I stand before you today as a representative of what may very well be the absolute smallest and most misunderstood minority group on the planet: Jungian administrators.
Peter Mudd, Jungian AnalystAppearing first in the Round Table Review
I stand before you today as a representative of what may very well be the absolute smallest and most misunderstood minority group on the planet: Jungian administrators. The very notion is like one hand clapping! I am a living oxymoron, an opus contra naturam...at least within the Jungian universe. This minority has the peculiar and unenviable fate of being regarded as an alien species within our own community because we can actually imagine a unity between individual and institutional realms of existence. If you've read Jung, you know that he, and most Jungians for that matter, have the most profound dislike for, and abiding suspicion of, any gathering of more than two persons, and frequently display a unique brand of hostile tolerance for the necessary evil of organizations and those who administer them. To Jungians, and to many others, institutions are simply anathema because their intrinsically political natures and mechanical administrative processes are regarded as menacingly running counter to individual freedom. And for Jung and the vast majority of those who follow a path similar to his, unconditional individual freedom is considered an utterly inviolable right to be protected at any cost; anything that poses a threat to that right is mistrusted, criticized and even despised. Let me give you two very powerful examples of the attitude I'm trying to describe, both drawn from Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Jung says:
Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, violent animal. The bigger the organization the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity. (p. 153)
or
Our admiration for great organizations dwindles when once we become aware of the other side of the wonder; the tremendous piling up and accentuation of all that is primitive in man, and the unavoidable destruction of his individuality in the interests of the monstrosity that every great organization in fact is. (p. 153-54)
These very intensely felt and sarcastically phrased "evaluations" do not come as great comfort to me and buoy me up in my administrative and organizational efforts as the Executive Director of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. In fact, if I took them completely to heart as utterly correct characterizations of institutional life, I'd have to resign my post immediately, seek absolution for my heretical ways, and go wandering in the desert in search of a new personal destiny.
Though I don't consider Jung's assessment of the nature of organizations to be an infallible pronouncement, the sad fact is that what he asserts with such certain conviction is essentially true in the majority of cases. Institutions do, by their very nature, tend to impinge on or restrict personal freedom. In their attempts at efficiency, cost effectiveness, maximum productivity, and even fairness, they base their policies and operational strategies on averages, statistics and abstractions; and in so doing conjure up the illusion of an average or typical customer, vendor or employee. And this illusion, which is then taken to be real, is almost always distorted, insulting and even destructive. Institutions are very much like instinctually driven animals in many ways. They have a marked tendency toward conservatism, routine and repetition; and regularly react with a primitive annihilating violence toward change or any other force that threatens their stability or security. And this is despite the fact that almost every institution itself was born of innovative change wrought by experiment, discovery, necessity or revolution. It is a stunning irony that institutional life, which can so deaden the creativity and animation of the individual soul, almost always can trace its roots and origin to that very same location: the individual soul.
The process of institutional development, in my opinion, has from time immemorial been catalyzed and powered by the inspirations carried by the soul, and when the soul's participation diminishes for any number of reasons, so does the vitality of the institution. When the soul is honored, protected and given the latitude to express its point of view, the potential for creative efforts to develop and blossom is enormously expanded; but at the same time, inviting the soul to the party exponentially increases the possibility of disaster and chaos. The human "chemicals" or "substances" that the soul secretes are volatile and explosive, and when they combine, if their proportions are not right or the container that holds them is not strong enough, they can and do blow the roof off.
Now I've suggestively wandered into some thoughts about what the soul can do; and at this point, before I go any further, I think it's a good time to try to offer a sense of what I consider soul orthe soul to be. What do I mean when I say soul? We've heard alot of things said about soul over the last few days, and all of it is true and all of it is relevant. The soul is numinous, it's lyrical, it's enigmatic... it inspires, it infuses, it guides... it confounds when patronized, it poisons when denied, and it rewards when it's welcomed. To all this I say, "Yes, that's right, I agree," and to all this I'd like to add another point of view, or really what may be better called a functional emphasis, as the central feature of my sense of this peculiar psychological phenomenon. And that is, that the soul is the agent or active element of the core of being that resides in each of us awaiting its next opportunity for incarnation.
