Na’aleh’s 28 Core Skills of Leadership – K’dushah

K’dushah: Align yourself and others to sacred purpose.

Self-Awareness: Clarify your purpose.

Leadership is driven by purpose.  As the adage goes, if you don’t know where you want to go, then any road will get you there.  Leaders know where they want to go in their lives and in their next encounter.   

Resources

Being with Others: Balance pursuing your goals with being open to the interests of others.

If leadership is about being fully present for others and it’s about pursuing your own purposes, then there is a potential conflict.  We resolve this values “bumping” through finding the right balance in each situation.  In this case, holding your own intentions lightly while creating room for others.

Resources

  • Invite someone to play chess, backgammon (or another game) with you, not to win but to just enjoy the games.
    • Other games to consider, in which the benefits can be found in the process of playing, include checkers, Go, Jenga, pick-up sticks, pool, air hockey, tennis, basketball, and card games such as rummy, spit and go fish.

Action Toward Change: Foster common purpose.

As we noticed through Hit’orerut, people come together bringing with them different strengths, biases, perspectives, and ideas. They also come with different goals and objectives in mind.  To work together effectively, we need to foster a sense of common purpose among all participants.  Each may have a passion for or focus on a different set of objectives, which is fine as long as they all contribute to the same shared purpose.

Resources

  • Go on an immersive experience with someone, from a weekend retreat to an hour dip in a lake.
    • Other immersive experiences to consider include taking a walk through an art installation, engaging in a ropes course, attending a concert, going whitewater rafting, and meditating together.

Advanced Skill: Align your leadership to sacred emergence in the world.

While leadership is driven by purpose, it need not be of our own design.  The practice of leadership often involves letting go of your own ego to make room for others, as was implied in the practice of Chavruta.  And, in Hit’orerut, we noted that systems evolve according to their own designs.  In Jewish theology, the universe itself seeks to fulfill a Divine purpose, we call redemption.  The highest purpose of leadership is to align oneself to this Divine purpose as we sense it emerging in the world.