Why Grace Matters To Your Organization

Many leadership books talk about policies, procedures, and processes. The extreme challenge in today’s organizations is that we value policies and procedures more than we value and honor people. As the Rev. Dr. King, Jr. said, “all we need a heart full of grace.” Grace is found in love and personifies elegance, politeness, and generosity of spirit. An organization steeped in love is an organization steeped in grace.Why would grace be a lesson on leadership? How can it not? Grace is the state many wise leaders seek: grace under fire. The state of grace, however, is not just essential under fire; grace serves leaders all of the time. During times of stress, confusion, joy, and peace, grace is always at its best.Grace is a word and concept ripe with different mental models for people. Most definitions and constructs have common elements such as beauty, elegance, dignified manner, generosity of spirit, and a gift from God.The ability to see beauty in anything is a gift of grace. Mother Teresa saw beauty in the poorest of the poor, when she said, “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.” Grace is seeing with the heart and eyes of God. Dr. Victor Frankl described the worst of horrors in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He told a story of sitting on the floor in the concentration camp eating soup, exhausted after laboring all day for the Nazis, when a fellow prisoner rushed in to ask them to join him outside to marvel at the wonderful sunset. Even in the midst of the horrific concentration camps, those prisoners understood the beauty of grace.Elegance is refined confidence in self. It is a calm, quiet knowledge of self-efficacy that you can handle anything that comes your way with dignity. Grace through elegance is a powerful leadership example.Karl Barth once said, “Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace”. With our divine quiet grace, it shines like an outward beacon.The 3 Cs as outward manifestations of inward grace: care, compassion, and confidence.Confidence is one of the elements that draw followers to great leaders. Warning – confidence is not arrogance.Care and compassion are grace manifested in outward behaviors toward others, demonstrated through acts of sincere kindness to each other.How is grace manifested in your leadership and life?I would love to hear from you, what are some of the ways you demonstrate grace in your leadership and in your life?With love,Maria