This core of being, what Jungians refer to as the self, is described by Jung as "an incomparable uniqueness", " a separate, indivisible unity or wholeness" that exists in each one of us from the beginning of our lives and unfolds throughout our lifetimes in a process he termed individuation. But this is not a uniqueness or unity that exists in a vacuum of grand isolation and separates us from our fellow humans. By virtue of our being human, we are members of a common species; and so paradoxically, the core of being which houses our individual uniqueness also contains our essential sameness which links all of us in an indissoluble bond of kinship. As Jung says in his definition of individuation in his book, Psychological Types:
Since the individual is not only a single, separate being but, by his/her very existence, also presupposes a collective relationship, the process of individuation must lead to a more intensive and universal collective solidarity, and not to mere isolation. (p. 562)
This means then that individuation necessarily includes a collective, dare I say, corporate evolutionary aspect. In other words, in order to become my unique self I must also recognize and embrace my species solidarity. So for Jung, and on this point I agree with him completely, the mission in every human life is to fully become one's self by creatively coming to terms with the paradoxical elements of human nature. Now I could go into great detail about this process of individuation and the intricate dynamics that occur within it, but that's too far from the main point of my topic. So I want to propose a premise that I will ask you to accept, or at least tolerate, as a way into my thoughts about the politics of being in institutional life.
The premise is this: That the core of being or self is an innate unconscious potential in the individual that must be consciously discovered, engaged, developed and integrated by the ego in order to be truly actualized; and that this process of discovery, engagement, development and integration is choreographed in a dance whose steps span a lifetime. This premise is the most fundamental and central element in analytical psychology and to me is Jung's greatest contribution to understanding the often bewildering nature of being human. It defines a process that is absolutely meant to happen, that is, to use one of Jung's favorite words, ineluctable, meaning compelled to fulfill a unique inherent destiny. I want to emphasize here that I am imagining this process as one that is intensely lived in and through everyday life in the world. It does not, indeed, by it's very nature, it cannot, take place in isolation. It presupposes and requires others. So even though Jung with some justification might curse the leveling effect of institutional or collective life, it remains a necessary context or condition for the individuation process.
So, you may ask, "What's soul got to do with it?" Well, as I said, soul is the active element in the core of being. It's the pitchman, the attention-getter, the animator, the guide, the seducer, the trouble maker, the straw boss, the messenger, and the dance instructor. The soul conveys the steps of becoming and does everything it can to draw the ego into the rhythm of the dance, to guide the ego into intensive engagement with the core of being as its most essential responsibility and most important life task. Each of us must strive to bring the fullest expression to both the "incomparable uniqueness" and "universal collective solidarity" that define the core of being...but only if we partner with the soul will we succeed.
Like it or not, my friends, achieving "incomparable uniqueness" demands that we acknowledge our utterly fundamental interdependence and recognize that we are a living organic corporation. We are an organization, we are an institution and we can never escape that immutable reality. We are, each and all, individual mandatory shareholders in the human enterprise and though we may attempt to sell or give away our shares, or get control of those of our brothers and sisters, all holdings remain eternally equal and constant because we are all forever inescapably human. Monopoly and divestment of these human shares are but different forms of the same illusion, namely, the belief that we can somehow escape the vulnerability and suffering of the human condition.
Jung refers to this human cartel in many different ways. Sometimes he describes it in terms of the collective unconscious, a kind of inherited structural linkage with all humanity not so dissimilar from the Internet or information super highway. Sometimes he uses alchemical metaphors such as the Unus Mundus, where all aspects of creation are linked by common origin and common destiny, or the scintillae or soul sparks which are emitted by the world soul and take up residence in each of us as the invisible sun or imago dei that makes us one with the creator and creation. These are but images of our essential unity as a race. Ironically then, Jung ultimately also asserts that we are a conglomerate of immense, perhaps even infinite proportion. So why does he rail against the very thing we are, and have no control over being, out of one side of his mouth, and speak ecstatically about human unity and kinship out of the other? This question captures the exquisitely painful paradox of the nature of human and institutional life that is the basic and eternal fault line along which every personal and organizational split occurs, and leads us directly to a consideration of how the soul's participation in corporate politics can re-conceptualize and therefore bring new meaning and sense of purpose to the agonies and the ecstasies these politics endlessly spawn.
