The Aesthetics of Leadership: Inspiring Beauty to Unlock Truth and Goodness
One of the challenges of leadership is integrating the personal and the professional. Last week we explored a number of key themes that emerged over 12 months of sensemaking, and considered what they might mean for each of us on a personal level in our day-to-day lives:
What it means to be human and live a fulfilling human life
The search for meaning, purpose, and values
Reflections on the self and personal identity
The current state of the world and future directions
Leadership, relationships, and community
However translating imaginative ideas into practical initiatives is not easy. Hence this week we turn our attention to your leadership—whether formal or informal—and ask: How can leaders translate ideals into actions? What does it take, in practical terms, to promote human flourishing as a leader in your company, community, or country?
From theory to practice
Reviewing this year's posts reveals six key leadership behaviours that can drive greatness, coalescing around the transcendental and the relational. Here we explore beyond our metaphorical horizon and to the meaningful—practical principles with practical actions. Bernard Lonergan, the great Jesuit thinker of the 20th century, wrote that “our first work of art is our own living”. And so you will find that each of these principles is grounded not in your role as a leader, but your reality as a person:
Be Inspiring: Uncover beauty
Be Ethical: Catalyse goodness
Be Truthful: Illuminate truth
Be Compassionate: Care for others
Be Inclusive: Listen to all perspectives
Be Self-Aware: Know yourself … and serve others
The transcendentals
We turn first to the Transcendental values of Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Leaders often find themselves beholden to binary measures of the true and the good. Boards prioritise data, evidence, metrics: appeals to factual truth which can be used to justify decisions. Regulators emphasise compliance, risk mitigation: appeals to ethical goodness that dictates right actions.
Yet in narrowly focusing leadership and decision-making on what is empirically true and rationally good, we neglect the wisdom that comes from beauty. The harmony and aesthetic appeal of beauty inevitably catalyses goodness, and illuminates truth. By first nurturing those qualities which stir inspiration, lift hearts, and spark innovation—the aesthetics that hint at ethereal beauty—a leader grasps reality through a more discerning lens.
Leadership grounded in beauty renders superior understanding of truth and goodness more attainable. The aesthetic leads, the rest will follow in due course. Recover this lost art of leadership and unlock far greater wisdom in your wake.
Be Inspiring: Uncover beauty
As a leader, reorient conversations and inspire others by listening and watching for moments of aesthetic and moral beauty, such as where the sunlight reflects through the window, or where the sunlight shines through someones gracious action. Inspire by painting visions grounded in transcendent ideals people intrinsically share. In performance reviews, motivate through appreciating values, excellence and growth rather than narrow metrics. Foster camaraderie by admiring acts of compassion among colleagues. Take time to appreciate spaces conducive to human flourishing—whether art, architecture, nature or community gathering places. Create informal opportunities that spark perspective shifts through exposure to culture, literature and music. Allow a fresh aesthetic to energise your mission and purpose, and so propel teams not by profit alone but by a vision for the greater harmony they can bring to the world.
Be Ethical: Catalyse goodness
Effective leaders don’t merely follow rules. They inspire accountability grounded in care by articulating and modelling ethical, human-centred values such as respect and compassion. This motivates others to take responsibility for their own actions out of personal integrity rather than just compliance. Regularly revisit decisions through an ethical lens to ensure the moral compass is not experiencing drift. In this way, leaders reinforce norms essential for weathering the storms.
As a leader, model integrity through your own conduct: treat people fairly, distribute rewards equitably, and make decisions aligned with ethical values. This not only cultivates workplace virtue but positively influences society. Lead by steadfast, silent example even in situations lacking oversight, as someone is always watching. Take the time to acknowledge and publicly praise ethical behaviour you observe among others. Doing so confirms your organisation's core values, etching them more deeply into corporate culture.
Be Truthful: Live not by lies
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winner, argued that truth dies when we allow lies. When you accept what you know to be false, you give power to untruth.
Hence, first set an example by your commitment to the truth, no matter how difficult that may be to discover or discuss. Speak and act with integrity at all times. Failing to speak with integrity today can cause big problems tomorrow.
