to.  What would a world look like where people no longer worked?  People no longer owned things?  Wouldn’t it be better or in fact could it be really worse?  Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum explores this asking the question about the link between work and dignity.  It becomes a practical question for each one of us.

It’s common place to hear people say that things are happening today that have never happened before and that social tensions today are unique.  However true that statement might be it needs to be grounded in history.  In point of fact, the political tensions, the social tensions we suffer from today have roots as far back as the industrial era.  Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” by Pope Leo XIII addressed many of these tensions and by studying them we can gain jewels of wisdom for our approach today. 

It has been said that success is more difficult to handle than failure.  For those of us striving for success this can be hard to hear.  How can I be successful with success and why do worldly honors trip up more people than difficulty and challenge?  St. Thomas Aquinas tackles this question when he treats the virtue of magnanimity.  How can Christians really strive after greatness and stay humble?  This is the secret of the virtues and the secret that St. Thomas teaches about in his Summa Theologica.

The topic of leadership is not always popular among Christians.  In particular because many Christians see leadership as the antithesis to humility.  Afterall, how are you supposed to remain humble while deploying all of your gifts in the sight of others?  How are you supposed to remain humble while seeking after success?  St. Thomas Aquinas gives some amazing insights into the virtue of humility and shows that it is actually essential for every leader and that in fact true leadership can make you humble.

Living a life according to virtue is difficult for anybody.  But those in roles of leadership are under particular scrutiny by those whom they serve.  Everyday their every decision has impact on the lives of those who are underneath them.  For this reason, leaders have a special need for the virtue of justice.  By justice each person is given what is their due.  But justice presents special challenges both in its acquisition and in its practice.  Thank goodness for God’s grace. 

Whether we are leading a family or a business, all leaders have to do things they don’t want to do.  As soon as we assume the mantle of leadership we assume the mantle of facing things that could hurt us – that could take valuable time away, valuable resources away or even inflict pain at different levels of our life.  This means that leaders have to be brave.  St. Thomas Aquinas describes the virtue of bravery as fortitude and this third of the cardinal virtues is what we are focusing on today.

If you were to take a poll of famous topics for leadership talks, temperance would not rank in the top ten.  For most people temperance has a negative connotation, as if it were something that would stifle our energies or keep us from the fullness of life.  St. Thomas Aquinas has a very different vision for temperance.  According to him, temperance is necessary for the full life and has the power to guarantee that we attain the real good and excellence for which we are called.  This is why studying it is so important for us today.

If there’s one thing that organizational leaders share in common it’s the need to know how to advance when no one else does.  Being at the top means being in charge and being at the top means making decisions that will influence the entire organization for the better or for the worse.  The goal, obviously, is to make decisions well and this ability is much more than instinct.  For the ancients, they called it the virtue of prudence.  I’d like to look at St. Thomas Aquinas and what his teaching on prudence has to teach us today.

There is a lot of talk today in Catholic circles about virtuous leadership.  This is a good thing but do we know why virtue is important?  Why does Catholic teaching emphasize virtue so much and why should it be important to business leadership?  In this second of a six part series I lead our participants through an examination of the importance of identity for leadership and the importance of virtue for identity.  If we are going to admit that leadership comes from who we are and virtues help define who we are, then we see the importance of virtues for leadership.

Today, talking about character based leadership has become something fashionable.  Books, podcasts, seminars all focus in on on the term virtue.  By so doing we feel like we have checked of our Christian box in leadership and that we can safely move on.  But the issue is actually much more explosive.  Character influences leadership in ways that are profound and fruitful.  The question is why?  In this first of a six part series I would like to look at the question more deeply.