Thoughts on Ignatian Leadership

It’s Friday. Thanksgiving is over and everyone is waking up feeling guilty or grateful or both. I’m at my parent’s house with my three younger siblings. The morning sounds the same as it always has, with the steady rumbling from the washer and dryer and my mom talking on the phone from the other room. We are figuring out the car situation and sorting out which contact lenses, all stored in the same white-and-green cases and scattered on the bathroom counter, belong to whom.  

I’m starting a new job on Monday at the Jesuit Province of New England in the development department. As I explain to more family members and friends my new position I’m realizing how difficult it is to articulate exactly who the Jesuits are, what they do and why I’m excited to work for them. So for now, I’ll start with a book.

Chris Lowney, best-selling author, managing director at JP Morgan, and former Jesuit seminarian, recently published Why He Leads the Way He Leads: Lessons from the First Jesuit Pope. The book introduces six overarching leadership concepts that emerged from closely following and assessing the new pope’s actions and interviewing those who knew Francis well. These principles can be applied to all leadership situations and challenges, from investment banking to parenting, and begin crack the surface of why the Jesuits have grown into a force of 17,000 serving communities all around the world. Lowney argues that to be strong leaders we must commit ourselves to paradoxes: looking deep inside ourselves while reaching out toward the world, honoring tradition while pushing toward the future and standing in our beliefs while detaching ourselves from outcomes. Strong leaders are those who trust in themselves and in their community's ability to make the world better.  

I was reminded of these principles yesterday when reading about Scott Macaulay, a vacuum repair man from Melrose who hosted his 28^th Thanksgiving dinner in a Baptist Church for anyone who had nowhere else to go. Macaulay began the dinners after his parents went through an ugly divorce and he stayed home on Thanksgiving, by himself, to avoid inflicting greater conflict. It was a horrible feeling, sitting alone in his living room while the rest of the world gathered around tables and fireplaces. He decided that he would never have that experience again. The next Thanksgiving, he ran an advertisement in the local paper offering to cook dinner for up to twelve people. Since then, he’s served up to 89. What’s most appealing and intimating about the story is the lack of magic and frills that pushes Macaulay forward. His belief that no one should be alone and his understanding of what that feels like keeps him going—through the broken ovens, cranky guests and added costs.  I think this is what Saint Ignatius had in mind when he began the Society of Jesus: go to the root of fear and loneliness, make a meal out of it, and invite everyone you know and don’t know to take part. 

An Ode to Pleasant Surprises

It is now the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I just read the newspaper, un-rushed, in its almost entirety. The weathermen are predicting storms and have warned everyone to get where they need to go early. A young man, who made it his mission to travel public transit systems in different cities across the world, came to Boston and rode the entire MBTA in 8 hours and 16 minutes. I like picturing him bopping around from car to car, chatting up people who are going about their days dressed in suits and sweatpants, towing around yoga mats, briefcases, paper grocery bags and bouquets of flowers. A Harvard coding class is increasing in popularity among all kinds of students, from philosophy majors to pre-med. Nicolas Sparks released a new novel. And Alison Rimm, former SVP for strategic planning and information management at MGH, shared her thoughts on how make a personal strategic plan for happiness.

In this apartment, my roommate is cleaning her bedroom while listening to reruns of This American Life. She sweeps the floor, collects and washes forgotten water glasses and recycles old papers, magazines and used envelopes. Both of us read an article about the productivity habits of successful CEOs and business people and decide, collectively, that we are most productive when our day isn’t sliced up and calculated, but instead when we have space to think, appreciate and be surprised. 

I have a lot to be thankful for this year: I just got a new job after three years of growth, challenge and learning at another job and have these few days before Thanksgiving to do whatever I want. My whole family is home and healthy, including the golden retriever, Macey, now 13 and a half. I also have all of the ingredients needed to make Pecan Pie.

We all have these overarching parts of our lives to be grateful for: family, friends, opportunity, etc., etc., etc. But it’s also through the intentional appreciation of the small things that can give us lots of joy and energy. Like the consistency of the group of older Italian men who gather outside of T & C Convenience on Somerville Ave at 6 AM each morning to chat, smoke cigarettes and sip coffee from paper cups; the cashier at Star Market who gave me two dollars in quarters for my laundry when she herself was running short; the coincidence of just enough postage stamps; and the unique smell and warmth of carrying towels fresh out of the dryer up the stairs.

Thich Nhat Hahn writes: “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”  If you let it, the earth will kiss you back.