Faith-based leadership models (1)

Through Faiths in London's Economy I am working on ideas for a seminar exploring the place of faith in the development of leadership. The target audience being HR professionals, interfaith practitioners, and people of faith in (or with an interest in) employment. This would be the second in an ongoing series of seminars that began with the 'Ethics in a Global Economy' seminar.
This, together with hearing Brian Draper speak on Spiritual Intelligence at the Everyday Icons event this past weekend, reminded me of a paper (which I shall post in this series) that I wrote on faith-based leadership models for Faith Regen Foundation as part of the Faith Communities Toolkit that we prepared for the Centre for Excellence in Leadership to make available to the Learning & Skills Sector nationally. This Toolkit remains available online and can be found by clicking here.

Lynne Sedgemore, then Chief Executive of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership, who commissioned Faith Regen to develop a Faith Communities Toolkit for the learning and skills sector said, “I believe that faith issues should have more of a high profile within leadership dialogue in the 21st Century.”

“In the current global, national and local contexts,” Sedgemore said, “I feel that our sector’s leaders need support, advice and information on dealing with faith especially since the recent Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 came into force.” Recent events across the world linked to religions and faith issues, she thought, supported this view which involves looking at faith from a diversity perspective as well as a legal one.

She is not alone. In 2003 the Roffey Park Institute published research which claimed that nearly three-quarters of workers are interested in "learning to live the spiritual side of their values." An increasing number of books, consultancies and websites are emerging which deal with spiritual leadership within the workplace. The Bahá'í business writer, George Starcher, has argued that a new spiritual paradigm of management is emerging from the current context. He sees this paradigm as involving communicating vision, balancing economics and ethics and developing social responsibility.

My paper sought to summarises strands of teaching from each of the major world religions that could contribute to this new paradigm.

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The Clash - Clampdown.

Everyday Icons (2)

Just back from Everyday Icons, a day organised by the Diocesan Initiative on Spirituality in the St Albans Diocese which was held at All Saints Hertford and was designed to provide new ways of seeing and new ways of understanding all that forms part of modern day living.

Worship was led by broken, a growing alternative worship community which gathers at St Mary’s, East Barnet on the second Sunday of each month. The opening worship focused on the diversity of the Body of Christ and the closing worship on calling out to Christ in the busyness of our lives. Richard Watson, a facebook friend, is the priest at St Mary's and led a seminar on Messy Spirituality at the day, so it was good to catch up with his news and to experience worship with broken.

The keynote speaker was Brian Draper who spoke about Spiritual Intelligence (the title and topic of his latest book). This is a term coined by Danah Zohar which builds on Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) involves values and meaning and is the unifier of Intellectual Intelligence (IQ) and Emotional Intelligence. Brian unpacked his understanding and application of the term in an entertaining and apposite fashion before suggesting for icons of SQ in the alarm clock (awakening), the eye (seeing), the paint brush and palette (creativity), and the arrow (passing it on).

We uncovered several synergies between Brian's presentation and my own material in the workshop I led on praying through the everyday. The idea of ordinary objects such as clocks and paint brushes as icons of the divine was fundamental but we also linked our discussion of prayerful attention to Brian's story of feeling at one with his surrounding while running. I showed my Windows on the World photographs in talking of seeing everyday objects from fresh perspectives and looking for shapes, patterns and significance. I also shared the following developing meditation on prayer as attention paid:

Prayer is attention paid
noticing the beauty
and interest
of pattern
and content
in ordinary occurrence

Attention paid
is giving
and receiving –
giving notice,
interest, recognition
and receiving
the gift
of the world’s being

Being at
attention
is
alertness
readiness
preparation
intention
prayer

Being at-
tension
is
paradox
betweenness
standing in
the broken middle
receiving the
beauty and
terror of
the world’s being
praying
the generative words,
‘let there be.’

There was a real buzz about this day with excellent numbers attending and people really engaging with the material presented. Local churches have another event planned on similar lines as Ian Mobsby, Priest-Missioner with the Moot Community, will be leading an evening entitled New Ways of doing Old Spirituality at the Mayflower, Hertingfordbury on Friday 6th November at 7.30pm.

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The Staple Singers - Reach Out, Touch A Hand, Make A Friend.

Everyday Icons

We all know and recognise without thinking images and icons around us - from film and rock stars to shop logos and brand names - and now computer icons too. They are all around us and are so much part of our every day and everyday existence we never really think about them and the amount of ‘space’ they take up.

Sometimes we need help to clear away the clutter and image that presses in on every side and look with new eyes at all that we see and do. 'Everyday Icons' is a day organised by the Diocesan Initiative on Spirituality in the St Albans Diocese designed to provide just that, new ways of seeing and new ways of understanding all that forms part of modern day living.

Looking to the rich heritage that is ours, the workshops call on ancient traditions - from monastic to Celtic - to help us discover meaning in our every day and everyday life. At the end of the day, we want people to go away with tools for the journey that will inform and enhance the spiritual journey - the journey with God.

Brian Draper is the keynote speaker. He will be known to many from ’Thought for the Day’ as well as being a well regarded figure in the theological world where he has done much work to explore the interface between contemporary culture and Christianity.

I will be running a workshop called 'Stop! Don’t de-clutter it all: Praying through the everyday'. This will explore what we can do with all the ‘stuff’ that we find at the bottom of our handbags, briefcases or pockets? Keys, receipts, paperclips and more can be used as the basis for prayer. This workshop will help you find out how!

Everyday Icons: Finding God in everyday life is happening on Saturday 17th October 2009 from 10am - 3pm at All Saints Church & Richard Hale School, Hertford.

Worship will be by broken, a growing alternative worship community on the edge of London. broken are a community of people from a variety of backgrounds seeking to express and explore a 21st century spirituality rooted in the christian tradition. They gather at St Mary’s, East Barnet on the second Sunday of each month at 7pm and usually round off the evening with a drink before folk go their separate ways. They are an inclusive community, believing that unity can be found in diversity, that the sacred is sometimes found in the profane, and that life and light are to be discovered in that which is broken.

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alternative worship images.