It's An Inside Job: Leadership lessons from Pope Francis

Like many others around the world, I mourn the loss of Pope Francis. I was raised Catholic, but left the church many years ago for my own reasons.

At times, I missed the church community and often craved for a place to worship. When Pope Francis came on the scene, I actually thought about returning to the church for the first time in years. I never got around to it! Life was happening, I was moving around a lot and it just never worked out.

So, I stayed with my yoga and meditation practice, and remained faithful to my 12-Step community. There, I found the compassion, empathy, and understanding I sought. I also cultivated a deeper awareness of myself: my emotions, my body, my mind, and my mindset.

There are many tributes and honorifics posted about Pope Francis now. The one that stuck with me, though (not surprisingly), was a leadership piece from guest contributor Suzanne Lucas, at Inc. In it, Ms. Lucas writes about the 5 leadership skills Pope Francis embodied, and how every leader can learn from his example.

I use the word "embodies" intentionally. That's the nature of what this post is about. The 5 leadership lessons from Pope Francis in the article are fantastic, but like many leadership articles, there is no mention of the "how" to build those skills.

It's an inside job. At least, that's been my experience. When I read the article I recognized right away some tangible, easy-to-integrate ways that leaders can begin to cultivate the kind of skills Pope Francis showed the world. These methods all involve exploring our inner world. With self-knowledge, comes knowledge of how to interact in the world around us. With self-knowledge, comes the type of selflessness Pope Francis demonstrated.

How do we get there? Let's explore...

Pope Francis greeting a crowd at the Vatican

1) Lead from among, not above

HOW: Embrace humility - start with commonalities between yourself and others.

The first leadership skill Ms. Lucas highlights is a story about how Pope Francis refused to stand on a podium at his first public gathering, preferring to be on the same level with the faithful who came to greet him in the Vatican that day.

It's a common leadership misconception that "mingling with the masses" will undermine perceived authority or display weakness.

It's actually the opposite.

Interacting with people at lower levels of your organization is seen as empathic, humble, grounded, kind, and personable. It gives the impression that you are approachable, which is a good thing.

How can you get there? First, recognize what humility is. It is not "humiliation", even though they come from the same root word. Mirriam-Webster says humility is defined as "freedom from pride or arrogance". It's one thing to know you did something well, and to value yourself for it. It's another thing to brag about that well done thing, or to talk to people as if they are clueless because you did that thing and they didn't.

Healthy relationships with ourselves, also include loving ourselves when we make mistakes, and forgiving ourselves when we tried our best but still didn't accomplish the goal we set out to do. If you are only offering loving thoughts to yourself when you do something well, pridefulness may grow.

Once you've integrated the definition of humility, explore your self-talk through writing or sitting in stillness. Is your self-talk achievement-oriented? Is your positive self-talk only centered around excellence? No need to change anything per se. For now, simply notice your tendencies.

Another way to develop humility is to make a quick assessment at the end of each day, about how things went. In this review, when you come to a situation that could have gone better, ask yourself "What was my part in that?" Or "How could I have done better with that?" After acknowledging this, make sure to follow-up with something you did well in that situation. Our relationships to ourselves must be balanced like anyone else's. If we constantly focus on our areas of improvement, we run the risk of degrading our self-esteem.

Secondly, begin finding commonalities with which you can engage people. If you have children, and your staff have children, ask them about their kids. Share funny stories, or resources. But be aware that there may be financial gaps between the kind of childcare you can afford, and what the other person can afford. You don't want to sound out-of-touch; you're goal is to build relationships. Mentioning a great resource for in-home childcare givers that costs $5,000/ week, might not be the best opening.

Here's something else you can try: If your office has a cafeteria, visit it a few times a week, and ask to sit with employees you don't know or don't know well. Engage in light conversation, asking the same kinds of opening questions you'd ask to get to know someone who you haven't met before. Do your best to eliminate "shop talk" or talk about your organization or industry. Once people feel comfortable with you, they will open up and you'll hear the organizational "scuttlebutt" anyway. And, after all, that's not your objective. Your objective is to develop friendlier relationships with people, and be seen as a leader who cares enough to listen and learn, and one who makes an effort to do so.

The key is consistency. If you do this only a few times a year, people will think you are odd. If you do this every Tuesday, people will learn quickly it's your customary habit.

If you try this method, people may look at it as "office hours" and try to approach you at the lunch table to talk about all manner of company woes. Gently remind them that you're enjoying your lunch with the folks you are sitting with, and instead to send an email/contact your assistant/setup a meeting to talk about it later. You are in charge of your availability, so if you are wanting to hear and understand people in your organization, then prioritize it and leave other issues for later.

