On Leadership and Virtue: A Conversation with Alexandre Havard - Crisis Magazine 10/8/17 10'39
JUNE 9, 2011
On Leadership and Virtue: A
Conversation with Alexandre
Havard
ZOE ROMANOWSKY
(http://3m7ajlsrzj92lfd1hu16hu7vc.wpengine.netdna-
cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/havard1.jpg)
What makes an effective leader? Aristotle, Augustine, and
Thomas Aquinas said it was virtue. French-born lawyer
Alexandre Havard agrees: As founder of the Havard Virtuous
Leadership Institute (HVLI), he’s developed a leadership model
based on aretology — the philosophy of virtue — that is
resonating with top-level leaders in government, the private
sector, and the religious arena.
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On Leadership and Virtue: A Conversation with Alexandre Havard - Crisis Magazine 10/8/17 10'39
Havard, currently based in Moscow, travels worldwide giving
seminars and promoting the leadership model he wrote about
in his 2007 book Virtuous Leadership: An Agenda for Personal
Excellence
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_Leadership),
published by Scepter Press. Now in its third edition in English,
it has been published in six languages.
Zoe Romanowsky spoke with Havard about effective leadership
and the role of virtue in business, politics, and society today.
* * *
Zoe Romanowsky: The discussion of virtue and
character goes all the way back to the Old Testament
writers and the ancient Greeks. What inspired you to
develop a modern-day, virtue-based model of
leadership?
Alexandre Havard: It was after a few encounters with university
students that I gave up my career as a lawyer and dedicated
myself to studying and teaching leadership. I was lecturing on
the history of European integration and spent hours helping
young people enter the hearts and minds of the European
Union’s Founding Fathers: Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer,
Alcide de Gasperi, Jean Monnet. My students were amazed by
their greatness; I found their enthusiasm infectious and
uplifting. Young people in their magnanimity brought me to
leadership, and if someday I quit teaching business executives, I
will never quit teaching young people. One needs to inhale
before exhaling; likewise, I need to witness hope before
speaking about it.
In my research, I quickly came to the conclusion that authentic
leadership must be based on an authentic anthropology, one
that includes aretology, the science of virtues. Virtue is a habit
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On Leadership and Virtue: A Conversation with Alexandre Havard - Crisis Magazine 10/8/17 10'39
of the mind, the will, and the heart, which allows us to achieve
personal excellence and effectiveness. Leadership is intrinsically
linked to virtue. First, because virtue creates trust — the sine
qua non of leadership. Second, because virtue, which comes
from the Latin virtus, meaning “strength” or “power,” is a
dynamic force that enhances the leader’s capacity to act. Virtue
allows the leader to do what people expect of him.
When most people think of leaders, they picture CEOs,
famous humanitarians, or politicians and other high
profile citizens — who may or may not possess that
quality of virtue. But you say that every person is
called to be a leader.
Yes, leadership is not about rank or position or being on top of
the heap. Leadership is a way of being that can be lived by
everyone, no matter his or her place in society or any given
organization. The leader does not lead by means of potestas, or
the power inherent in his office or functions. He leads by means
of auctoritas, which proceeds from character. If you have
character, you lead. If you don’t have character, you don’t lead,
but rather manipulate. The media uses the word “leaders” when
they, in fact, have in mind “bosses.” Bosses are too often far
from being leaders.
Leadership is also not a question of temperament but character.
Leaders are trained, not born. Temperament is not an obstacle
to leadership, whereas lack of character — i.e., the moral energy
that prevents us from being slaves to biology — most definitely
is.
If leadership is a question of character — which means freedom,
virtue, growth, and creativity — then everyone can be a leader.
But doesn’t being a leader necessitate having
followers? If everyone can be a leader, then who are
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On Leadership and Virtue: A Conversation with Alexandre Havard - Crisis Magazine 10/8/17 10'39
the followers? Or are we both?
Our followers are the people we serve. We need to serve our
children, our friends, our colleagues. Leadership is about
achieving greatness and bringing out greatness in others. All of
us are called both to lead and to be led, to serve and to let
ourselves be served.
To practice leadership is to live for others, but also to joyously
know that others exist to serve you, to accept that they have
something to offer you, something intimate and personal. The
Russian poet Olga Sedakova, who knew Pope John Paul II well,
once remarked: “He needed something personal from everyone
he met…. He looked at people with such interest and hope, as if
to say, ‘What wonderful things will you help me discover today,
what gift will you give me?’” When a leader practices humility,
he teaches and inspires the people he leads. But he learns from
them and comes to see them as gifts. Through them he grows
and perfects himself as a human being.
You write in your book that leaders are defined by two
major virtues, the first being magnanimity. We don’t
hear that word much today. What does it mean?
Magnanimity is the habit of striving for great things. Leaders
are magnanimous in their dreams, their visions, and their sense
of mission, as well as in their capacity to challenge themselves
and those around them. Magnanimity is an ideal rooted in trust
in man and his inherent greatness; it is the supreme form of
human hope. Magnanimity is a virtue capable of setting the
tone of one’s entire life, transforming it, giving it new meaning,
and leading to the flourishing of the personality. It is the first
specific virtue of leaders.
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(https://www.scepterpublishers.org/product/index.php?
FULL=558)Think of Joan of Arc. Joan was a true Christian; she
was truly magnanimous. Joan became the supreme commander
of the French military forces at the age of 17. Her mission was to
assure the coronation of the crown prince and, while she was at
it, expel the English from France. She had an exalted vision of
herself and her mission. She used to say with deep satisfaction:
“It was for this that I was born!”
