Three Minute Wisdom Knowledge is not enough. True leadership is informed by wisdom. The ideas presented here are intended to arouse your curiosity, provoke your thinking and encourage insightful action to help you achieve the things that matter.
A Leader’s Most Important Job What is a leader’s most important job? Stated simply, it is to create a high performing organization. Whatever else we might desire in a leader, if she isn’t able to produce this result, not much else matters.
What’s more, a leader has to be able to do this sustainably over the long term. It does not serve the organization if a leader continuously works at a frantic pace at the expense of her own energy.
At one level of thinking, these two factors appear to pose a trade-off. Given the pressures and complexity of modern business, it can seem that creating a high performing company requires a leader to apply more effort, work more hours, manage more things and take on more stress. To pursue excellence appears to imply that the leader must exhaust all of her available energy in the struggle to keep on top of things.
A False Choice But I think this is a false choice. While leaders certainly have to work hard, I do not believe high performance must come at the cost of fatigue and burnout. Professional success does not have to come at the price of your personal life; in fact, I deeply believe that high performance and deep personal satisfaction go together. At the optimum level of leadership, you cannot have one without the other.
I believe there is a set of skills that increases a leader’s effectiveness to create high performing organizations AND helps them maintain resilience in the face of stress. These skills develop a leader’s ability to stay connected to his or her source of meaning and purpose and to activate this connection in others. This capacity is called Spiritual Intelligence, and it can be measured and developed with practice.
Spiritual Intelligence – The Skills Beyond Emotional Intelligence Every leader recognizes the importance of emotional intelligence in the business world. If you can’t establish and enhance your relationships with others, you have no chance of creating high performance. This is a simple fact that is now universally accepted, yet it is remarkable to think that this was not the case just a few short years ago.
It was not until Daniel Goleman published his groundbreaking book in 1995, “Emotional Intelligence,” that we had a framework for discussing and understanding the importance of emotions in the workplace. Before then, it was common to be told to “check your emotions at the door.” A leader saying this today would be seen as backward, unsophisticated, and not ready for high level leadership positions.
The importance of emotions and interpersonal relationships was always there, and good leaders knew that the ability to create effective relationships was critical. But before Goleman’s book, there was no easily accessible language that allowed leaders to understand and use emotional intelligence. Goleman’s gift to the business world was to explain the complex landscape of emotions with a framework that allowed people to harness the power of emotional intelligence.
The same is true for spiritual intelligence.
Spiritual intelligence is a set of skills that connect people to their own source of meaning, purpose, and ethics. Stated differently, you could call this source one’s higher self, or the better angels of our nature. As with emotional intelligence, savvy business leaders know that these spiritual qualities are important to success. Think of these characteristics any company would want:
- Employees who are highly engaged
- A workplace with less ego-induced drama
- A strong commitment to the company mission
- A culture of high ethics
- People who work hard but with less stress
Although these qualities are important to creating high performance, there has not been a good framework to help us navigate the skills of spiritual intelligence.
Until now.
A Framework for Spiritual Intelligence What is spiritual intelligence? In her award-winning book, “SQ21: The Twenty One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence,” consultant and business coach Cindy Wigglesworth lays out an accessible framework that shows how to approach this complex topic in a business-friendly way.
She defines spiritual intelligence as the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation. She goes on to list 21 skills in four domains that can be developed through practice and allow one to increase their capacity for applying spiritual intelligence at work.
In this work-appropriate framework, the SQ21 model of spiritual skills is faith-neutral. While people of any faith can adopt these ideas to enhance their spirituality, the model itself is independent of any particular religion or set of beliefs. The principles of spiritual intelligence go beyond religion or specific beliefs.
At the core of the SQ21 model of spiritual intelligence is strengthening your ability to act from your higher self, however we each understand that concept. The higher self is the source of our ethical, admirable and noble qualities. It is a concept we can all recognize in ourselves: we know when we are acting from our triggered or reactive self, and we know when we are acting from our noble, higher self.
Our higher self is the part of ourselves that sees the big picture, acts from a higher perspective, makes wise and compassionate decisions, adjusts to the ebb and flow of life, and is aligned with our values and life purpose. When we act from this center, our business decisions are better and our stress is reduced.
The SQ21 model is a well researched framework for understanding the broad topics of spirituality and higher self. It posits 21 specific skills that help us connect to our higher self. The SQ21 model includes a validated instrument that allows one to self-assess one’s skills and select areas for development. The 21 spiritual intelligence skills are:
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The value of spiritual intelligence is increasingly being recognized by business leaders. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods states in the forward to the SQ21 book, “I love this book. I haven’t just read it – I have studied it and practiced it. I think the ideas in here are crucial for anyone who wants to grow wiser, more compassionate and to help create a better future.”
Here are resources that will help you learn more about how developing your own spiritual intelligence can improve your leadership effectiveness and increase your resiliency and satisfaction at work.
• TEDx New York Talk by SQ21 creator Cindy Wigglesworth In this talk, Cindy explains the history of the SQ21 model of spiritual intelligence and the validated instrument she created. Click here to view.
• Spiritual Intelligence White Paper This white paper describes the business case for spiritual intelligence and the SQ21 model. Click here to read or download a copy.
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