Whether it is consciously acknowledged or not, every institution is founded upon what is commonly referred to as a "mission". The mission, simply put, is the overarching purpose or raison d'etre for the existence of the organization. It tells the world what binds the members of institution's community together because it embodies the values and aspirations they hold in common and seek to actualize. Almost always the mission is formally articulated in a so called "mission statement" that attempts to convey why the institution has been created and what it hopes to accomplish. It could, in a way, be described as the soul statement of the corporation because it expresses vital elements of its core of being that seeks actualization through the efforts of those who share in its intentions. For example, the mission statement of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago reads: " In individual and world alike...to inspire, educate, and sustain the human striving for wholeness and personal integrity in the spirit of C.G. Jung and analytical psychology." This tells us something important about the C.G. Jung Institute that enables us to quickly determine whether or not it reflects our own striving for selfhood and so offers us a meaningful opportunity to individuate. It helps us decide if this is a community we want to consider as a resource for that very personal mission, if it is a community we might want to belong to and participate in.
But missions and mission statements are only the beginnings or premises of institutional life and the reality is that they are extremely problematic. As I noted earlier, almost every institution can trace its roots and origin to the response of the soul to an individual's search for self which leads to discovery and change. This frequently means that the mission reflects that single individual's journey, for example, the Institute's mission includes the words "in the spirit of C. G. Jung". Other individuals then recognize the mission as resembling or expressing essential aspects of their experience, and so a sense of kinship develops around a felt sense of common ground. So far so good. However, because we know, or at least believe, that each individual person's core of being necessarily holds an ineluctable " incomparable uniqueness" we know that sooner or later the common ground must give way to different individual paths. Here the beautiful abstract generality of mission collides with the harsh reality of interpretation and implementation. Here begins the conflict and churning and competition among souls striving to advance the selves they serve. Here Jung's words about violent animals and monstrosities find their inspiration. All I need say to make my point here is "Bosnia" or "The Middle East", or to bring it closer to home, "The C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago".
What can save us from the murderous chemistry of competing individual destinies that seems so inevitable? I will give a partial answer to this question immediately and honestly and from personal experience by saying, "Sometimes nothing can save us from it. Sometimes we have to pull the trigger." Sometimes the turmoil that arises from competing human desires is only settled in violence and death, be it figurative or literal. And even then it is not really settled. It goes this way because we have not yet come far enough in our understanding of ourselves to know the means of doing otherwise. It may well be that what is inherent in our nature will not permit it. I say this as a caveat to the more hopeful prescription I now want to offer because naivete is not, to my way of thinking, a useful ingredient in the medicine we need to swallow.
It seems to me that our only hope is a peculiar perspective of consciousness that simultaneously holds together in mind the paradoxical elements of the self or core of being, namely, incomparable uniqueness and species solidarity. This is an exhausting undertaking because as these aspects of the self vie for the attention and identification of the ego, an enormous tension is generated by their intrapsychic competition. As the struggle between the urge to fulfill individual destiny (incomparable uniqueness) and the driving conservatism of the instincts (species solidarity) besieges the ego, the danger of a fundamental split in the personality is everpresent. This split can take place internally and divide and impoverish the personality or it can be displaced into the outer world where it confounds relational life at home or on the job. Even worse, and unfortunately all too common, is the split which simultaneously inhabits inner and outer realms and creates a pernicious, tormenting chaos that drains and damages both the individual and the community.
Another way to conceptualize this taxing competitive tension is to liken the urge to achieve incomparable uniqueness to an inherent unconscious narcissistic, self preservational or subjectively oriented tendency and the pull toward species solidarity to an inherent unconscious altruistic, self sacrificial or objectively oriented one. In and of themselves, these tendencies are natural and benign and the terms narcissistic and altruistic should not be laden with the highly charged connotations they currently have in our culture. Rather, I am thinking of them here as value-neutral descriptions of inherent structural tendencies, not unlike Jung's introversion and extraversion. This is not to say, however, that habitual and entrenched over-reliance on one or the other tendency does not generate pathology. It certainly does. In fact, it is precisely this kind of overdetermined intrapsychic organization which pre-empts the quality of consciousness so desperately needed to prevent or reverse personal and institutional splitting. Not surprisingly then, the necessary medicine calls for relatively equal parts of narcissism and altruism or, if you prefer, self preservation and self sacrifice and it demands that they be consciously integrated. Only this medicine can bring about a quality of awareness that co-presently holds the volatile elements of our own paradoxical human nature in dynamic balance and does not collapse into defensive identification with either of its polar tendencies. This kind of collapse into polarized identification may provide temporary respite to a beleaguered ego, but it can never bring a lasting resolution to conflict. Ultimately, it is only an escape into illusion.
