But John Paul learned through doing and listening as much as, if not more than, through reading. As a boy he played soccer with his Jewish neighbors. As a young man he worked in stone quarries and chemical plants. As a priest and bishop he spent long weekends hiking with married couples and young people. Once he became pope, he insisted on traveling the world, going to see his flock where they lived and worked, struggled and prayed. John Paul II was always out there in the world, experiencing life and paying careful attention to all that happened around him. He was a student of life, and knew he had as much to learn from others as they did from him. He once wrote:
Whenever I meet young people in my travels throughout the world, I wait first of all to hear what they want to tell me about themselves, about their society, about their Church. And I always point out: What I am going to say to you is not as important as what you are going to say to me. You will not necessarily say it to me in words; you will say it to me by your presence, by your song, perhaps by your dancing, by your skits, and finally, by your enthusiasm.19
John Paul II knew that if he wanted his actions to mean something to people, he had to know those people. He had to know the world as it was. He had to learn from the world so that it might learn from him.
A Respect for Human Dignity
In his observations of others, however, John Paul II never looked at people in general. He looked at people in particular. He saw faces and stories and all that goes into making each human person unique. He also saw Christ in every person. He saw the mark of God, who made man in his image, became man in order to save him, and destined man for an eternity with him. What John Paul II saw was each person’s innate human dignity.
So he acted accordingly.
The pope strove to listen to others, to seek out their story and look them in they eye as they told it. He chose to take time during a busy day to ask the sisters cleaning his apartment about their ailing parents or wayward nieces. He chose to stop when passing through a large crowd in order to bless small children or talk to the wounded and the lame. No person was ever too insignificant to receive his notice because to him every person was a holy creation, made by the hand of God to hold the life of God within.
That attitude shaped the little details of his life—such as getting to know men like me who silently stood guard around him. It shaped the overarching goals of his papacy—such as helping men and women understand the true beauty and gift of human sexuality. It was always there, always evident, always palpable. You felt more important in John Paul II’s presence than you did anywhere else. That wasn’t because he was so important. You weren’t basking in the glow of his papal majesty. It was because he saw how important you were and treated you that way. He saw dignity where no one else did. And so people like me, like those Roman gypsies, even like half-mad third world dictators, responded to what he did and said as we responded to no other. What he said and did mattered to us because we knew we mattered to him.
Love
“So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest one of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:13). Above all, love was the driving force behind all John Paul II’s actions. By love, however, I don’t mean what most people think love means. In today’s culture, we tend to either oversexualize the term, or we use it as a synonym for “like.” John Paul II, however, understood love in the classical sense, what Aristotle defined as “wanting for someone what one thinks good, for his sake and not for one’s own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for him.”20
In other words, as John Paul II explained in his book Love and Responsibility, love doesn’t begin with infatuation. Love actually begins when infatuation ends. It is a choice, an action where I do something purely for the good of the other, regardless of my own interests and objectives. The measure of love, he continued, is the degree to which I pursue their good through my actions.21
When understood in that light, love becomes something that can give form to the human community, that can unite people in a common desire to seek one another’s good. Love, or the lack of it, shapes the world. Love makes us responsible for the condition of the world: The shape it takes is the shape we give it. It is the product of how well or how poorly we‘ve accepted Christ’s command to love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength and to love others as ourselves.
St. John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic to whom John Paul had a great devotion, wrote that, “at the end of your life, you will be judged by your love.”
Reflecting on that statement, the pope commented that if we truly believe what St. John writes, then our task each day is to make the commandment to love the center of our life. It has to guide and inspire everything we do.
That is exactly what love did for him. John Paul II’s life wasn’t about him. If it were, he probably would have been off skiing or acting somewhere. Instead, his life was about loving God and loving others. John Paul II gave up everything to do that—his acting, his professorship, his freedom, his privacy, his health. He sacrificed all his own desires for the good of a billion plus individuals. Those who interacted with him in almost any way perceived that. We saw love in his eyes when he spoke to us. We read it in every encyclical he wrote and heard it in every speech he gave. His love was always there, giving life to every word and action. Because he loved, he always told the truth. Because he loved, he wanted all to know Christ. Because he loved, millions wanted to know Christ too.
