TheSpiritualDimensionOfLeadership

I recently read The Spiritual Dimension of Leadership: 8 Key Principles of Leading More Effectively by Houston and Sokolow (2006).  

In this book, the authors articulate eight principles they believe can and should drive the thinking, the talk, and the behavior of those in leadership positions.  They assert that those principles are grounded in a spiritual understanding and can only be optimally practiced from a spiritual mindset. 

Those eight principles are:

1. Intention
2. Attention
3. Unique Gifts and Talents
4. Gratitude
5. Unique Life Lessons
6. Holistic Perspective
7. Openness
8. Trust

Resonating takeaways for me from this book:

• Our "energy" follows our attention.
• The most powerful messages are the simplest ones.
• Improvement is a daily undertaking.
• Expressing genuine gratitude is both an enriching and an empowering act.
• In life, the lesson follows the test. In school, the test follows the lesson. School should be more lifelike.
• Leadership is about connecting dots, seeing patterns, being open to other perspectives, understanding the whole and the parts all at once, and, somehow, enabling others to do the same.
• It's ALL personal.
• Biases, preconceptions, prejudices, anger, and resentment disable us.
• Build floors under others, not ceilings over them.
• WE get to choose the level of interaction on which we engage others.

My favorite quote:

^{“In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Martin Luther King, Speech from Birmingham Jail}