While this balanced conscious perspective is surely an asset in all areas of human endeavor, it is perhaps most crucial in institutional life where interpersonal affiliation is primarily mission driven and the mission is based upon ideological, economic, and other motives rather than purely familial or social ones. By this I mean that institutions lack the naturally cohesive factor of blood kinship or neighborly familiarity which bind groups together and are more likely to generate tolerance. Furthermore, institutions are almost always characterized by formalized structures of governance such as charters, by-laws, policies, procedures, hierarchies, internal systems and so on, that are intended to provide cohesion, and organize and implement the institutional mission. But because these structures tend, by their very nature, to ignore individual differences almost completely and pursue the dubious ideal of treating all persons and situations as absolutely void of individuality, they have a seemingly negative impact on efforts toward incomparable uniqueness. One cynical way of saying this is that institutions strive to make everyone equally unhappy or to leave no one unoffended. Because institutions lack blood kinship or neighborly familiarity and the tolerance it can engender, interaction with this kind of entity has a cooler, more impersonal tone and can easily summon feelings of being slighted, insulted, attacked or even annihilated, and precipitate a split into defensive and retaliative polar identification. No wonder Jung rages as he does! And no wonder we need such a very specialized conscious orientation when we negotiate the politics of being in institutional life!
And who is the agent of this specialized conscious orientation which seeks to balance the often greedy and paranoid unconscious forces of self-preservation with the mindless self negation of unconscious self-sacrifice? You guessed it, none other than the soul. Like the angels in Wim Wenders' film, Wings of Desire, the soul is continually exhorting us toward our dual destiny to become increasingly evolved individuals and an ever evolving species. The soul seeks to foster a profound attitudinal transformation that re-prioritizes the ego's myopic agenda to reflect simultaneously the eternal vision of the self. Because the soul is the messenger who travels between the conscious and unconscious realms, it alone can deliver the messages that will provide us the means to balance and the opportunity to actualize the core of being. And so we must strain consciously and with conviction to listen to the soul and struggle to become the beings that the soul informs us that we are. We must refuse the seductive illusion of collapsed identification with polarized aspects of self and seek to achieve what Jung called the transcendent function, a capacity to endure the fire of the creative process and facilitate a redeeming synthesis of conflicting polarities. The word "transcendent" is misleading here since it is commonly, and mistakenly understood to imply an "above it all" detachment, and I want, in no way, to leave that impression. The etymology of transcendent reveals its true meaning, "to climb across" from the Latin, trans cendere, and so tells us that this ability means not "above it all" indifferent detachment, but simultaneous, engaged connection between the ego and the paradoxical core of being we call the self. It means sweating out a solution that requires the ego's involvement while suspending its control. It means inviting the soul to speak and taking its counsel to heart. It means an unorthodox partnership with the ineffable.
Now this idea of achieving the transcendent function may seem at first to belong exclusively to the individual realm, as it has the qualities of a private conversation between the aspects of the person in service of the individuation process. After all, it does occur within the individual. But because the core of being also necessarily includes species kinship, there is an equal mandate for collective individuation. And so I want to argue that the transcendent function can and must be developed within the collective or institutional realm in service of this ineluctable element of human nature. This means that the ongoing processes of conducting business are reshaped by including what could be termed a "reflective pause" as a regular feature. Those charged with the responsibility of implementing the institutional mission would clear a psychological space wherein they would strive to suspend personal ambitions and narcissistic aims in order to make room for the soul to speak. Whatever then "appeared" or "spoke" within that space would be considered as a potentially vital amendment to the matter at hand. Though it remains essentially the same psychological process, the establishment of the transcendent function in the institutional setting requires a unique set of conditions (because of the collective emphasis) which I'd like to outline in very practical terms by answering the question, "How do we get the soul to come to the party?"