Leading as a Witness
John Paul II understood the importance of his actions. Those actions themselves were animated by his intimate knowledge of the human person, his respect for human dignity, and by his conscious choice to desire and pursue the good of others before his own good, in short, by his love. That’s much of what made the pope such an effective leader. If we translate those principles into practice, that’s what can help make us effective leaders as well.
How do we do that?
Leading by Example
Leading by example starts with you and how you conduct your own life. Are you honest, thrifty, responsible, and hardworking? Do you hold yourself to the same standards to which you hold your employees? Do you give yourself privileges and perks that you don’t give to others? Do you stay away from questionable business practices and shady deals? If a greasy proposition does come your way, how do you respond? Do you dodge it or delegate it? Cave in or say no? Do you choose to do things that you would never ask someone you respect, like the pope or your grandmother, to do?
The answers to those questions matter. Your employees will follow your lead, and this in turn creates the company culture. As the CEO or owner, you are the personification of the company. Your answers to all those questions and more determine the moral direction your company takes.
It’s also important to understand that the wrong answers to life’s hard questions aren’t mitigated because they were made with good intentions. That’s consequentialism—allowing the end to justify the means—and in one way or another, consequentialism will lead you into trouble. The surest path is always the one paved by right actions. You are far more likely to be successful, at least in the long run, if you put principle above profit.
Besides, if the only way for your company to survive is by cheating or making questionable deals, then it’s probably better just to let it die. A business is not a person. It’s okay to abandon one, especially if doing so is the only way to uphold truth and human dignity.
Loving Your Employees
Your ability to lead by example also hinges on the extent to which you show your love for your employees. I know the idea of loving one’s employees, of seeing them as friends and not just human resources, can sound a little strange at first. But loving your employees is what’s required if you want to live and lead as a witness.
What is meant by “loving your employees”?
Consider your business as a group of friends, not a firm. Firms aren’t moral agents. Firms don’t have souls. The more you see the people who work for
your business as individuals with moral responsibilities and a divinely ordained end, the less likely you are to start abdicating ethical obligations.
Loving your employees also requires remembering what real love is. John Paul II liked to quote Aristotle on this one, but for simplicity’s sake, I like to quote the Italians. The Italians don’t generally say, “I love you.” Instead they say, ti voglio bene, literally “I want goodness for you,” or “I want your good.” That’s an excellent summation of what love is: desiring the good of another and helping them realize that good.
When you understand love in that light, it becomes possible to see yourself as a “steward” of your employees’ careers, of their professional fulfillment. God has entrusted to you the stewardship over this particular part of a person’s life. Your goal should be to help that person become excellent at what they do. This is a form of love. By managing them well and wisely—giving them constructive feedback, assigning them responsibilities that allow them to use their God-given talents, and challenging them to grow in their abilities and knowledge—you help them find fulfillment and become, at least in one area, the person God made them to be.
You need to know your employees in order to do this. You can’t swoop in at performance review time and be the voice on high dictating to them what’s best. You have to seek to understand who they are, what strengths and weaknesses they possess, and what motivates them.
That’s not always easy to do. Nor is it easy to separate your interests and the company’s interests from each employee’s individual interests. Yet when you have a holistic view of your employees, you see them not just as “money makers,” but as human persons made up of minds, bodies, and souls, and having needs that transcend your own. This perspective makes it far easier to act toward them in such a way that their dignity is never compromised. The company will be stronger for that, and you will be a better leader.
Loving Your Foes, As Well As Your Friends
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus made it clear that we can’t just act rightly toward people we like. We also need to deal honestly and justly with those we don’t like:
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”
Matthew 5:44, 46–47 RSV
The real test of leadership by example comes when you have to deal with competitors or with employees and colleagues who drive you a little (or very) crazy. Your ability to deal justly with those people says more about you and teaches others more about how they are expected to act than almost anything else you do.
As with so many other aspects of leadership, John Paul II was a master of dealing with those who were, at least to start with, less than fond of him and the Church.
During the years I served in the Swiss Guards, we greeted plenty of people who you wouldn’t want to invite over to your house for dinner. One of those was the Dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko. When he came to the Vatican in March of 1987, some of the guards were not pleased. Seko was a legendarily ruthless ruler, and it was difficult to understand why John Paul II would dignify the man with an audience. One of the older officers, however, put the discussion to rest.