One last tip on this: use whatever memory tool you need to remember names. The reason Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was so popular is that people LOVE to have their name said out loud by others. It is an acknowledgement of their own unique personhood. It makes people feel special. And, if you go out of your way to pronounce a tricky name, that goes a long way. If a person has a tricky name to pronounce, ask them to keep helping you until you get it right. Ask people ahead of time how they pronounce their names, especially if you'll be addressing them in a public setting.

You might think this takes too much time. My question for you is, if you were being given an award in front of a group, how would you feel if the announcer botched your name?

Treat others the way you want to be treated. This is a surefire way to develop humility and connection with others. Take the time to learn the correct pronunciation of people's names, and say their names frequently, yet naturally. Then, when you're at your weekly lunch chat and you see the person you sat with the previous week, you can say "Hi ______, how are things?" This person will feel welcome, appreciated, acknowledged, and spread the word of what a "down-to-earth" leader you are.

Humility makes everyone important - including you.

2) Listen to diverse voices

HOW: create an emotional distance from the person, focus on the content

The Inc article shared how Pope Francis reached out to people outside of the Catholic faith, to hear about their concerns about the world, and their critique on the church. That took courage!

One great way to achieve this courage is to distance yourself from the person, their communication style, their intent, etc. Instead, focus on the content of their message. People have all manner of agendas and motivations for what and how they communicate. You don't have to engage with that, even when forming an empathic response. It's not about not caring, it's about not buying in to their agenda or drama; staying neutral, rather.

You don't have to be a saint to develop this skill. You can do this with practice through learning about yourself.

One of the prime ways to cultivate emotional detachment, is to understand how your mind operates. The most well-known technique for this is meditation. There are a variety of techniques for meditation, but the end-goal is to observe your thoughts. Unlike most misconceptions, meditation is not used to "control" your thoughts.

By learning how to observe your thoughts, you can begin to detach from them. You can also see how you think, and recognize that the odds are pretty high that other people have the same or similar thoughts. While our experience of being in the world is always unique, and our perspectives on that experience are unique, our thoughts are quite common. "This person hates me. That person was a jerk. Will my boss promote me? Why does my spouse never take out the garbage? Why are we on this planet? I like pistachio ice cream, but it's so hard to find. That bird has a beautiful song. The cats fighting in the alley at night are so loud and wake me up! I hate cats! Look at the cute doggy!"

Despite our amazing accomplishments as a species, our thoughts are mostly not exciting. Yet, more now than ever before, people want to be seen and heard, and thus believe their thoughts or communication as unique.

When we learn how to detach from our own thoughts and emotions, like sitting on the bank of a river and watching them float by on the water, it's much easier to detach from others. Part of what mindfulness meditation does, is help us to lovingly accept ourselves. We then cultivate humility, (see #1 above) and can more easily see when others share the same emotions or thoughts, creating empathy. This empathy and humility actually help build an inner strength of detachment. Then, when someone is spewing in your office, you can see through the bluster, and hear what they are upset about, which might actually be a significant issue for your organization. But, if you can't hear it because you are taking offense at their communication stye, then you'll miss out on solving something that might bring potential disaster to you and your team.

It's important to note that detachment with no desire to listen, help and support, can become unhealthy. Be careful to not make this a default response to anybody expressing anything. Yet, in situations where people are angry, upset, or hurt, and they are not able to communicate in a professional or courteous manner, it's quite useful to detach from the communication style and focus on the content. In a word, this is called tolerance. The more we can build inner tolerance, by loving ourselves no matter our positive or negative self-talk, the more we'll be able to tolerate and detach from others, and the sooner we can move towards resolution.

The second piece to this puzzle is to acknowledge what you hear, to help a person feel heard. Often, this will calm down the person's agitation, and you can get to the heart of the manner sooner. Phrases like "I am hearing that you are upset with ___. How can I help you with this situation?" or "It sounds like you think the situation with ABC company is unfair, is that right?" go a long way to de-escalate a person and allow for a more useful conversation.

Remember this conventional wisdom:

• 99.9% of the time 99.9% of people want to be seen and heard.

• 99.9% of the time 99.9% of people struggle to effectively communicate their needs when they are upset. This likely includes you.

• As an individual, you cannot control people, places or things.

Entering into conversations with these concepts at top of mind, can go a long way to detaching from an upset person.

And, the thing is, you don't have to not care. You can still care about the person, even though you've detached from their communication style. This is called detaching with love. Part of how we can help a person feel seen and heard, is through empathy. Relating to what they shared and naming their feeling is a kind way of detaching.