The first and most basic condition for getting the process underway is to amend the mission of the institution so it reflects the paradoxical priorities of the self: incomparable uniqueness and universal collective solidarity. In other words, the organization must formally commit itself to individuation as an essential and unalterable feature of its raison d'etre. This, of course, seems a highly unlikely prospect. How many institutions would consider such an amendment? Not many, I suspect. This kind of proposition really rattles the cages of those unwieldy, stupid, violent animals. It threatens everything because it re-contextualizes institutional goals by inviting the unpredictability of the soul to the party. Now, before this begins to seem to you some utopian pipedream, let me remind us all that the amended mission that I'm proposing must integrate nearly equal parts of self-preservation and self-sacrifice. This means that it must embody and hold the tension of paradoxical elements that reside in the self. So the revised mission cannot be one that turns General Motors into a gigantic sensitivity group that makes three cars a week while helping its employees "discover themselves". Rather it means that General Motors consciously realizes and factors into its operational processes, in appropriate measure, the inescapable reality that people are driven to become who they are meant to become; and that reasonably assisting that process actually supports and serves the mission of producing and selling wonderful cars.
Though this proposal may seem an unlikely one, it actually offers the organization tremendous potential gains. By re-imagining its mission in a way that is congruent with the actual core of being, the organization invites the soul's presence and acknowledges and honors the deepest of all human motivations: to become who we are meant to be. When this conviction re-vitalizes the institutional mission it establishes the necessary condition for the participation of the whole person and with that quality of participation comes enormous creative potential, and at the same time, the danger of chaos. Which of these paths is taken will be determined entirely by the capacity to contain the tension and pressure exerted by the soul's active presence. In other words, by the level to which the transcendent function has developed within those who share and implement the mission. I'll have much more to say about this when I discuss the nature of effective leadership in a few minutes.
But any mission, as I noted earlier, is only a beginning abstract premise. Even a mission that is re-imagined and re-vitalized along the lines I've just proposed can fail miserably if implementation gives way to polarity. This means that tangible, structural expressions of the mission such as policies, chains of command, procedures and the like must incarnate the fundamental intention of the mission to serve individual and organizational individuation alike. Authoritarian systems of governance and administration, which tend to be conservatively organized by the general archetypal norms of the instincts, must be tempered in a way that invites the involved participation of the individual soul, but that participation must at the same time be grounded in respectful awareness of the rightful predominance of the collective aspect of the mission. Let me say explicitly here that I strongly believe that the mission and its implementation should not propose or promise to serve these individuation processes in equal measure. That promise is unrealistic and unachievable. In institutional life, the altruistic, self-sacrificing impulse must have the upper hand because institutions serve collective aspirations primarily. An institution, however, can never exclude or ignore the narcissistic, self-preservational impulse of the individual if it wants to survive. If it does, sooner or later it will collapse in upon itself for lack of vitality.
But how can this kind of participation that embraces both individual and collective striving be facilitated? Let's imagine, for example, that we're dealing with a working group such as a board of trustees, a staff or work team that is charged with vital institutional responsibility. How can this co-present perspective be incarnated? One method that makes a crucial beginning, and I hesitate to refer to it as a method, is reasonable self-revelation. The reason that I shudder to describe this as a "method" is that method implies a quality of impersonal application of a procedure. It has a mechanical feel that is not at all what I'm suggesting. Quite to the contrary, what I'm proposing carries significant personal risk as its core element! In this "method" the volatile secretions of the soul are purposely squeezed into the open where they can co-mingle with those of the other members of the group and begin to create a chemistry that can either inspire or poison institutional life. I call it "reasonable self-revelation" because it must be characterized by reasonable measure, not by rash excess, in the depth of disclosure. Too much secretion (and I call your attention to the presence of the word "secret" within secretion) is dangerous and potentially explosive.
When members of the team or group consciously reveal important, formative elements of their own personal journeys, their individual paths toward "incomparable uniqueness" become more visible to others and so offer a clearer understanding of behavior that might otherwise confound, irritate and impede progress. I have seen this process of self-revelation ease tensions as "the lights go on" and illuminate what had previously been an annoying or bewildering trait or style of interaction that provoked projection, intolerance and retaliation. I have seen it bind a group together in empathy and respect, as the stories of actual in-the-world living and suffering and perseverance replace the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the opaque surfaces of the persona. This experience, and that's a much better word than method, begins a process of trust building that is the foundation of both institutional and personal success and the sine qua non for the soul to feel welcomed.
