9

Rendering Significance

I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living Whole.

— EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES

A leader who wishes to win the highest level of commitment—spiritual commitment—must be able to imbue her insight, vision, and story with what mythologist and author Joseph Campbell called spiritual significance. Writing about those who aspire to transform human life, Campbell noted, “the problem is nothing if not that of rendering the modern world spiritually significant—or rather (phrasing the same principle the other way round) nothing if not that of making it possible for men and women to come to full human maturity through the conditions of contemporary life.”¹ This, then, is one task of modern leaders—rendering the current world spiritually significant, helping people come to full human maturity through the diverse forms of their individual lives.

In the modern world, where intellect, ego, and technology are primary objects of worship, the lines of communication have been severed between the realm of spirit, soul, and divine meaning and that of day-to-day existence and earthbound effort. Rendering significance involves helping followers reconnect those lines.

The task, of course, requires that leaders have found spiritual significance in their own lives. Doing so is not solely the product of a leader adhering to a religious doctrine or engaging in religious practices, but, says Campbell, having successfully completed the very complex “adventure of the hero.” This adventure is one that everyone must take to become a fully mature person, even if that person never takes on the role of liberating society. It is particularly necessary, however, for those who would take on that role—for leaders.

The hero’s adventure is a challenge or series of challenges, the completion of which allows the leader to bring her spiritual energies forward. Campbell wrote:

The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels something is lacking in the normal experiences available or permitted to the members of his society. This person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a going and a returning.²

The adventure is as much a spiritual and psychological internal journey as it is a meeting of the demands of external circumstances. As the hero slays the dragon, his internal dragon is also slain, and the hero is thus transformed by the adventure. The use of the term hero in the context of leadership does not mean that a leader must be viewed by others as a hero, or even that he behaves in a particularly heroic way. It means, rather, that the leader has attained maturity by virtue of meeting the challenge or enduring the suffering of the adventure while also completing a rite of passage into the world of the divine and back again, reentering to the human world and carrying a benefit—a godsend, a boon for mankind, a restorative elixir. This maturity then allows a leader to render significance to the supportive acts of followers, and to win spiritual commitment. If they fail to complete the adventure, then winning spiritual commitment to profound insights and noble visions will be beyond their reach. Campbell wrote that the hero “is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations,” and having done so, returns transfigured to society, ready to “teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed.”³

Campbell and others have described the hero’s adventure as it is told in ancient tales. The descriptions are rich and detailed, the adventure having many facets and many variations. There are four facets of the hero’s adventure that are particularly salient for leaders who wish to win spiritual commitment: overcoming the trials placed before the hero, her submission of ego, discovering or retrieving the godsend, and the hero’s subsequent ability to access two worlds—the world of everyday things and events, and the world of spirit.

Trials and Passion

Campbell wrote, “The trials are designed to see to it that the intending hero should be really a hero. Is he really a match for this task? Can he overcome the dangers? Does he have the courage, the knowledge, the capacity, to enable him to serve?”⁴

Can Lancelot meet the terrors of the Chapel Perilous at midnight? Can Theseus face the Minotaur? Can Luke Skywalker survive entering the Death Star? Can Alice Harris extricate herself and her infant children from poverty and homelessness on the streets of Watts? Can Zalman Schachter-Shalomi face the trepidation of approaching old age and overcome a temptation to yield to depression? Can Bill Strickland rise above adolescent aimlessness in the cauldron of a decaying neighborhood? Doing so, as Campbell pointed out, requires courage and knowledge. It also requires passion.

Some precision in definition is needed for understanding the fullness of the term passion because the term has many meanings and connotations. The word is most often used to refer to intense emotions such as love and hate, to strong sexual excitement, and to high enthusiasm. The last of those meanings is the one most often implied when senior-level people in an organization seek commitment, as in, “We need people to be passionate about our new vision.” As it is used here, however, the term passion refers to something other than intense emotions or sexual excitement, and to something much more robust than high enthusiasm.

