Transformational Leadership: Leading in Love and Truth
Highlights from an Interview with John Morton, D.S.S.
The way I look at the transformational leader, the most dynamic powerful transformational leader, is one who lives in truth — the truth that is full of love, so it’s unconditional loving truth. Truth and love converge. Truth converges with love, and love converges with truth. They become one movement or one experience.
Ultimately transformational leaders are transforming themselves first. Being true to thyself is one of the great truths. It becomes a mission, like a legacy or a lifetime achievement. How close did you get to the truth? What did you do? Those are powerful questions for understanding leadership as transformational leaders.
Everybody could answer those questions because everybody is a leader. If we took the words “creator” and “leader” and transposed them in a conversation, they’re essentially the same word. A creator is a leader. A leader is a creator. I see everyone, every single person, every entity, as a creator. Humans, in this world, are the creators. We have the creatorship in this world as flesh and blood creators.
In Genesis, in the story of Creation, we are given a kind of a representational or symbolic way of looking at creating. There’s great meaning in looking at the elements and characters in that story. The meaning or the moral of being a human being becomes, “Are you willing to live in your truth?” If you can’t do that as a loving process, then it’s not really true and you better get a better truth, or a higher truth, or something on that order. That process becomes transformational, and it becomes transformational in the way where it’s a great life to live.
Who lives a great life? The ones who have the greatest lives are not necessarily those who are popular or historically famous. The great transformational leader could be a mother. By the way a mother pours herself into her life and raises her children, we could say she is as much a transformational leader as anybody in history. Yet, she is not on the front page of the newspaper. She may be seen as, “Oh, you’re a mother. We have millions of mothers so that’s not newsworthy.” It may become news, however, if somebody is doing it to the highest degree it can be done.
Consider Mother Theresa and why she became famous. In part, it was because she was given a large financial award for doing spiritually transforming work. She wasn’t a famous person until someone noted what she was doing and rewarded her actions as a fine example of spiritual leadership in today’s world. I don’t think Mother Theresa was seeking to be rich and famous, but in a way her life led to that. Her life and her leadership created great wealth and notoriety. Yet she was often non-conforming to what was expected of her as a nun. She didn’t stay in the convent. Instead, she went out to “the least of my brethren” because that’s how she was called to serve the Lord. In so doing, Mother Theresa’s life became a very powerful message about what’s important in leadership which is leading from the heart in loving service to the Lord in each one.
In leadership, there are usually some sorts of mechanisms involved. We might call them systems, formations, methods, formulas, or techniques. I see the mechanisms of this world as here to assist us in moving to the higher state of truth and loving. However, if the systems don’t meet up with truth and love, no matter how fantastic or magnificent they may seem, then they’re not really all that valuable or important.
For an educational system to support transformation, it must be spiritually inspired or directed. If not, then I say it’s missing the mark. However, it won’t be the only one since there are a lot of people and organizations where their focus is about acquiring material things. They may be really good at it, and they’re on the cover of financial magazines and considered newsworthy. I would ask then, “Are they happy? Are they healthy? Are they somebody you want your children to hang out with?”
Maybe you’d say, “No, although I might appreciate if they gave my children a check for a million dollars, but other than that, no.” The point is that just because someone or an organization is materially successful doesn’t mean they’re spiritually successful or assisting in the spiritual transformation of others which is what transformational leadership is all about.
Let’s remember that the purpose of Insight University was identified by John-Roger, its Founder and Chancellor as, “Insight University is here to assist us in transforming ourselves into loving so that the greater transformation of the planet to loving will take place.” Insight University’s particular mission then follows as, “Educating heart-based leaders for transformational world service.”
Educating heart-based leaders is about coming into knowledge. To me, knowledge ultimately is God. The ultimate knowing is what God knows. Can we know what God knows? My experience is that mentally we cannot. However, at some point we can transcend the mind, and that’s in Spirit. So the ultimate transformation is in the Spirit, not in this world. However, we can do things in this world that are aligned with and complementary to Spirit.
As Jesus said, “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” To me, that’s telling the truth of who we are. As transformational leaders, we stop seeing only flesh and blood and start seeing something bigger going on than what appears in this world. Our bodies help facilitate our reaching into the higher state, which is the truth and love that is God.
The focus upon transforming leadership to greater loving, for ourselves and our world, is the foundation and purpose of what we’re doing through Insight University. If what we are doing is not clearly aligned and focused on loving, then we better shift back to the loving because the key in transformational leadership is loving and keeping our focus in the loving.
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