HEROIC LEADERSHIP: ON THE MARCH – FINEX FILES

WHEN the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008, one of the guest speakers during the annual conference was Chris Lowney, a former top executive of

JP Morgan & Co. who became an international bestselling author, public speaker, and leadership consultant.

Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, was published in 2003. It is not about JP Morgan, where he served as managing director in the bank’s New York,

Heroic Leadership focuses on the “unique leadership formula that has resulted in one of history’s most successful companies and the world’s most extensive higher education system — the Society of Jesus, an accidental company with a purposeful vision.”

Having been a Jesuit seminarian before becoming an investment banker, Lowney zeroed in on the Jesuit Order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and his “Band of Brothers” in 1540. Since then, the Jesuits have grown to become the world’s largest religious congregation and its superior general is sometimes called the “Black Pope” due to the order’s perceived image as a parallel power to the papacy.

In my philosophy and theology classes at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, I learned about the “Spiritual Exercises” developed by St. Ignatius based on the four pillars of self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. This medieval development tool can be more powerful than modern techniques such as the 360-degree feedback process and executive coaching sessions — both of which were already being practiced in some form by the early Jesuits almost 500 years ago.

Fast forward to 2018. FINEX is about to complete its golden jubilee year amid uncertain times in an increasingly polarized world. Today, the global leader of the 1.3 billion-strong Catholic Church, Pope Francis, is a Latin American Jesuit. Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte studied in Ateneo de Davao University, while many of our former and present leaders were educated in Jesuit schools.

The current superior general of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa SJ, is now in the Philippines to visit Jesuit communities in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Over the weekend, he concelebrated a mass at the Loyola House of Studies in Quezon City and inaugurated the new building of the Philippine Jesuit Aid Association, where he was presented a copy of the recently launched book titled On the March: The Jesuits in the Philippines Since the Restoration.

Published by Media Wise Communications, On the March takes the reader on a historical journey that began in the 1850s, when the Spanish Jesuits established Ateneo de Manila. Written by Fr. Jose Arcilla SJ and edited by John Nery, it chronicles the spread of the Jesuit educational mission over the next century and a half to Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Naga, Davao, San Pablo, Tuguegarao, Cebu, Iloilo, and Palawan.

According to executive publishers Ramoncito Ocampo Cruz and Manuel Paras Engwa, the book “seeks to give the reader an overview of how these intrepid missionaries lived their lives, travelling from place to place bringing the good news.”

Similarly, Jesuits in the 21st century are spreading the faith to more than 100 countries across the globe led by their Latin American head, Fr. Sosa, who does not want to be called the Black Pope. Instead, he urged the Filipinos to be agents of reconciliation as well as to develop a culture promoting the care of minors and vulnerable adults in our communities.

All these are in keeping with the Jesuit philosophy of Magis, described in Lowney’s book as “a one-word motto plucked from the Spiritual Exercises that captures a restless drive to imagine whether there isn’t some even greater project to be accomplished or some better way of attacking the current problem.”

The author is CFO of the Asian Center for Legal Excellence and Chairman of the FINEX Golden Jubilee Book Project.