This modern-day attempt to separate the secular and sacred in organizations did not endure. Weber himself recognized that the primary economic forces driving modern capitalism are based in the sacred perspectives of John Calvin and Martin Luther regarding man’s individual relationship to God and the tangible signs of predestined salvation that are to be found in the accumulation of wealth.iii The late 20th Century and early 21st Century have seen a return to the sacred. Mankind insists on living in a world that is filled with spiritual meaning and divine purpose. Contemporary organizations are once again being acknowledged as sacred.
We see that many of the mechanistic, technological and scientific metaphors used in modern management (e.g. “contract,” “input,” “procedures” and “data”) are being or must be replaced by new metaphors (e.g. “human capital” and “empowerment”). Modern, mechanistic terms are being replaced by traditional terms (e.g. “appreciation,” “charter” and “sanctuary”). In the case of leadership theory, we are returning to traditional models and to the notion of a spiritual domain of leadership, while simultaneously creating new metaphors about transformation and context. Our attention turns to the relationship between leadership and the domain of the sacred. In moving into this special domain, I bring along a guide, Teilhard de Chardin, and, in particular, the road map he originally prepared more than sixty years ago for inhabitants of the mid-20th Century: The Phenomenon of Man.
Sacred Leadership
At the start of the final section of The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard describes a typical reaction to the existential space-time angst that is experienced by mankind. He notes that: “when Man has realized that he carries the world’s future in himself and that a limitless future stretches before him . . . , his first reflect often leads him along the dangerous course of seeking fulfillment in isolation.”iv Teilhard observes, in prophetic manner, that: “modern man no longer knows what to do with the time and the potentialities he has unleashed. We groan under the burden of this wealth. We are haunted by the fear of ‘unemployment.’ Sometimes we are tempted to trample this super-abundance back into the matter from which it sprang without stopping to think how impossible and monstrous such an act against nature would be.”v
