The Shepherd of shepherds, the Manager of managers

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 1: JANUARY 1, 2022]

The Shepherd of shepherds, the Manager of managers

Luke 2:16-21. The shepherds visit the newborn Jesus.

For this new year 2022, one of my resolutions is to honor and hone my writing / general insighting skills while practicing my Christian spirituality. I intend to do so by writing my personal daily reflections on the Gospel for the day, specifically on how the Word could provide insights on management and organization.

Hopefully, this can intellectually and spiritually nourish whoever reads this. As Fr. Dave Concepcion mentioned in one of his homilies, we need to exercise virtue for we could be the only Bible or Gospel another person sees or hears for today. Perhaps this is how I desire to heed that invitation.

The Gospel for January 1, 2022 seems very opportune to start my personal writing / insighting resolution – shepherds recognizing the holiness of Jesus as the Shepherd of shepherds. Should we view Jesus as the Manager of managers too?

Before the pandemic, I consulted Fr. Luis Lorenzo for spiritual guidance in navigating a career in the academe. And one of the key insights that struck me the most is the importance of virtue. Simply put, virtue meant a deliberate and consistent practice of good habits towards good intentions. These two quotes came to mind:

“Good better best, never let it rest, until good becomes better, and better becomes best.”

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

How do we reconcile this with business management and organization? Perhaps there is insight in what being a prophet really means. We tend to view prophets as predictors of the future. I think prophets anticipate the future via the Holy Spirit’s gifts of knowledge and wisdom, allowing prophets to “read” and “really see” how societies and entities interact towards good or bad outcomes.

Managers can be prophets of the good news by deliberately designing organizational systems that facilitate practice of virtues – shepherding mentees, staying true to the divine (old and new testament) commandments, and prioritizing socioecological well-being as primary outcomes of management and organizing.

(I realize I am tending to write plenty of business jargon here, so perhaps I should improve on this in the next days for easier understanding and more effective articulation.)

As a segue to the next Gospels, one of the questions I’m pondering: why does Jesus speak in relatively ambiguous ways? My tentative answer is that Jesus does not want to spoonfeed the Good Word, and as intelligent beings, we must embrace pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, be intelligent in our insights and reasonable in our judgements. The parables and His examples allow us to derive more benevolent meaning and insights towards a more fulfilling spiritual nourishment.

The Shepherd of shepherds. The Manager of managers. Let us be accountable to Him in the way we lead, manage, and organize!