Vision is not Leadership and Leadership is not Vision, but they are linked. Leadership is about taking people with you on a journey, and it requires commitment, bravery and belief in the vision.
As I write this today, someone I know is being attacked via the national media in the UK by a minority group within their organisation. As I see it, this leader is taking people with them on a journey to achieve a powerful vision not only for their organisation but, through achieving that vision, for society. That minority are fearful of such a transformative change.
I don’t know this leader that well, however, a) I believe this will simply have them be ever more dedicated to their sense of purpose, and b) it set me to pondering what creates such drive, passion, commitment to such a level of visionary change?
After I messaged with this friend I then picked up Alan Moore’s exquisite book “Do/Design – Why beauty is key to everything” (see here for my post) and opened the page to learn about the term Salva Corpus Amanti.
This opened up themes for me around what inspires leaders, taken from learnings from the profound shifts experienced by astronauts when they first saw the Earth from space.
What the astronaut Edgar Mitchell noted in the quotes above has been referred to as the “overview effect” a profound cognitive change in astronauts upon seeing the Earth from space.
This powerful short film interviews five astronauts who explain this from their experience. For more, visit the Overview Institute
Salve Corpus Amanti, literally to save the body of a lover, is the experience of seeing with your eyes but “experiencing it emotionally and viscerally as with ecstasy and with a sense of total unity and oneness.”
Something happens to you out there. You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.
– Edgar Mitchell, Astronaut
I felt the world was just… there was too much purpose, too much logic. It was too beautiful to happen by accident. There has to be somebody bigger than you, and bigger than me, and I mean this in a spiritual sense, not a religious sense.
– Gene Cernan, Astronaut
So, referencing back to the leader mentioned earlier, have they been to space and looked back at the Earth? Not as far as I know. I do strongly suspect, though, that there have been some powerful experiences in their life that have led them to feel a powerful draw to transform their organisation and the impact it has on and for the world to serve sustainably (their word) not only the stakeholders in the business but the broader world.
As for me, let me share with you part of Alan’s chapter on Salve Corpus Amanti, where he reflects on Edgar Mitchell’s thoughts on Salve Corpus Amanti. In this, I have highlighted in bold a section that speaks to me as to why I feel strongly drawn to supporting Alan in building what he calls a “Beautiful community of master craftsmen” to work to build a restorative world.
Salve Corpus Amanti and a bit of joined-up thinking
…If we want to thrive on this planet, we must see our world as an interconnected whole – we have to “save the lover’s body”. We need to understand that humanity is a living system too, deeply interconnected with nature’s systems. We all ride flows of matter, energy and information. So it is absurd to persist in refusing to see our world as being interconnected, attempting to describe it instead as a place to be managed like numbers on an Excel spreadsheet, devoid of meaning, context, community and history. This could be our downfall.
How can we get to creating a world that feels a little more beautiful? The world that all those astronauts realised was the right one as they experienced their salve corpus amanti? The answer: We need to think about the purpose of the work we do and how we serve to create a more restorative life – whatever that looks like. We need to dedicate ourselves to becoming craftspeople, strong in ourselves, innately curious about the world we live in and how we can contribute to making it better.
In closing for today, what inspires me as a leader? Just what I highlighted in bold from Alan Moore’s writing. I feel powerfully drawn to supporting Alan in this mission, to create a growing community of “Beautiful Leaders and Makers” doing work of purpose with businesses and organisations to create a more restorative life.
If you are a master craftsperson and feel drawn to this, talk to me or Alan, we are beginning the process of coalescing this community, we’d love to hear from you.