The groups that comprise and govern institutional life need to take the risk of drawing back the veil of secrecy that so often obscures the deeper self in order to glimpse and appreciate what the soul is trying to push forward in each of their members. They need to make the remarkable confession to each other that we are all human. Here is where true common ground can be found, deep connection forged, and the core of being provided the soil in which to grow. Here also is where envy and betrayal can spawn and spill out the toxicity that Jung described with such vehement contempt. I do not offer this element of my prescription without reservation or fear, because I know full well that the shadow is all too real and will inevitably make its appearance. Even so, I would suggest that it is precisely and only this level of risk that can provide the intense heat needed to forge the links that can hold a group of striving souls in common purpose. The risk simply must be taken.
Self-revelation must be careful and thoughtful, gradual and respectful and it must be ongoing. Neither speed nor volume should be pushed beyond the unique individual level of tolerance of the revealer. If we have even an inkling of the soul's work in a person's destiny, it becomes more possible to assist and support that crucial mission because we are trusted and somehow included in the process. We each want this same assistance and support, or at the very least, a measure of freedom and tolerance in our own striving. With this gift to each other, we push forward as individuals and as a species. It must be cherished and defended as a sacred treasure and repaired with honesty and forgiveness if it is violated. Let me mention here, however, that I am well aware that sometimes defending it will lead to a kind of "holy violence" because honesty and forgiveness do not work universally, a point I'll take up later. But more often than not, inclusion and involvement lead us to investment. Mutuality and interdependence are the positive forces that can develop and generate incredible synergy and creativity within institutional life and achieve unimaginable successes.
But this revelation of and empathic attention to individual soul work must be in the right measure. It must always be held in co-present awareness that the collective aspiration of the organization is the proper focal point and its health must be placed above that of the individual. By this I mean that the altruistic aspect of the institutional mission must be considered primary and deserving of the self-sacrifice of its individual members. This is perhaps what Jung and many of us find so chilling and alienating about institutional life. It always demands that we suffer on its behalf and that is clearly a narcissistic affront. There is a strong dose of impersonal indifference in this to be sure, but if we now recall the commitment to the re-vitalized mission which insists on the inclusion of the individual soul, and we truly live that mission, this leveling indifference can never become absolute. Indeed, without the soul's participation, this indifference would ultimately destroy itself and rightfully so. Another way of saying this is to assert that the institution must also suffer on behalf of the individual.
Once the individual soul is welcomed, honored and meaningfully yoked with the collective life of the institution, every process of governance must reflect that yoking and so radically transform the institutional culture. Meetings, development of policy, budgeting, personnel practices...everything!...must be informed and infused by the paradoxical mission. Decision-making in this new kind of culture would better be termed discernment because the process would be more considered, more reflective, more searching; it would seek to facilitate organizational strivings while fostering, or at least not injuring, individual strivings. It would invite the soul to speak and it would carefully weigh its messages. It would suffer its way to an answer whenever necessary.
There is much more I could say about practical ways to "institutionalize" the inclusion of the soul. About how meetings can be run and how policy development and budgeting can be organized, but my time is running short. I will say that from the outside the process would look much as it always has, but the working atmosphere changes subtlely but profoundly when the soul is invited. Listening reflects the quality of discernment I noted earlier. Questions arise from a much deeper level of being and concern. And exchanges and interactions become respectfully collaborative because they are formed by the recognition that they offer sacred opportunities for the incarnation of being. When this atmosphere infuses process, solutions can achieve a greater depth and sense of satisfaction. But this is not an atmosphere easy to maintain. It is fragile and can be dispelled by either too much narcissistically directed energy or too much altruistically directed energy. Happily and paradoxically, this atmosphere, though incredibly sensitive to current conditions can always be restored with the proper attitude of the ego because the soul is so persistent. Think again of Wim Wenders' angels... omnipresent and ever active...whispering and inviting us into the dance. To draw on another recent film image, "If we build it, it (the soul) will come." If we trust the unorthodoxy of the soul, life realizes itself.
But the building of this atmospheric space is an exhausting effort and sustaining it is to identify with Atlas. It is an overwhelming burden and a crushing responsibility. And when I squarely face this stark, often thankless reality I sympathetically understand Jung's rage and resistance; but ultimately I must reject his point of view. To me, we have no choice, and to willingly grapple with this impossible mission is the defining essence of leadership and it greatest challenge. Leadership, and I say here explicitly and emphatically that I do not tie leadership exclusively to hierarchical status, position or office, is the willingness to be an instrument of human destiny; to serve, not without tremendous, grinding conflict and regular churning inner division, as the protector and facilitator of the mission that embraces partnership with the unpredictability of the soul. In the terms I offered earlier, this means enduring the stress and pressures exerted by the hydraulics of the transcendent function in an attempt to provide a bridge for the soul to cross.