Furthermore, one of the challenges leaders confront is hearing the unvarnished truth—and not reacting badly when they hear it. Welcome unfiltered feedback around your own or the organisation's failures and risks—bearing in mind that you will still need to discern the truth of what you hear. Consider a complaint a gift, since somewhere within it lies a grain of truth. Lead by admitting your own shortcomings first. Dare to stand alone when institutional forces clash with personal convictions, sound in the knowledge that truth ultimately finds the light.
Leadership grounded in beauty renders superior understanding of truth and goodness more attainable. The aesthetic leads, the rest will follow in due course.
The relational
Be Compassionate: Care for others
Cultivating a compassionate spirit is a cornerstone of caring leadership. Such compassion manifests now just in how you show up and relate with your colleagues and clients, but with the deep attention you give them. Start with empathy—truly seeking to understand others through active listening and dialogue—even when schedules feel pressed. Healing divides begins by building bridges of care. Look also for opportunities to be of service, with that simple, but genuine question: “How can I be of service?” Inspire goodness not through grand visions but small acts of kindness.
And lead with self-compassion, accepting the imperfections of yourself and others, and gracefully learning from mistakes. A compassionate leader recognises that we all carry our own inner battles and scars. The true fruit of compassion is the impact on lives. Who have you motivated? Whose burdens have you eased? What relationships nurtured? Anchor in these human truths over abstract concepts. For leaders, care manifests through action, and radiates out to others.
Be Inclusive: Listen to all perspectives
A common and core need of people is to be heard and understood. Therefore, make it a priority to find ways to unite people through open and respectful dialogue where every voice gets heard and all perspectives are welcomed. Counterintuitively, people often support decisions when they feel respected and heard, even in disagreement.
Stay collaborative and consultative. Actively seek out diversity of thought within teams, flexibility in communication styles, and continual feedback from across the organisation. Establish rhythms where all employees can contribute ideas outside decision-making times. Lead with an open and inquisitive mindset over assumptions. Manage conflicts tied to differences with emotional intelligence, honesty, responsibility and patience. The insight you gain from remaining engaged and informed cannot be overstated, nor can the power of listening to understand over listening to respond. An inclusive leader leverages the wealth of collective wisdom.
Be Self-Aware: Know yourself … and serve others
When we think of self-awareness we are reminded of the Socratic aphorism to ‘know yourself’. But self-awareness is not only an inner knowing, it is a horizontal knowing: of yourself and your impact on others. Self-aware leaders remain ever conscious of the shadow they cast in meetings and conversations, in the quiet way they go about their life. You are always leading by example. Someone is always watching and learning from you about what it means to be a leader.
Leading others flows from your moral centre and moral awareness of your own values and the way these are integrated into your leadership and actions. This moral dimension of self-awareness helps you remain ever conscious of that impact you have on others, and their wellbeing, not simply their performance. Take time each morning to reflect on who you will encounter on that day. Ask yourself, who you need to be and become so that they may flourish. And have the courage at days’ end to then ask, “have I left others better for having known me?”
Conclusion: Becoming the Leader the World Needs
Although the specific content of your leadership is shaped by context, certain timeless qualities remain vital. Your fundamental imperative as leaders is this: Become and be the leader the world needs you to be. This demands commitment to personal growth, since a leader's character shapes the path they forge. Then take the six principles—being inspiring, ethical, truthful, compassionate, inclusive and self-aware—to enable leadership excellence and promote human flourishing. Albeit not exhaustive, consciously cultivating these transcendental and relational virtues will create a ripple effect of inspiration and integrity in those you touch.
Ultimately, the leader the world requires lives within each of us, right now. Leadership stems from inner transformation and daily choices to become the best person you can be. By taking ownership of your growth and integrating these principles into your mindsets and habits you gain the moral courage to translate ideals into practical steps forward. The opportunity exists here and now for current and emerging leaders to guide organisations in an explicitly transcendental direction, toward the true, the good and the beautiful. Our highest calling is to lead by quiet example in this singular mission. The future rests in your hands.