She was magnanimity personified. She trusted fully in God and
fully in herself. Modern society needs men and women who
believe in man. St. Paul, the apostle of theological hope, is also
the apostle of the humanity of Christ: He saw in Jesus Christ
the perfect Man, the man who practiced all of the human
virtues to perfection, including magnanimity.
A Christian must certainly be aware of his human shortcomings
and seek in God the strength to overcome the world. But this is
not sufficient. He must also be aware of his own talents and
learn to rely on them and have recourse to all human means.
This is a vital precondition for leadership.
The second major virtue that you point out is humility
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— but you believe this virtue is misunderstood by many
Christians. How so?
Magnanimity and humility go hand in hand. The more aware
we become of our personal greatness, the more we need to
understand that greatness is a gift of God. Magnanimity without
humility is not magnanimity at all; it is self-betrayal and can
easily lead to personal calamities of one kind or another. The
magnanimous impulse to embark on great endeavors should
always be joined to the detachment that stems from humility,
which allows one to perceive God in all things. Man’s exaltation
must always be accompanied by abasement before God.
A true leader magnanimously assesses his talents and abilities
and judges himself worthy of great things, which he undertakes
with confidence; at the same time, he humbly perceives his
status as a creature and understands that his capacities and his
virtues, even those acquired by his personal efforts, are
ultimately gifts of God. It’s no denial of man’s own greatness
and strength to humbly attribute them to the goodness of God;
humility offers up to God this greatness and strength, thereby
consecrating them.
Many Christians nowdays believe in God, but few believe in
themselves, in their talents and capabilities. As their concept of
humility excludes magnanimity, such people cannot — and will
not — lead. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Western
world today rarely recruits its political leaders among believing
Christians. The most influential leaders of the past three
hundred years were not Christians. This is not because
Christians were expelled from social life; it is because so
many Christians voluntarily withdrew from it. It is the most
astonishing case of the self-castration of a whole community in
the history of humanity.
Aside from magnanimity and humility, what other
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virtues are necessary for good leadership?
The practice of the specifically Christian virtues of faith, hope,
and charity has a powerful impact on leadership. They elevate,
reinforce, and transfigure the natural virtues of magnanimity
and humility, which are the essence of leadership, and the
natural virtues of prudence, courage, self-control, and justice,
which constitute its foundations. No study of leadership that
failed to take into account the supernatural virtues would be
complete.
We must have frequent recourse to the supernatural virtues of
faith, hope, and charity, but this does not mean giving short
shrift to the natural virtues. The natural virtues constitute the
very foundation of the supernatural ones. If I make no effort to
cultivate magnanimity or prudence, the theological virtues of
faith, hope, and charity will not intervene to make me
magnanimous or prudent in spite of myself. If I give in to
cowardice, intemperance, or egoism, I cannot expect the
theological virtues to step into the fray and make me
courageous, temperate, and just. No amount of religious
observance can compensate for the failure to practice natural
virtue.
You distinguish between two kinds of ethics — rules-
based and virtue-based. What is the difference
between them, and how are they important in
business?
Rules-based ethics, as the name implies, is grounded in law: An
action is correct if it conforms to the law, incorrect if it does
not. Virtue-based ethics is grounded in human nature: Good is
that which brings us closer to moral perfection, bad that which
leads us away from it.
Virtue-based ethics does not deny the validity of laws, but it
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does insist that laws cannot be the ultimate foundation of
ethics. Laws must be at the service of virtue. That is the proper
order of things.
How leaders behave is determined less by the law than by their
virtues. If, for example, leaders do not slander their
competitors, that is not so much because slander is forbidden
by both moral and criminal law as because people of character
would not stoop so low in the first place. It simply would not
occur to them.
The concept of work ethics — the ethical codes that govern the
world of work — has much to do with rules and little with
virtue. Work ethics are limited to external, visible actions I
perform on the job and to the ethical rules of my profession and
workplace. Work ethics aim at professional rectitude, not
human perfection. Of course, since this rectitude contributes to
the respectability of the enterprise and those who work for it, it
is a good thing.
But it is not enough. I can scrupulously observe these norms yet
stagnate as a human being. That happens when I confuse
human excellence with mere observance of a code. It is possible
to fulfill exterior ethical norms without having a clue about how
they relate to my personality. Work ethics is a starting point,
not a goal. By itself, it does not lead to personal improvement.
Many organizations maintain codes of conduct that enshrine
their corporate ethics. But if the people in those organizations
do not habitually practice the human virtues, codes of conduct,
no matter how high-minded, can become so much window-
dressing.
Another drawback of work ethics is implied in its name. It may
lead some to believe that there are two kinds of ethics, one for
work and another for off hours. Some people are vigilant about
maintaining a strict code of conduct at work, but regard private
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life as another matter: “What I do on my own time is my
business.”
Leaders, by contrast, behave virtuously always and everywhere:
at work, with the family, among friends, during free time, and
even when they are alone. This is because they live by virtue
ethics, which unify one’s personality and daily activities, both
public and private.
You give workshops and conferences around the globe
to leaders in the public and private sector on virtue-
based ethics. How do they respond to this model of
leadership?
They love it. They understand that magnanimity and humility,
the specific virtues of leaders, are two words rich in meaning,
possessed of extraordinary emotional and existential power,
words that go straight to the heart because they embody a life
ideal — the ideal of greatness and service. Consciously or
unconsciously, the hearts of all human beings experience this
thirst to live and to love. Leadership is a life ideal that
recognizes, assimilates, and propagates the truth about man.
By Zoe Romanowsky
Zoe Romanowsky is writer, consultant, and
coach. Her articles have appeared in "Catholic
Digest," "Faith & Family," "National Catholic
Register," "Our Sunday Visitor," "Urbanite," "Baltimore Eats,"
and Godspy.com. Zo
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