Here, the term passion carries with it a quality that some modern dictionaries consider archaic or obsolete: the quality of suffering or of enduring an ordeal. It is obvious that leaders must be passionate about their causes. Pat Croce made the point succinctly, “Passion is what fuels it.” What is not so obvious is that such passion arises from having surpassed trials or endured suffering, and in the process having also reached into personal depths, thus effecting the transformation of the self. As Croce said, the trials, the suffering, can make those who endure them, “stronger when we pursue our goals and visions.”

Once the trials are met and the passion has surfaced, life cannot be the same as it was. Lancelot becomes a Knight fit for the search for the Holy Grail. Theseus assumes his father’s throne as King of Athens. Luke Skywalker becomes a Jedi Knight, Alice Harris becomes a messenger of hope, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi becomes a revered spiritual elder, and Bill Strickland becomes a champion of the power of believing in people. The deep-seated passion found on the adventure provides purpose to a life, simplifying it. Croce said, “I have to be passionate about something to keep my focus on the purpose. When you are passionate about something and you can feel it, smell it, taste it, and enjoy it, you will sacrifice some things that aren’t as important.” When a leader is passionate, his life becomes fine-tuned to fit the passion rather than the other way around. Bill Strickland said of his own life, “There are a thousand reasons I could give why this makes no sense; to spend a life this way. But the benefit is really the stuff that I believe in: kids, quality of life, and doing things the right way. That’s why I get up in the morning.”

Submission of Ego

A second facet of the hero’s adventure that is significant for leaders is what Campbell called “the annihilation of the human ego.”⁵ This ego, he said, is “What you think you want, what you will to believe, what you think you can afford, what you decide to love, what you regard yourself as bound to.”⁶ All of this, all of the willful strivings are stripped away during the course of the hero’s adventure.

The story of Michael Azzopardi, a Maltese Roman Catholic priest, is a rich expression of the annihilation of ego. During the early 1920s, the young Azzopardi studied law at Malta University, but switched to the study of theology when it became clear to him that he wanted to pursue his calling to the priesthood. In the late 1920s, he was given the opportunity to study at the Gregorian Institute in Rome. He saw this opportunity as a great honor, was thrilled to have it bestowed on him, and dreamed of the prestigious assignments that seemed sure to come his way after his graduation. He thought he was destined for greatness, and for a life of prestige and service. He was, but in no way that he could have imagined. Azzopardi was surprised and deeply disappointed when, after his studies in Rome were completed, he was ordered back to Malta in the role of a parish priest.⁷

He did not allow his dreams to die, deciding that, if he was to ever get the prestigious assignment he believed was surely his, he would have to be the best parish priest the Catholic Church had ever seen.

The years passed. He taught religion in a secondary school, and led retreats for teenagers. He acted as a chaplain during World War II. He chaired a committee to oversee the creation of a center of Catholic culture in Malta. He traveled the countryside visiting the sick and elderly. He went on radio with weekly broadcasts for those unable to attend mass, and with a show explaining each Sunday’s gospel. In other words, he attended to business.

Azzopardi also made surprising and disturbing discoveries. He found mentally and physically challenged children hidden away by their families. There were children whose existence was unknown to neighbors, and children locked away during the day as their families worked in the fields or otherwise made a living. These children touched him deeply, as did the families who hid them away, and whose shame about having them was profound. He began to conceive of a home for the children, many of whom came from impoverished families. The children would be cared for and the families counseled.

On September 12, 1965, he spoke of this idea during a radio broadcast, “The Hour for the Sick.” When he returned to his home, a young woman stood outside the door clutching an envelope. She had been waiting there for him for more than four hours. He approached her, and she told him that she had heard his radio appeal for a home for handicapped children. She reached out and offered the envelope to him, explaining that it contained money that she had been saving for a vacation. She was giving the money to him instead; to start, she said, “your home for the children.”

Azzopardi knew that if he took that envelope his life would never be what he had expected it to be, and would never be the same as it had been. At that moment his life hung in the balance. There was a choice to be made. Should he, as Arthur did, pull the sword from the stone, he would reveal himself, and bear the weight of leadership. Is he up to the task at hand? Does he have the knowledge, the courage, and the passion to succeed? He must confront his own resistances and fears: until that moment he had not thought of the home as “his.” He hesitated for an instant, deciding whether to commit himself, and then he took the envelope. It contained 100 Maltese pounds, about $300 dollars. He had been a parish priest for thirty years. He was fifty-five years old.