What does this bridging look like practically speaking? Let me describe just a few forms it takes as I move toward concluding this presentation. Each example springs from a combination of qualities all of which derive from and converge in the core of being. Each, you'll notice, combines a dynamic balance that serves both the attainment of "incomparable uniqueness" and the realization of "universal collective solidarity". Each emphasizes an essential element of the attitude birthed by consciously containing the tension generated by the polarities of self-preservation and self-sacrifice. Together they form the basis of what I would term "enlightened leadership."
The first of these forms I'd call pragmatic empathy. This is a process of limited identification with one's co-workers based on an active and ongoing awareness of their striving for "incomparable uniqueness," but subservient to the collective aspirations of the institution. When factored into everyday operations, this connects the work tasks of job descriptions and duties to personal individuation. It recognizes the basic reality that work is yet another environment and opportunity for self-realization even as it facilitates the creation and delivery of a product or service. Based on the self-revelations of the individual and the living relationship between people in the institution, this quality weighs how the experiences of individual history have shaped personality and interactive style, and makes allowance for their influence. Psychological phenomena such as projection, transference, complex dynamics and repetition compulsion are real and active agents in institutional dynamics and deserve not only reasonable tolerance but integration into awareness as natural, legitimate and utterly real work conditions. Ignoring them or creating sterile, uniform personnel practices and work rules does not make these human factors disappear. Rather, these negative interventions drive human problems into hiding where they're destructive impact is more likely to grow to virulent and explosive levels. While personal idiosyncrisies cannot be permitted free reign, supervision and work rule policies can be pragmatically guided by this kind of empathy and can simultaneously motivate investment and loyalty. Here, I'm not talking about manipulation of the person through knowledge of his or her personality dynamics (though that's a real shadow possibility), I'm talking about empathy with a pragmatic purpose.
Necessary judgment describes the next form of leadership I want to suggest as a bridging between institutional life and the self. This quality of soul oriented leadership concerns the inevitable fact that corporate politics unrelentingly demand that many, many decisions must be made, and that with those decisions lives are significantly and crucially impacted. Especially where hierarchical realities such as evaluation, hiring, promotion, demotion, re-assignment, termination and the like are concerned, necessary judgment becomes a profound responsibility as it directly affects the basic survival and self esteem of the employee and his or her family. True leadership calls for the resolute acceptance and clear ownership of this responsibility and the certain recognition that it cannot be delegated. Its very nature is one of deep and sincere discernment of direction. Necessary judgment recognizes that it is fallible, but it is not paralyzed by the possibility of being wrong. Rather it stands ready to receive correction from the soul or from others and to offer reparation when it has missed the mark.
Closely related to necessary judgment is self-reflective authority. This leadership quality is centered in the recognition that authority necessarily confers power and power always tempts with the seductive fantasy of omnipotence. Here the shadow of the leader is drawn into the dance and can overwhelm institutional life. The illusions of omniscience and infallibility must be countered by careful, constant self monitoring and criticism and sincere, ongoing active consultation with others. An occupational hazard of hierarchical leadership is its magnetism for projection and transference. Frequently, a leader's actual personality goes unseen because it is buried beneath mounds of transferences both positive and negative. Savior and devil, genius and imbecile, moral beacon and corrupt wheeler-dealer, mother and father, brother and sister are just a few of the faces painted over the real person. One danger, of course, is identification with the transference image and the attempt to fulfill the pattern it insists on, or conversely, the absorption into a constant effort to deflect the projection. Both pitfalls draw energy away from attending to the true mission of the institution. This constant barrage of imagined identities can isolate, inflate, torment, enrage, disorient and perplex even the leader who is conscious of this occupational hazard; for those unconscious of it the fate is certain failure. And this unconsciousness, before it leads to that inevitable failure, leads to destructive acting out and endless configurations and contortions of relationships that corrode institutional life. A shorthand way of describing this danger is to say that preoccupied concern with surface images or appearances neglects the soul and eclipses integrity-driven striving for substance. When authority is self-reflective, one accepts this darker dimension of leadership and suffers its inevitable twistings and turnings, but remains anchored, albeit uneasily, to one's center in one's authentic self. This is one of the central ordeals of leadership that has destroyed more than a few leaders and more than a few institutions.
