When you think of the most important qualities of a great leader, perhaps visionary, good communicator, or humility come to mind. As often as I have asked this question, not once has anyone said, “A great leader is someone who loves those he leads.” In this episode of By Your Life, we’ll discuss what love has to do with leadership.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2019/19_02_03.mp3

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 3, 2019

Welcome to the forty-fifth episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, or on the right side of this page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend you think would benefit from By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings this Sunday acknowledge that we will face challenges, obstacles, difficulties in our daily lives. Our good Lord knows that when you go to work this week, you’ll find people who are difficult and even seem to undermine you and your goals. They are gossips, hot-heads, passive-aggressives, Negative-Nellies, minimalists, (those who want to do the least amount of work possible), power-grabbers, and responsibility-avoiders. But, as the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, asks, “do you gird your loins.”? (Jer 1:17) Do you prepare and strengthen yourself for what is to come? The Prophet Jeremiah tells us that “They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” (Jer 1:19)

Then, the Psalmist sings of taking refuge in the Lord, asking him to rescue, protect, and be “a stronghold to give me safety.” (Ps 71:3) As I read this, I thought about how it sounds like he is seeking salvation from an external force. But St. Paul, in the second reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, teaches us that this force is not far away. In fact, it is within us. This force is love.

I am often conducting workshops and retreats for leaders at various levels in a variety of different organizations. One exercise I often begin with is defining leadership. I’ll ask the participants to think of someone they admire as a leader and then identify three traits this person has that makes them a great leader. When I begin listing the characteristics they identified, the list often includes good communication skills, knowledgeable, visionary, perseverance, generous, and other similar qualities. Never has anyone said that a great leader is someone who loves the people he or she leads.

While the qualities of being a great communicator, visionary, knowledgeable, generous, and able to persevere are in fact traits of great leaders, St. Paul shows us “a still more excellent way;” (1 Cor 12:31) the way of love.

St. Paul emphasizes that any of the qualities exercised without love are of no benefit. Love is a multiplier of these gifts and when you multiply something by zero, the product is zero. So it is that without love, a great communicator is just a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. (1 Cor 13:1) Without love, a visionary with faith to persevere is nothing. (1 Cor 13:2) All of these qualities are imperfect without love.

In his book, Doing Business by the Good Book: 52 Lessons on Success Straight from the Bible, author and CEO David L. Steward devotes an entire chapter to love. He says good leadership is love, although “not a single business school in the US offers a course in love.” He adds that rarely is love the topic of discussion in the business world either. Yet, he emphasizes that love for our fellow man isn’t confined to our immediate families. He says, “Knowing that God is in me, I have an unlimited supply of love. So great is this supply that I can love everywhere, including the workplace.”

Steward explains that while he loves his employees, vendors, and customers, he doesn’t go around blurting out to people how much he loves them. Rather, he expresses his love by showing respect, providing opportunities for advancement, and guarding their reputation by assuring the company they work for is one that stands for quality and integrity. His actions express his love.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul outlines the behaviors that do and don’t demonstrate love. We express love through being patient. We express love by being kind. We are loving by rejoicing in truth. But when we are jealous, pompous, inflated, rude, self-interested, quick-tempered, and hold a grudge, we are not demonstrating love.

Recently, it seems like all my clients have been realizing that, “We need to stop relying on email and start picking up the phone more.” Maybe you could stand to pick up the phone more too. It is hard to express love via email. In fact, we often use email out of self-interest, because it is easier—easier but not necessarily more effective. Don’t get me wrong, email serves a purpose and can be a very efficient tool when used properly. The problem is, we use it to save time, so we don’t invest time to consider if it is the right medium to communicate this message to this person at this time.

How often are we quick-tempered, and shoot off a reply that is rude? How often is our message constructed purely out of our own self-interest? “I need this by Tuesday!” How often is neither of these our intent, but how it is received? How often do we receive these types of emails and assume the sender is being rude, and selfish when that is not what they intended? How much is miscommunicated because we are trying to be more efficient?