The moment of accepting the envelope is one of annihilating ego. What Azzopardi thought he wanted, what he willed himself to believe about his future, what he regarded himself as bound to—all of this fell away. He was bound instead to an elixir—an insight and a vision. His life was transformed. Campbell wrote, “If you realize what the real problem is—losing yourself, giving yourself to some higher end, or to another—you realize that this itself is the ultimate trial.”⁸ Even if the act of withdrawing the sword or accepting the envelope is not taken with full conscious awareness, even if it arises from a little-understood compulsion or obligation, when it is the right act, the only one that can be made with integrity, the soul knows what is being accepted.

The Godsend

Azzopardi’s godsend, the reward for facing the deplorable situations of the challenged children of Malta, and of staring down his own resistance and ambition, was the insight that there should be no shame attached to such children. This is the treasure that he had unknowingly been seeking on his adventure, what Campbell called “the life-giving elixir.” It gave new life to Azzopardi, to the children, to their families, and to an entire society.

Azzopardi’s godsend now has a concrete reality. Today on Malta there stands a collection of buildings known as Id-Dar tal-Provvidenza—the House of Divine Providence. It consists of three villas, each housing a different age group of physically and mentally challenged children and adults. It is noted as one of the best homes of its kind in Europe. Azzopardi died in 1987, having devoted his last twenty-two years to what he fondly called his “angels”—the physically and mentally challenged residents of Id-Dar tal-Provvidenza. Many Maltese people think of him as a saint. After Azzopardi’s death, his good friend, Lewis Portelli, wrote about him:

Perhaps one of his greatest achievements . . . was his herculean feat in persuading parents and relatives to “take out” their handicapped, many times from the “hidden” places where they were kept. He was the one who convinced everyone that having a sick or handicapped member in the family was nothing to be ashamed of.⁹

The hero, then, is the person—man or woman—who has transcended both personal confines and the limits of her society. As a leader, the person who has set out upon her own particular adventure becomes what Deepak Chopra referred to as “the symbolic soul of the group,” standing for the aspirations of individual followers to transform their own personal confines, and for the group’s desire to transcend its collective limits.

Godsends come in many forms. When Lancelot does find the passion to meet the terrors of the Chapel Perilous at midnight, he returns with a sword and a shroud to heal a Knight of the Round Table. When Theseus slays the Minotaur he frees Greece from an annual sacrifice of seven youths and seven maidens. Luke Skywalker and his companions do survive the Death Star and rescue Princess Leia, giving new hope to those who are rebelling against the Empire. When Alice Harris does extricate herself and her infant children from poverty and homelessness on the streets of Watts she finds a loving god, overcomes her own self-damaging pride, and now tells us, “Don’t ever be ashamed to ask for help.” When Zalman Schachter-Shalomi faces the trepidation of approaching old age he returns from a sacred place where he performed sacred rituals. He now tells us, “Together, we will help give birth to a new civilization of unprecedented human development, spearheaded by spiritual elders working with people of all ages to create a peaceful and harmonious global society.”¹⁰ When Bill Strickland overcomes teenage aimlessness and the crumbling physical and social structures of his neighborhood he finds a spiritual practice in the art of pottery. He now says of those who make use of his organizations, “There is nothing wrong with the kids that come here except they don’t have an opportunity to show that they are world-class citizens. You treat them that way and they will.”

The insights such as those of Azzopardi, Harris, Schachter-Shalomi, and Strickland, are godsends, restorative benefits to society brought back by people who undertook the hero’s journey. The godsend found on the adventure is not easily won; no great prize is ever easily won.

Access to Two Worlds

A third facet of the hero’s adventure is also particularly significant for leaders: having returned to society bearing the elixir, the hero now has access to two worlds—the common world of the everyday, and the exceptional world of spirit and the unconscious. The leader who has completed the adventure is thus able to open the lines of communication between the two. This is another, yet quite different challenge, drawing once again upon the leader’s passion. How to demonstrate the value of the captivating godsend to a society that welcomes only rationality, the bottom line, individual achievement, and the requirements of the self-centered ego? How to share the elixir with those who would become its champions without having it watered down, causing it to be superficial and ineffective? How to imbue workplaces with spirit without trivializing it as just another training event or a corporate flavor-of-the-month program? Campbell asked the question this way: “How represent on a two-dimensional surface a three-dimensional form, or in a three-dimensional image a multi-dimensional meaning?”¹¹ Doing so requires the artistry of leadership.

