Losing Sight of Ourselves: Multidimensional Versus Process-Oriented Leaders

Every day, we live through a certain routine and some unexpected events. Both routine and unanticipated situations intermingle with each other. The unforeseen events are what most people resist because they get so used to a routine. Routine allows the mind to work with muscle memory. Muscle Memory is easy to experience because it does not need management. 

For instance, the art of solving a Rubik’s cube requires knowing some visual algorithms. Once you learn and memorize the clockwise and anticlockwise turns, it becomes easier to solve the cube. Each day, the mind develops a set routine of how the cube needs to be turned in defined directions to be solved.

However, learning to solve a 3×3 cube does not guarantee your ability to solve a 4×4, mirror cube, Skewb, or Megamix cube. That’s where the mind has to put in additional effort to first learn, practice, and finally, solve effectively.

Every different dimensional cube has a unique approach to it with a few routine turns added to the mix. That said, my point here is not about the output of these cubes but rather the thought and feel behind the process.

It is not merely enough to simply breathe in air but to identify the type of air one breathes. Similarly, it is not enough to just get an output from people. As a leader, you must understand the work put in by an employee, their effort, their thought, and their feelings behind all they are tasked to deliver.

Machines Versus Multidimensional Beings

It is natural to easily turn into a machine that simply delivers an output.

For instance, an employer who does not align their team with the values of the company and business goals will only get surface work done. This means that a team devoid of the company’s vision will work with limited vision and meaning. This is opposed to a company where its employees are understood and they too understand the goals of the company. Such a team would work more with meaning and add value to their work.

Furthermore, the aspect of giving and receiving must coexist in harmony between the employer and the employee. For instance, when a person goes to a temple to pray, they are offering a prayer intending to receive a blessing or a response to a request. On the other side, the God they pray to is receiving the offering and must give in the context of what is asked in the prayer.

Using this analogy, the employer is equivalent to a God. Therefore, must act with the responsibilities of giving to employees based on their output.

This can only be done by a leader with a high Spiritual Quotient or SiQ.

A good way to explain this is through the example of an employer with a low SiQ. A receptionist who manages work at her desk at a hospital has to share her laptop with two other colleagues. She was promised a proper workspace during her interview but didn’t get a proper chair designated especially for her. Due to sharing the work laptop with two more people, she was unable to complete her work. This is why she would bring work home to complete all pending tasks for the day.

She tolerated this work environment for nearly 6 months. She finally went to her boss and requested to make some improvements. However, her boss retorted to her, telling her that if she couldn’t handle this work culture, she should take her bag and go home.

Sadly, the girl decided to do just that, take her bag, and quit the job where her work or output was not valued. Her colleagues convinced her to calm down and work, so she stayed. However, overall, the girl has lost her motivation to work at a place where she doesn’t even get a proper desk to work or even a dedicated laptop.

Her boss’s spiritual quotient was low which is why instead of understanding the thoughts and feelings of his employee, he thought it best to shut her down. This way, she or anyone else won’t be encouraged to complain about the working conditions at the hospital’s front desk.

On the other hand, a leader with a high SiQ would not have even allowed for such a working condition to exist. The leader would have anticipated the team’s requirement for a dignified workspace, and proper seating arrangements with one functional desktop for each employee.

This is the difference with leaders who have a high SiQ. They are not simply process-oriented but understand the thought and feeling that goes behind all the work done.