Vagueness, especially in communication, can be a time sink and productivity killer. So, even asking someone, "Would you like to just be heard? Or would you like feedback? What do you need to feel supported about your distress with _____ right now?" can go a long way to convey connection, empathy, compassion, yet also establish healthy boundaries around your time and availability.

How we get there is by knowing ourselves and our inner world better and better. Then, we can relate to others even when they are falling off the rails in their delivery. What this does is allow us to listen to diverse voices, like Pope Francis did.

Try to cultivate inner tolerance to better listen to diverse voices, which will only benefit your organization. When you listen to voices from a variety of angles, you may see things in a new light, or avoid an unexpected pitfall. And, you'll be known as a savvy leader who navigates disruption well.

Pope Francis visiting with people while in the popemobile

3) Hold the line when necessary

HOW: be present with your core values and apply them to the situation

In Ms. Lucas' article, she describes how Pope Francis listened to many voices regarding the role of women in the church. While he agreed that women needed to play a larger role, he maintained the policy of not ordaining women as priests. He cited Pope John Paul II's decision and papal publications on the topic.

Pope Francis' core value was respecting decisions and doctrine from past popes.

Even so, he helped the people who weighed in on the topic to feel seen and heard. He was steadfast in his decision, yet he did it with his other core values: empathy, compassion, and active listening.

Developing awareness of the present moment helps us to integrate our core values into every situation. Present-moment awareness means being aware of what is going on all around you as well as in your inner world. By being present to what you feel, think, and experience, with that healthy detachment of not judging it right or wrong, your core values will naturally surface because they have the space to do so.

One of the best ways to develop present-moment awareness is through physical activities and nature. Taking a walk in a park, where you can see green grass, smell the fresh air, hear birds, etc. can help cultivate present-moment awareness. Developing a regular fitness practice like swimming, yoga, tai chi, or pickleball, requires a type of focus that is identical to present-moment awareness.

Using our physical bodies to develop present-moment awareness is essential. Without our bodies on board, our attempts at present-moment awareness will feel like a forced mental exercise, or an act of willfulness or control.

Developing present-moment awareness is another way to develop inner resilience or tolerance. Some of your decisions will be unpopular, just like Pope Francis' stance on women priests. When you are present with yourself and your core values, and you know the decision you made was the best one with the information you had at the time, you can tolerate dissenting voices with grace, allowing people to have their experience (and maybe even help them through it!) without compromising your decisions or second-guessing yourself.

4) Think long-term

HOW: create space for non-thinking, wandering, and letting go

Long-term, strategic, or visionary thinking cannot be achieved in a reactionary environment. If your daily work life is constantly putting out fires, then you won't be able to develop any long-term thinking.

Even though Pope Francis became pope at age 76, he did not only focus on "low hanging fruit" issues that he could resolve on a shorter time. He also published an environmental encyclical that specifically asks about the world we want to leave the children of our day.

How can we get there?

a) Recognize asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but of strength. If certain skills are not in your wheelhouse, seeking help or delegating those tasks to others will allow you to free up space for strategic planning. Taking actions like these are a sign of humility, inner strength, practicality, and problem-solving. Recently, I hired a Virtual Assistant. Within the first two weeks, she had written copy, created images, and posted in such a way that I could never have done on my own. As a result I have more followers, likes, and new emails than I've had all year. Finally, I feel like I have more time and space for my long-term goals.

b) Delegate effectively. Trying to do everything yourself and look like a superstar hardly ever works. Take it from me - every time I've ever tried that it resulted in disciplinary measures or even being fired. And worse, I'm physically and mentally exhausted from busting my tail so hard. It's no good. Delegating effectively means easing teammates into new tasks by offering good training and supervision, without micromanaging. Micromanaging is all about fear and loss of control. With appropriate levels of training, checking someone's work, and coaching, trust can be built so that you can delegate with confidence. It does take time and consistency, yet when done well it's totally worth it.

c) Book non-thinking time in your calendar and treat it as sacrosanct. If you do your best non-thinking on the racquetball court, then make sure nothing interrupts your Tuesday and Thursday night league games. Non-thinking means letting go of all the details in your mind about various work or life problems, and getting into your body and the present-moment. If those problems resurface, actively, yet gently, guiding them down the river of your mind, and come back to the present. The majority of people overthink everything. Giving yourself time and space to release the act of thinking is the best way to provide relief to your overthinking. It's like those old TVs that used tubes to project the image on the screen. Sometimes the tubes would become overheated and distort the colors or the image on the screen. If the TV was turned off for a while, the tubes would cool. When the TV was turned on again, the picture was restored. Allowing your "mental tubes" to cool and relax a bit, refreshes them to get back to heavy thinking with more clarity, innovation, and problem solving.

d) Become a curator. In a recent FastCompany article, the next generation of leadership is defined as "curation". That's another way to "delegation" and "asking for help" and "coaching". It's like a combination of all these. You no longer have to be the one person with all the answers. Instead, create environments and teams with healthy conflict and a lack of fear to share, where creative problem solving and agility are handled by the group. You are still the final decision-maker, yet you don't have to do all the thinking, which frees up your time to provide yourself with the non-thinking spaces you need to balance your long-term and short-term planning.

Using techniques like these will begin to build a long-term thinking "muscle" in your mind. Just like going to the gym and lifting weights, we start slowly, with low weight, in order to build up the muscle without injury. Jumping into a long-term thinking strategy and expecting instant results will only set yourself up to fail, and thus abandon the idea as one not worth trying again, when in fact, it might be the best thing for you. So, start small, try a few things, and experiment until you come to the method(s) that work best for you to create the mental space for long-term thinking.

Pope Francis praying with two cardinals

5) Own your mistakes openly

HOW: cultivate self-love and growth mindset through body-based mindfulness

Ms. Lucas' describes how Pope Francis openly prayed for the forgiveness of the church for the atrocities committed by priests abusing children. Her words were short about how to do this, but one thing she wrote rings true, "If you make a mistake—if your organization makes a mistake—acknowledge it. Apologize for it. Don’t try to hide it. It makes things worse."

Actively hiding mistakes or pretending they never happened brings toxicity into environments so rapidly. Here are some of the characteristics of a toxic work environment born of hiding mistakes:

• fear of speaking up

• increased employee health issues from stress due to perfectionism

• withholding crucial information for the success of the organization

• gossip, infighting, back-biting

• lack of productivity

• revolving door of employees (Good people will come in, see the landscape, and bail. Entrenched people with little hope or initiative will remain.)

• little to no teamwork

• blame, bullying, and sabotage of co-workers with one another

• covering up issues that could lead to regulatory violations, illegal activity, etc.

• high levels of exhaustion and burnout...even for leaders at your level

The list goes on...once these behaviors enter into an organization, it is very difficult to root them out. It takes major attitude and belief-system overhauls. It's much easier to prevent this from occurring by simply admitting mistakes.

Admitting one's mistakes doesn't have to be an admission of failure. It doesn't have to be "humiliation" but can just be "humility". Admitting one's mistakes tells the unspoken tale that it's ok to not be perfect. When a leader admits a mistake and corrects it, or asks for help to correct it, they:

• model healthy sense of self to others

• give workers permission to speak up about issues affecting them, their teams, or the company

• prevent being taken off guard by regulatory violations or the loss of large customers, etc

• foster an environment of collaborative problem-solving

• have reduced workforce turnover

• have healthier, happier employees

• can innovate faster and with more flexibility

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? We all want a workplace like this. So, how do we get there?

Learning to see mistakes as learning opportunities is essential. We do this by understanding how we talk to ourselves and view ourselves in the world. We learn how we talk to ourselves through mindfulness techniques like meditation and a physical activity.

When we practice a physical activity, especially when we are beginners, how we talk to ourselves comes out easily. If you are trying the tai chi sequence for the first time, you might say "This is hard" or "I didn't do it perfectly, so I suck". Or, you might say "I didn't master it, but I enjoyed learning something new."

How we talk to ourselves in non-work environments is the key to developing a growth mindset. If we can practice thinking positively about our progress with a new hobby, then it becomes a mental habit. When we experience "learning opportunities" (read: mistakes) at our workplaces, we can tap into the mental habit we developed outside of work.

The same is true for meditation. Feeling critical of ourselves for not "getting" it the first time as an indication of fixed mindset. The more we observe our mind telling us these things, the more we can become friends with that voice. At a certain point, we can thank that voice for showing up, but actively choose not to engage with it or let it rule our actions. Now, we've really cultivated self-love! Accepting what is and what comes out of our minds, is a very loving act. Interestingly, in my stillness practice, I've noticed the more I accept what my mind is doing, the less it does that thing.

Whether using the ways I suggest or other ways you come up with, understanding your mental self-talk and shifting into a growth mindset will allow you to own your mistakes without shame or blame, setting an example of what a healthy relationship to oneself looks like. The rest of your organization will follow you.

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Hopefully these suggestions take the mystery out of achieving these leadership qualities. Pope Francis was an incredible leader; and also, he had a level of spiritual acumen that the average person does not possess. The leadership qualities that seemed to come naturally to him, are qualities we have to work for.

Yet, it's worthy work and worthwhile work. Not only will we feel better about ourselves, we'll feel satisfied knowing that we are providing positive, healthy, and successful work environments for our staff.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for leading the way for us.