Notice that St. Paul starts with “Love is patient.” (1 Cor 13:4) We should probably start here too. Love stops to think about where the other person is coming from. Love decides not to assume the worse, rather asks what is going on. Love looks at the other person as an ally in solving problems, not as an obstacle to getting what I want. Love always assumes there is another side to every story and doesn’t spread the one side he heard. Love admires others for their accomplishments and isn’t jealous of them. Love forgives people when they fail and asks how he can help. Love is considerate of people’s other priorities, like family. Love is a great boss, a great co-worker, and a great employee.

In the Gospel, Jesus reminded those present how in the days of the prophets Elijah and Elisha the Israelites were so unfaithful that God gave his blessing to the Gentiles. They knew Jesus was also making a reference to how they were also being unfaithful to God. But, were they filled with remorse and did they repent? No! They were filled with wrath and tried to hurl him off a cliff.

And that’s the point. We have a choice. We can choose to be filled with wrath or filled with love. When we love, we are blessed by default. This week alone, I’ve had 3 clients tell me stories about how they picked up the phone and called someone instead of ripping off an email. In all three cases, what they thought (but wisely chose not to respond to) wasn’t the case at all and with one short phone call, an issue was resolved, a relationship was enhanced, and a bigger problem was avoided. Each one of these clients was amazed at how simple it was to just pick up the phone.

One more important point that may be overlooked because of the emphasis on love, in the second reading. St. Paul writes, “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.” (1 Cor 12:31) These gifts, that we commonly call the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, are defined by St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae as:

• Wisdom is both the knowledge of and judgment about “divine things” and the ability to judge and direct human affairs according to divine truth (I/I.1.6; I/II.69.3; II/II.8.6; II/II.45.1–5).
• Understanding is penetrating insight into the very heart of things, especially those higher truths that are necessary for our eternal salvation—in effect, the ability to “see” God (I/I.12.5; I/II.69.2; II/II.8.1–3).
• Counsel allows a man to be directed by God in matters necessary for his salvation (II/II.52.1).
• Fortitudedenotes a firmness of mind in doing good and in avoiding evil, particularly when it is difficult or dangerous to do so, and the confidence to overcome all obstacles, even deadly ones, by virtue of the assurance of everlasting life (I/II.61.3; II/II.123.2; II/II.139.1).
• Knowledge is the ability to judge correctly about matters of faith and right action, so as to never wander from the straight path of justice (II/II.9.3).
• Piety is, principally, revering God with filial affection, paying worship and duty to God, paying due duty to all men on account of their relationship to God, and honoring the saints and not contradicting Scripture. The Latin word pietas denotes the reverence that we give to our father and to our country; since God is the Father of all, the worship of God is also called piety (I/II.68.4; II/II.121.1).
• Fear of God is, in this context, “filial” or chaste fear whereby we revere God and avoid separating ourselves from him—as opposed to “servile” fear, whereby we fear punishment (I/II.67.4; II/II.19.9).

Some of us may have memorized the seven gifts as part of the process of preparing for Confirmation but haven’t given them much thought since. These gifts, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, are “habits,” “instincts,” or “dispositions” provided by God as supernatural helps to man in the process of his “perfection.” Aquinas insisted that they are necessary for man’s salvation, which he cannot achieve on his own. While our ultimate goal is the eternal one, today we are on this earth living out our covenant with God in nitty-gritty detail. The seven gifts are ours to be used in the world for the purpose of transforming that world for Christ. (Taken from the article The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit by Frank X. Blisard)

Again, St. Paul writes, “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 12:31) because the seven gifts are indispensable resources in the struggle to establish the kingdom and if we do not properly equip ourselves for battle, we should not be surprised to find ourselves defenseless when the battle is brought to our doorstep. (Blisard)

So when you prepare to go into work, “gird your loins” (Jer 1:17) with the armor of love you received in the Eucharist and let it be your defense against the gossips, hot-heads, passive-aggressives, Negative-Nellies, minimalists, power-grabbers, and responsibility-avoiders you encounter at work this week. They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD. (Jer 1:19)

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to multiply the gifts we’ve been given by fortifying them with his love.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them, the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.

May God bless you abundantly this week, and may we always glorify the Lord by our lives. Amen

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