05.15.07

leader as listener

Posted in formation, leadership at 6:30 am by len

Around 1865 an Englishman by the name of William Chatterton Dix wrote the beloved hymn, “What Child Is This?” One of the immortal lines from the song advances that in the stable in Bethlehem “the silent word is speaking.”

Near the end of Jesus earthly life we stand with him again in silence before Pilate. When asked, “What is truth,” he doesn’t give the expected answer. He refuses to take the stance of a philosophical Christian defending a rationalist framework. Instead, he stands in silence. From beginning to end, the word is framed in stillness, recalling the poetic lens of TS Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is…
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. Burnt Norton

This month I read Surfing the Edge of Chaos. A fascinating exploration of complex adaptive systems, with application to the world of business, the authors take us on a tour de force of transition and adaptive challenge. In one of the final, riveting stories they relate the challenges faced by HP Labs in its move from average performance to outstanding performance. As one of its regular gatherings of managers approached a request was made for an “inspiring speaker.” Barbara Waugh recounts what happened next.

What if, instead of an inspired speaker, we had a great listener who could “hear them into speech” about their vision for HP’s future driven by the integration of HPL’s technologies? … We go forward and use the idea at the big event. Senior management sees connections they have never seen before… The research agenda is getting clearer. (Surfing, 284)

Could this story be a clue to one of the most neglected frameworks for adaptive leadership? Could it be that at the core of leadership is an essential movement that was all but lost in the modern agenda? Could it be that leadership is a profoundly spiritual art (and like other spiritual ventures, “according to the measure of faith”)?

William Dix beautiful poetry caught the movement of Jesus own life from silence to silence. The kenotic movement of the Word taught in Philippians 2 frames the downward call of all Christian leaders. He emptied himself and became nothing. The silence of the stable is the first movement of Jesus engaging the world as listener. The third movement is Jesus before Pilate. But we often neglect the profound context of Jesus earthly life before his few active years of ministry. Jesus spent twenty five years as a carpenter working with his father. The first movement and the second movement are connected by twenty some years of silently engaging Jewish culture. T S Eliot asks us,

Where shall the Word
Resound, where shall the Word
be found? Not here–
There is not enough silence. Ash Wednesday

Still reaching after the paradox, Henri Nouwen tells a story from Chuang Tzu:
“The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of the word is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.” (The Way of the Heart, 49)

In his commentary on this koan Nouwen calls us to three aspects of silence. First, silence makes us pilgrims. Second, silence guards the fire within. Third, silence teaches us to speak. And fourth, pilgrimage makes us servants.

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