One avenue to finding answers to all of the questions above is to become a founder, to build an institution from the bottom up. Alice Harris founded Parents of Watts. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi founded the Spiritual Eldering Institute. Dale Fushek founded Life Teen. Bill Strickland founded Manchester Craftsman’s Guild. Founders have certain advantages, chief among them being the opportunity to determine what gets talked about, how things get done, and who does them. Still, funds must be solicited, permits obtained, and certifications won, all of which require the grounding of a godsend. Another avenue is to take the reins of an organization in which it is clear to everyone concerned (or at least almost everyone) that the elixir is needed. This is the route Pat Croce chose when he became president of the Philadelphia 76ers. Still, a general manager and a coach had to be replaced, fans won over, the right players signed. The third and most difficult route is to offer the elixir where it poses a serious threat to a well-defended status quo and is thus unwelcome. Succeeding at this task places leaders in the realm of highest jeopardy and greatest potential effect. Leaders such as Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Mohandas Gandhi come to mind as those who have succeeded on this most perilous route.

No matter the route, however, those who succeed at winning spiritual commitment will still be leaders—they will have mastered the arts of winning intellectual, emotional, and spiritual commitment. We have almost come full circle, back to the beginning of this book, back to considering the competencies for winning intellectual commitment—insight, vision, storytelling, and mobilizing—and those for winning emotional commitment—self-awareness, emotional engagement, and fostering hope. If a leader can bring to those competencies the spiritual maturity that is born out of the hero’s adventure, he can render significance of the highest order—spiritual significance.

Spiritual significance shows up in noble visions such as those discussed in Chapter 3: in Jim Wold’s vision, improving teaching and learning so all students achieve high standards of performance; in Bloorview MacMillan’s vision, defy disability; in the vision of Fielding Graduate Institute, a collaborative family of scholar-practitioners, empowered by a global perspective, enabling and promoting harmony and social justice; in NEC’s vision to promote an exchange of information and knowledge for the achievement of a new creativity in society; and in the vision of Fujita, a world that combines a rich natural environment and vibrant societies with caring communities.

A spiritually mature leader will uncover an insight with depth of meaning (a godsend), will craft a noble vision communicating that depth, will tell his story of change in a soulful way, including the trials and the suffering, and will mobilize people by connecting their everyday actions to lofty purposes. His self-awareness will circumscribe and contain spiritual awareness as well as emotional awareness. Emotional engagement will include speaking of the leader’s feelings about the joys and perils of his adventure, and the adventure that the leader and followers are completing together. The spiritually mature leader will foster hope, not only for the people who follow, but also for some larger community or society. In short, a spiritually mature leader will bring that maturity to everything he does in a public way, rendering significance to his endeavors and winning spiritual commitment.

Development Strategies for Rendering Significance

Perhaps it is oxymoronic to speak of “strategies” and “spiritual significance” together because a leader’s ability to render spiritual significance depends upon her consciousness of spiritual matters and not upon any particular plan or design. Still, there is useful advice to be given, even if that advice requires a certain consciousness in order for it to prove useful, and even if that advice contains a warning that the leader must embrace a spiritual perspective before anyone else will offer spiritual commitment. The useful advice to leaders, then, is to recognize their own depth, to uncover the moral and honorable reasons why anyone ought to commit to their insights and visions, and to be generous about sharing the circumstances and challenges of their own hero’s adventures.

Following Your Bliss

Joseph Campbell advised, “Follow your bliss.” That advice has sometimes been misinterpreted to mean that we are to do whatever we feel like doing, but Campbell had something else in mind. He meant discovering what makes us happy, “not excited, nor just thrilled, but deeply happy.”¹² Campbell’s bliss is beyond the happiness that we feel when things are going well for us. It comes out of a deeper appreciation for the meaning of what we are doing, and exists even when things are not going well for us. We can be happy and blissful, and that is certainly the preferred state, but we can also be unhappy and blissful when we are consciously connected to the depth of meaning that has brought the circumstances of our unhappiness upon us. The latter state is what is meant by the term passion.

