For the last several years, I have taught at the school of management at a faith-based institution, where I help students learn to be business leaders through studying the humanities. What I have learned is that students with little or no religious background were drawn to the mission of Catholic colleges, because the university and the classes articulated topics of broad interest, such as developing a meaningful philosophy of life or pursing social justice. Substituting "good" for "God," students can apply the fruits of their spiritual inquiry to many aspects of their life and learning, including their future profession, where my students will become managers and leaders.
Because schools with religiously articulated missions explicitly encourage conversations about values, they implicitly promote a "conscious capitalism" model for doing business that supports my efforts to teach ethics to aspiring entrepreneurs and managers. Conscious capitalism is rooted in four principles: conscious leadership, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture, and higher purpose, and there is no bigger proponent of conscious capitalism than the man behind Homeboy Industries.
Recently my university provided me with the chance to learn from someone who practices conscious capitalism, a man who built and guides an organizational structure of multiple social enterprises. His businesses apply commercial strategies to improve the well being of individuals while also making a self-sustaining profit. This authentic and inspirational leader also happens to be a priest who is known not by his corporate title but by his gang-conferred moniker: G-Dog.
Greg Boyle, a priest in the Society of Jesus and the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, was motivated by his faith to answer the need for employment and educational opportunities among youth in gang-controlled East L.A. He accomplished this by building a complex and wide-ranging business model that also met an equally broad array of social needs; he recognized all the stakeholders. His supply chain of commerce is really a human circle of compassion that runs businesses that serve the communities while also transforming the lives of those who work for Homeboy Industries and sustaining a values-based culture to continually support the work of the stakeholders.
While Homeboy Industries makes a profit, its higher purpose contributes to affirming the true value of the citizens of Boyle Heights. Although we were gathered at a religious retreat center and arrived primarily to share spiritual experiences with Father Boyle, I also came away with a deeper appreciation for what is required of a conscious leader and how I could extend this message to my students.
Most importantly and oft repeated by Father Boyle was his insistence on the need for humility, a concept not typically associated with leadership in business circles. Father Boyle's experience, however, illustrates the power of humility as an agent of growth. Or as he puts it, "If you are humble you never stumble." Should someone who has arrived to a leadership role creep away from humility, Father Boyle has one instruction: "Push the deflate button." Humility helps us be disciplined in generosity towards ideas we don't recognize as our own, resulting in innovations that benefit everyone. In this way humility prepares a leader to appreciate the importance of relationships and one's obligations to those she serves and represents.
Father Boyle emphasizes kindness as a reciprocal activity among all who are working towards the same goal. Kindness is possible when one humbly approaches colleagues with recognition of what Father Boyle calls "kinship." Just as he sees himself as equal to the gang members he seeks to help, so, too, does a conscious leadership recognize her kinship with all her stakeholders, understanding that any designation of leadership is not assigned by the presumptive leader but conferred by those she leads. Leaders don't pick themselves; the people do. "Connect," Father Boyle urges, "don't compete."
In building a corporate culture, as pointed out in the infographic, based on relationships conducted with kindness rather than as transactions performed for achievement, Father Boyle is informed by his higher purpose, but he is also firmly grounded in his obligation to reality. He will "Cherish" rather than "cling" to his employees, understanding that their commitment to the corporate vision depends on them seeing themselves as stakeholders in their own personal development, too. A dream shared by one of his employees provided Father Boyle with the image he needed: When confused in the darkness, we can shine a flashlight on the light switch to help another find his way to the light; but we can't turn on the light for others. A leader accompanies rather than guides, sustaining both humility and kindness in the process.
Humility, kindness, and accompaniment are all expressions of the higher purpose that serves as a kind of counter-imagination that prevents a corporate culture from only looking inside. The social reality of life in Boyle Heights instructed Father Boyle that the only way to change it was to stay immersed in that reality, to "witness," as he describes it, to the immediate context that seeks to be served. A humble leader practicing kindness and accompaniment Like Father Boyle uses his imagination to enrich his reality, not escape it. As a witness, one's posture should be not to "send a message," but to "receive one." "Receivement," Father Boyle observes, rather than "achievement," allows one to "belong to the truth," rather than merely speaking the truth. While conscious leadership principles may apply across professions, they are composed and enacted in context. For those who aspire to conscious practice of their profession, the example of Father Boyle demonstrates that leadership is not a noun but a verb.