First, he pointed out, we were soldiers and not judges. He explained that even a dictator represents his people and that receiving a head of state was first and foremost a nod to the nation. He asked whether any of us knew what the pope would say in the meeting. We did not. He then asked us what we would say. On that, we did have some strong opinions.
“Well,” he concluded, “you can assume that the pope is going to say some of those very same things. But he can’t say them if he doesn’t receive him.”
Point taken.
The same holds true with your company. If you don’t speak with difficult employees or competitors, you can’t build better relationships, find common ground, or learn to get along. If you don’t treat them with knowledge, respect, and love, speaking with them is not going to do either them or you much good. You have to engage justly in order to get anywhere in your company and in the market. Good relationships matter. Good reputations matter. If you conduct your affairs with other companies according to right principles, even those companies considered shady or difficult, you positively affect the culture of corporate America as a whole.
***
Right actions animated by knowledge, respect, and love have the power to not only make your business more successful, but to help you and your employees become the people God made you to be. They shape you and define you, just as they shape and define the culture of your company. They do the heavy lifting that no HR department or employee handbook can do. Words and policies are meaningless unless they’re incarnated in action.
John Paul knew that and lived that. That’s why he met personally with the gypsies of Rome. More than any papal letter he could have penned, even more than the homeless shelter he asked Mother Teresa to open, the personal witness of him meeting with the gypsies, looking at them and embracing them changed the way the people of Vatican City and Rome saw the gypsies. He gave those of us who watched him an embodied reminder of their innate human dignity. He modeled for us the way we were supposed to treat them and everyone else on this planet.
He did that just as powerfully in his personal interactions with his staff, with the people he met as he traveled the world, and with some of the Church’s and humanity’s greatest enemies. He taught us through his knowledgeable, respectful, and loving actions how we should treat others. Because it was a lesson we saw lived and not just preached, it was a lesson we learned to live as well.
A Prayer for Help in Right Action
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.
—St. Augustine
Questions for Reflection
Describe a situation where an action someone else took had a lasting consequence for you. What was the consequence? How was it good? How was it bad? Had that person acted differently, how would the consequences have been different?
Knowledge, respect, and love motivated John Paul II’s actions. What other attitudes, good and bad, can motivate a person’s actions? Think of your own actions over the past few days. What are some of the attitudes that have motivated those actions? By what do you want to be motivated? Write them on a paper card and put it where you can see it during the day.
How do you typically think of your employees or team? How well do you know them? What motivates your interactions with them? To put it another way: what makes you happy in their regard? What is a good next step for each of your employees in their professional development? What three steps can you take at the office to better pursue that good?
Epigraph. Encyclical Letter on the Church’s Moral Teaching Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), 71.
Chapter Eight
Live a Balanced Life:
All Things in Moderation
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
All men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.
—Blessed John Paul II
Whenever I hear speculation in the newspaper that Cardinal so-and-so is vying for the throne of Peter, I shake my head and laugh. No cardinal wants to be pope. They know too well what goes into it, what the office demands. The work is endless, the responsibilities bone-crushing. There’s no end to it, save death.
There’s also the loneliness that can come with being pope. When you’re elected to the papac
y, you have to leave your old life behind. You give up everything, even your name. The new name you take when you ascend to the Chair of Peter symbolizes the new identity you’re assuming. The old you is gone. The new you lives according to the demands of the Church and the expectations of Vatican protocol.
John Paul II, however, didn’t completely buy into that line of thinking. When he could, he fought it. He didn’t want to stop enjoying life because he was now the pope. He didn’t want to cut off ties to so much of what he loved. So, in the midst of Vatican demands and expectations, he carved out a space for himself in which he could find the peace, recreation, and laughter that he knew were essential to a well-ordered life.
Sports occupied a large chunk of that space.
Throughout his life, John Paul II was an avid sportsman. He loved skiing, hiking, canoeing, swimming—anything that kept him outdoors. As a priest, professor, and even bishop, he took his students and friends on long camping trips. That was his idea of a vacation—a week in the woods. All that activity left its mark on him. I remember the first time I saw him in plain clothes rather than his cassock. It was only then that I realized how strong and well built he actually was. Cassocks can hide an awful lot.
The Pope & the CEO Page 12