This discovery of one’s bliss is not a product of intellectual analysis, but the result of going, “where your body and soul want to go.”¹³ Not where you think you should go, not where you hoped to go. When Michael Azzopardi accepted the envelope from the woman who stood waiting in front of his home, he went where his body and soul wanted to go. Campbell wrote:

. . . if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living.¹⁴

A leader who wishes to win spiritual commitment in others must first find and follow his bliss. The leader who does so is then capable of bringing spiritual energy into the drama of creating significant change.

Uncovering a Moral Objective

Spiritual commitment attaches only to aims that those who make the commitment view as being moral and honorable, such as aims to revive or transform a society, or another human being, or a single idea, or the content of consciousness. Wesley Clark provided an example of a moral and honorable aim, while also acknowledging that such aims are sometimes difficult to uncover. He said, “The moral component is more clear-cut in the military because you can say that you are doing this for the country and it is the right thing to do.”

This is the essence of what was called noble vision in Chapter 3—the vision is about much more than self-interest. Where leaders cannot find moral and honorable aims, spiritual commitment will not show up. Clark said it this way, “You have to have a moral and ethical component to leadership. You have to believe in it. You have to give people an incentive, a thrill, a sense of accomplishment—but there is something deeper than that.”

Creating a Sacred Autobiography

In his book, Soul Prints, Marc Gafni, who is dean of Melitz Public Culture Center, urges that we each should create our sacred autobiography. He wrote, “We need to know that in the details of our lives dangle the keys to heaven.”¹⁵ A sacred autobiography sheds light on the meaning of a life, connecting the daily details with the being of the soul, and with our best understanding of the texture of human and divine existence. Our sacred autobiographies, says Gafni, ought to be told to others.

Gafni’s suggestion is especially imperative for leaders who wish to win the highest levels of commitment. A leader’s sacred autobiography becomes her personal narrative, part of the story that is related, along with the godsend of a compelling insight and the grounding of that insight in a noble vision.

There is a certain vulnerability attached to this telling; a bearing of the soul that may also be laden with deep emotion. A leader who does decide to tell of his personal inner adventure needs to be prepared to engage emotionally with followers because the story will stir the emotions. When the story is told well, told with honesty and sincerity, and told frequently, the telling affords a leader the opportunity to win all levels of commitment—intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.

Summary

Rendering significance is one of three leadership competencies for winning spiritual commitment. It is the means through which leaders communicate the spiritual depth of their insights and visions, and enable people to develop maturity as spiritual beings. A leader’s ability to render significance is a direct function of having found spiritual meaning in her life. This meaning flows from enduring and profiting from the trials of the leader’s particular life, finding something of value to others, sharing that something freely, and developing the ability to draw the connecting lines between the spiritual and the everyday.

Questions About Yourself to Contemplate or Discuss with Others

Who, in your life experience, was practiced at rendering significance?

To what degree are you practiced at rendering significance?

What is it about rendering significance that rings true for your current leadership role?

How important is rendering significance to your further development as a leader?

Notes

1.Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973): 388.

2.Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1988): 152.

3.Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 20.

4.Campbell, The Power of Myth, 14.

5.Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 390.

6.Campbell, The Power of Myth, 184.

7.The story of Michael Azzopardi’s life is drawn from interviews and discussions with Lewis Portelli, Sylvia Ear, and Achille Mizzi, and from the Web site of Id-Dar tal-Provvidenza <http://www.dar-tal-providenza.org>, and from Lewis Portelli, “Mgr. Michael Azzopardi: An Appreciation by Lewis Portelli,” The Sunday Times (Malta, May 31, 1987).

8.Campbell, The Power of Myth, 154.

9.Portelli, “Mgr. Michael Azzopardi: An Appreciation by Lewis Portelli.”

10.Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller, From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older (N.Y.: Warner Books, 1995): 8.

11.Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 218.

12.Campbell, The Power of Myth, 193.

13.Ibid., 147.

14.Ibid., 150.

15.Marc Gafni, Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment (N.Y.: Pocket Books, 2001): 232.