To continue this chain of qualities that offers us a sense of leadership allied with the soul, I now want to speak of a link with darkness, which is intimately intertwined with pragmatic empathy, necessary judgment, and self-reflective authority. I want to speak of what I call courageous power. This element of leadership, which takes up the notion of "holy violence" mentioned earlier, is a conscious and direct use of power to negate in service of the institutional mission. You can see already that the qualifier, "in service of the institutional mission" is loaded with difficulty and danger. Leadership is charged with the exact same responsibility as the Chicago Police Department, "To serve and protect." And like the police, leaders must sometimes make the decision to use lethal force. Thankfully, the force I refer to here is not primarily directed toward bodily life, but it is always directed toward psychological life. Inevitably, there are situations in the life of an institutional community that call for a kind of killing. People involved in the vital activities of an organization can fall into behavior and entanglements that are inimical and destructive to that organization's mission. The direction they seek to inspire may be well-intentioned but wrong, or it may be clearly self-serving and egomaniacal, or somewhere in between. Nevertheless, if it is a direction that seriously imperils the health of the organization it must definitely be negated. The preference in this kind of situation is clearly for the use of discernment, a consideration of the possibility that the proposed direction is a message from the soul, that leads to a negotiated bloodless outcome and strengthens the institutional fabric. But when this kind of process is attempted in good faith and fails, the dark choice must be painstakingly considered and used when all other means have been exhausted. Firings, impeachments, removals from office, divorces, killings in self defense are all examples of the use of this kind of deadly force. Leadership, whether in personal or institutional life must be linked to this dark option and be willing to use it...judiciously and strangely enough, compassionately. Without an awareness of the presence of limits and death, human behavior would quickly devolve into total narcissiam and the beauty and meaning of life would be diminished drastically.
The fifth and last link in this chain of leadership qualities is magical perseverance. To me this most ordinary and unglamorous quality is the most crucial and most transformative of all. That's why I refer to it as magical. I have practiced psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and organizational consultation for nearly twenty-five years. In all that time I can honestly say I have never seen a miracle that, in and of itself, has transformed anything or anyone. I have seen miracles though, that have initiated a transformative process that generated profound and far reaching change over time. Perseverance is the magical ingredient and without it personal or institutional change will almost always be short-lived or never happen at all. The soul can inspire and lead the process, but the conscious ego, that problematic little pea floating on the ocean of the self, is the only participant in the drama who can make it happen. And the ego, just like all psychological constructions is slow to change. In practical terms, this means the grind of repetition and the seemingly endless revisiting of issues must be borne with tolerance and patience. Anyone who has served on a committee knows exactly what I mean. So unglamorous, ordinary perseverance is the frustrating key to success. I don't like it either, but I've found nothing else that truly works
All these qualities are expressions or manifestations of the transcendent function in institutional life and it is the sacred responsibility of leadership to guard the balance and preserve the integrity of its eternal process. To consciously accept that burden, even at the risk of great personal expense, is the oath of leadership and the source of its rewards. If you are unwilling to embrace that peculiar reality, do not aspire to lead! Leadership of this kind is the only hope we have of preventing institutional life, really all life, from becoming the monstrosity Jung described and it comes only by way of the soul.
So, What's soul got to do with it? The not so surprising answer is, "Everything!" Without it we lapse into stagnation, fear, greed, violence or some other one-dimensionality of being. We become victims or perpetrators, or just plain bored and boring. We stop becoming, circle the wagons around what we've gained and now want to preserve, and slowly erode from the inside out. We lose sight of the true mission: To become fully and completely human, as paradoxical and bewildering as that may be.
Institutional life is nothing more and nothing less than another venue for becoming. Yes, it has its own kind of politics and its own kind of destructive potential, but it also offers us endless opportunities to seize hold of our inescapable human mission, as elusive as that may be. The venue is not the prime factor, the process of becoming ourselves, individually and together, is. If we surrender to the rhythm of that dance of becoming and commit to listening for the soul's instructions, life becomes what it is meant to be: a mystery so deep and so compelling that we may just find our way to eternity.
It's my belief that everything depends on that surrender and that commitment.
The Round Table Review
September/October 1997, V. 5, No. 1
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