The Cardinal Modern Leader

I have to admit - sometimes, I watch a little too much TikTok. 

In a recent time-sink on my TikTok “For You” page, I came across an invigorating speech by leadership consultant & CEO coach, Cy Wakeman. In the speech, she challenges an approach that traditional team managers tend to use when interacting with team members that bring emotional drama and negative energy to the workplace:  “When they enter a conversation heated, you enter it level-headed. You don’t match their energy. In fact, you challenge them to recognize their reality rather than focusing on their circumstances & their perception of the circumstances. Accepting your reality and your role is imperative for a functioning team to achieve the fullness of their capacities.”

Seemingly, Wakeman calls for modern managers to speak truth to emotionally-taxing team members. She invites managers to be radically candid in workshopping the person’s negative energy by speaking about their reality, eschewing the politics of a workplace, and channeling this negative energy into a motivation to create a better reality. To me, Wakeman characterizes a leader as someone who keeps a pulse on their team’s emotional waste and uses their present unhappiness to inspire a vision for a preferred future, as a person who challenges their team to accept their reality (no matter how frustrating or disdainful it seems), and as a stoic who shift perspectives from ‘why we can’t’ to ‘how we could

’. This is the unifying, driving force that allows for teams to galvanize behind moving out of the non-preferred reality and into the hopeful and amazing future. 

In today’s Gospel, we are invited to reflect on Jesus’ actions during the times leading up to his death, specifically in his visit to the feast of Tabernacles. The clergy of the time were incensed by Jesus’ boldness in speaking the message of God rather than deferring to their teachings and established traditions. Behind the scenes, they’d dedicated time to detracting people from his message, spreading vile rumors, breeding deceit, and misinterpreting his intentions. The clergy sowed so much discontent that it turned the Jewish people against Jesus by painting him as a heretic, culminating in pushing the state for his death. Despite being undermined at every turn, Jesus showed up and spoke a message of love and compassion to the people (including the doubtful and incensed ones!). 

In our times of disbelief, Jesus chose us. In our discontent, frustration, anger, deceit, and vileness, Jesus showed up and spoke of acceptance and love. He risked capture, torture, and death by traveling through the land and appearing before the very people who created these dangerous circumstances for him. He chose us even when we ultimately called for his crucifixion. He showed up for us (the people) and preached because he desires a kingdom of heaven that, while on earth, grows stronger in their faith in God and others by living out his message of love, even when it seems like the weight of the world lies on our shoulders. As we called for his death, he loved us. He chose us in our darkest moments, not in our brightest ones. 

In a way that only Jesus could articulate, he fundamentally understood what it meant to be human. He saw and felt the pull of temptations, worldly desires, and vices in a way that only those cast to suffer with original sin could. He noticed firsthand that these vices lead us to an empty life; one in which inauthentic love/pleasure, faux compassion & victimhood, vanity, and blindness to the plights of others become our primary desires and default settings. They shroud our reality. He loved us so much that he refused to allow us to continue walking in separation from God. Why? He also fundamentally understood what it meant to be divine - to be eternally present with God the Father. His love for us was and is God’s love for us. He channeled it into the building of an eternal, hopeful, loving kingdom of heaven. 

In other words, he took the chaos, frustrations, and vile actions of the people and loved us enough to channel this energy into a vision for the kingdom of heaven, even if it eventually cost him his life (at least for a few days…). Call it what you will - good leadership, love, empathy, compassion - it sounds like it’s the core of what Wakeman is getting at in her advice, but wildly more profound and impactful to our lives. Jesus was the cardinal example of the modern manager. 

And he did this all without needing to see Wakeman’s TikToks. Maybe I should take note. 

Author: Imon Ferguson, Mathematics