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| A capacity crowd of more than 200 gathered to hear Fr. Spitzer's breakfast talk. |
News from the Center
"Untroubled Leadership in Troubled Times"
While no one knows how long the current recession will last or just how bad it will get, leaders in every sector know that people are counting on them to rise to the challenge. More than 200 church and business leaders gathered in Phoenix last week to hear Fr. Robert Spitzer’s advice on meeting that challenge.
The March 5 event, billed as a Leadership Learning Breakfast, was sponsored by the Phoenix Chapter of Legatus and held at the Mt. Claret Retreat Center.
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| Fr. Spitzer was introduced by Mr. John Fees of Access Venture Group, who led the committee that organized the breakfast. |
In remarks that drew inspiration from thinkers and leaders ranging from Plato to Winston Churchill, Fr. Spitzer urged attendees to seize the personal growth opportunities found in hard times (see “Never Waste a Perfectly Good Recession”). He cautioned that these opportunities “don’t come about by accident. They require a culture oriented toward the common good of the organization – a culture that looks to the welfare of all stakeholders before it makes comparative advantage its priority. … That’s what I call contributive or Level 3 behavior as opposed to ego-comparative or Level 2 behavior.”
Winning the battle between Levels 2 and 3
For those unacquainted with the Four Levels of Happiness™, Fr. Spitzer offered an overview, emphasizing how a person’s dominant view of happiness shapes his identity. “Happiness is the one thing we pursue in and for itself,” he said, “so the way you define this term controls everything you believe about yourself.“
What’s true of people is equally true of organizations, he added. The dominant definition of happiness determines the organization’s behavior and culture. In practice, the choice is almost always between Level 2 and 3 – a culture defined by battling egos and a win-lose view of the world, or a culture defined by a common, deep-seated commitment to making the world a better place.
“What is the biggest impediment to ethical behavior in organizations?” Fr. Spitzer asked. While most people might point to greed or malice, those actually weren’t the largest problems, he said. “The biggest interior motivation for ethical failure is the combination of fear and arrogance. Those are two sides of the same coin, and two sides of dominant Level 2 behavior.”
Arrogance comes from believing you’re better than others because you’re winning, and fear comes from losing or the threat of losing that hangs over winners. “The interesting thing about fear and arrogance is that people don’t know when they’re getting into it that mindset. If you’re greedy, you kind of know it, and you know when you’re feeling malicious. But fear and arrogance are sneaky. Good people get into it, and they don’t even know they’re getting there. That’s why it’s prevalent.”
Fr. Spitzer estimated that 70 percent of people in our culture are Level 2 dominant. He noted that ego gratification wasn’t inherently bad. In fact, you need self-confidence, status, and at least some power to be effective. But Level 2 happiness turns neurotic and alienating when it becomes an end in itself and not a means to a higher end.
Organizations that want better ethics and leadership need to dig deeper to achieve it. “If you want to get to the bottom of ethical failure, it’s not just giving people techniques or training them in Sarbanes-Oxley. You can’t start with virtue either, because virtue presumes something. Our thesis [at the Spitzer Center] is that it presumes contributive or Level 3 behavior, and that means an interior Level 3 point of view.”
Big payoff for perseverance
He acknowledged it’s hard to cultivate a Level 3 identity. It’s not our default setting , and you can’t make it so by a simple act of resolve. “If your subconscious mind is not convinced of what your conscious mind has decided, it will resist you,” Fr. Spitzer said.
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The best way to develop a Level 3 outlook, he says, is to write your own “Level 3 manifesto” describing how you intend to make a positive difference to those around you, and to spend a few minutes each morning reflecting on what they can do that day to bring it to life.
It takes time – he recommends at least seven weeks – for those good intentions to start becoming a habit. But the rewards of persevering are considerable. They include a more stable emotional perspective. “The feelings of inferiority and superiority go down, along with jealousy, depression, and fear of failure. Malaise about life turns into an excitement about opportunity. That is a big difference especially in times of recession when malaise is altogether prevalent. We as leaders are really giving people a boost if we can bring them up into Level 3.”
Most importantly, this transformation inspires a very different approach to leadership. “It makes all the difference, because it takes the fear and hubris and politics out of the organization and replaces it with a noble vision.
“People will work for a noble ideal. They will work tirelessly with a courage and self-discipline they never thought they had, finding their true mettle in the experience of hardship.”
The Leadership Learning Breakfast was organized by a steering committee that included Mr. John Fees of Access Venture Group (chairman), Mr. Todd Bankofier of Fairmont Capital Group, Ms. Donna Marino of the Catholic Community Foundation, Mr. Bob Mulhern of Colliers International, Mr. Jim Pierson III of Johnson Capital, Mr. Rick Raymond of Blackwatch Group, and Mr. Guy Roll of U.S. Consumer Advocate.
A report on Fr. Spitzer's talk can also be found in the The Catholic Sun, the newspaper of the Diocese of Phoenix, at this link.