Our quest began with the idea that we as leaders need to show up and contribute from more than just our bodies and minds. “The vision of human wholeness is an ancient one. It can be found in the cultures of indigenous peoples as well as in the ancient cultures of Greece, India, and China” (Miller, 2005). In eastern philosophy and martial arts one seeks to integrate body, mind and spirit. Some traditions add the heart as a component. The point is to look at the holistic cultivation of the self. In recent years, several leading thinkers of leadership have begun to write about and examine this integration of body, mind, heart (emotion) and spirit, such as Boyatzis & McKee in Resonant Leadership (2005), Loehr & Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement (2003) and even Covey in The 8th Habit (2004). Upon further research, we discovered four related “intelligences” being discussed in the literature—either together or separately.
For many years the idea of cognitive intelligence (IQ) has been a mainstay in the realms of education, psychology, etc. It was Howard Gardner (1993) who opened the doors to the question of multiple intelligences with his argument that each person has 8 different intelligences in various states of development. Ken Wilber (2000) in his own way has embraced the idea of multiple intelligences in his AQAL framework. Wilber, in fact, sees closer to two dozen intelligences or what he calls lines of development. Though both men disagree on a number of key issues (Gardner, 2007), it is safe to say that the importance of a singular cognitive intelligence has been significantly disputed in theory (though not necessarily yet in praxis).
In the 1990s, Daniel Goleman (1995, 1998) introduced and popularized the idea of emotional intelligence (EQ). This was an intelligence that called upon, first and foremost, self-awareness. But EQ is more complex and involves understanding and managing one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others. It is, in simple terms, an intelligence of the heart. This is in stark contrast to the longstanding notion of cognitive intelligence, which has been predominantly considered as intellectual ability or intelligence of the mind.
Writing on the brink of the emotional intelligence “revolution”, Dehler and Welsh (1994) proclaim emotion as the missing element in organization change. They argue that work is an emotional experience and yet it has been ignored by theorists for some time. They go on to make their case for emotion’s role in successful organizational transformation. “Implementing change successfully requires change agents to supplement structural reorganization by attending to the emotional side of the enterprise—in this case, appealing to matters of spirituality” (p. 19). Now with the metaphorical genie out of the bottle, even the realm of organizational change has been given license to cross the chasm of body and mind to explore heart and spirit. Egri and Frost (1994) write that the search for spiritual meaning plays an important role in the development of the individual as well as in larger social systems. “There is a need for holistic balance between the physical reality of the body, the intellectual and social reality of the mind, and the spiritual needs of the soul” (p. 7). Ten years later, Lotte Darso (2004) argues the same point, using Otto Scharmer’s Theory U to paint a picture of organizational change and explain how the arts can play a role in leading change and organizational transformation.
Fig. from C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U, 2007.
Darso explains that Level 1 is only a superficial change, or as Wilber says, simply a rearrangement of the furniture. “Many top-down change programmes have no real effect, as they are merely ‘forced learning’ or rearrangements. People obey orders by pretending and paying lip service, while they silently resent the change and wait for it to ‘pass’ until the next ‘change initiative’ is launched” (p. 161). This level can be seen to correspond with the physical element. Level 2 does involve both thinking and discussing and the discussion is “rational and factual” and may result in a concrete decision or development of strategy. Dick Richards blames this on Newtonian sciences (Richards, 1991). “Because Newtonian science focuses our attention on the external world and on our mental capacities, it encourages us to seek two kinds of approaches to our challenges: physical and mental. In the process we ignore other approaches, the emotional and spiritual approaches that are the lifeblood of artfulness” (p. 10-11). Darso adds that in general, the first two levels are the only ones used by business. “According to Scharmer, the two first levels are only reactions and reflections on the experiences of the past. Because feelings are considered irrational in business and therefore illegitimate, the door to the next level is kept mostly closed” (Darso, p.161-162). Richards explains,
We entertain the hope, over and over, that physical and mental approaches alone will help us meet our challenges. They won’t, because we are looking for solutions in the wrong places. We look only where our prevailing beliefs allow us to look, and our prevailing beliefs allow us only to look at physical and mental approaches, at techniques and ideas (p. 11).
Level 3 deals with feelings. Level 4, or the point of presencing, “enable(s) contact with people’s higher Self, which means their passion, commitment and will” (Darso, p. 162). Darso states that true transformation only happens at Levels 3 & 4. Richards uses the words and ideas of M.C. Richards in his reference to the artistry of a potter in order to explain Levels 3 & 4. “Being alive to the concreteness of the moment means being fully attentive to all that is happening in the present” (p. 26). He goes on to say, “The materials of the moment include emotion and spirit. When we include them, we become who we truly are and bring all of ourselves to our work. We become truly centered and artful” (p. 26).
This is what Darso calls artful creation. It is symbolized by the following graphic:
Artful creation is part of a new paradigm that is built on an older one of “instrumental management.” “It is not an either/or. It is more: body, mind, heart and spirit.” (Darso, p. 163-164).
The realms of the body, mind, emotion and spirit are called upon in many different arenas. In the study of the martial arts, one’s quest is to integrate body, mind and spirit. Richards and Darso show that this idea is very much alive in the arts and show its connection to leadership and change. In the book Resonant Leadership (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005), the authors write often about the need for resonant leaders to see themselves as more than just a body or mind. They call for a holistic approach to leadership that uses the body and mind as well as the heart and spirit to develop and contribute to resonant leadership. “Great leadership comes as a result of hard work and a bit of luck. It requires discovering our own noble purpose, living it every day, and being fully aware of ourselves as human beings—mind, body, heart, and spirit” (p. 202).
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2003) see the four realms as sources of energy to be tapped for “full engagement”. Their very first principle states, “Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual” (p. 9). They add, “By training in all dimensions we can dramatically slow our decline physically and mentally, and we can actually deepen our emotional and spiritual capacity until the very end of our lives” (p. 12). Richards also sees these as four energies. His focus is less on fitness and more on the holistic workings of the energies. “These four sources of energy entwine to form a complex web of wholeness and interdependence” (Richards, p. 14). And, of course, his angle is on the creation of artful work. “The process of bringing all of our energy together, of calling all of ourselves to a particular moment or task, is the process that results in artistry” (p. 14-15).
In the next post, we explore the relevance of the Medicine Wheel to our research.
Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm
