Why leaders need to use The “S”-Word

One of the limiting beliefs I still have is that I cannot use the “S”-word if I want to be taken seriously in the business world.

With the “S”-word, I mean SPIRITUALITY.

Whilst many forward-thinking leadership consultants and programs already touch on key spiritual concerns, such as...

✨meaning

✨purpose

✨compassion

✨systems thinking, and

✨authentic connection,

...most of them figured that it’s better not to mention that many of the ideas associated with the #futureofwork are fundamentally spiritual ones.

All the judgement around the term spirituality constitutes a huge cognitive bias in modern Western workplaces.

I often hear people say that spirituality is the antidote to the highly valued leadership competence of critical thinking. For me, it’s actually the opposite.

I see spirituality a means for us to not only cultivate critical thinking in regards to all the values, assumptions and beliefs we hold.

It even goes a step further and invites us to engage in critical existential thinking, challenging us to reflect on the ultimate meaning of who we are and what work / life are really all about. 

If people choose to call spirituality “woo woo”, they are choosing to reject alternative ways of seeing and being in the world / at work. But isn’t it right there, in the unknown, that transformative insights and innovation are born?

One of my all-time-favourite quotes is the one from Einstein, saying that we cannot use the same logic to solve problems that we created through this way of thinking.

Looking at the world today, we face A LOT of highly complex challenges.

And that’s why I think that if we openly embrace the “S”-word and show curiosity in relation to its’ potential instead of continuing to think of it as “BS”, we are showing our commitment to really wanting to do different things, and do things differently.

This is not to say that spirituality should be a replacement for science, data, and rational thinking.

Instead, it should complement them and empower leaders to tap into a fundamentally different mind- and skillset that will ultimately allow for synergy in the context of complex problem solving. 

It’s time to break through our limiting mental constructs when it comes to spirituality - and here’s my little Monday morning contribution to that.

What’s yours?