Spirituality and Love in Corporate Leadership

An inspiring, down-to-earth interview with Janiece Webb, former Sr. VP at Motorola, who speaks candidly about bringing her spirituality and love to every facet of her leadership, from running billion-dollar businesses to staring down challenges to her ethical values.

By William C. Miller and Debra R. Miller

 

“I think that God intends us to find a way to not be judgmental, to not be envious and greedy. I think that my spiritual path is to leave all of these cravings behind me and to replace them with compassion and love.” – Janiece Webb

Career History

I started at Motorola on the production line 30 years ago, working the 3^rd shift during the night. People now ask me all the time how I became a Sr. Vice President of a major corporation like this. How I progressed is the same pattern over and over in my career: there was always a problem that needed to be solved and I had the courage to tackle it. I’ve always known that I could push a barrier.

If you look at my entire career, you’ll see that I’ve been in marketing, I’ve run engineering, I’ve run manufacturing, I’ve run service businesses around the world, I’ve run software, and I’ve run equipment businesses. I’ve run businesses from $2 million to $3.5 billion. I’ve had from zero people to 8 people to 8,000 people working for me. I have always been a visionary and have always found the problems that nobody else wanted to solve but needed to be solved.

I now take the technology assets of the company and either incubate them, spin them out, get them into a business, or license the technology and figure out how to make money with it.

Spiritual View of Life

I think my spiritual theme would be “God in everyone.” For me life is miraculous, therefore I know there is a creator. I believe that God is in every one of us and that He intended it that way. We are on earth to figure out how to find God within us. I believe that God put us on earth to find joy and happiness and to become enlightened. I think it is just as important to accept the perfection in each of us, as it is to accept the imperfections.

I think that all people are God’s people. Some may have blocks to realizing that, but I still see them as works of art. And yes, it can be hard to see God in everyone, especially in a large corporation like this one where there are people who can be quite cruel with blind ambition. I do believe in the pure potentiality of every single being. Now that potentiality may manifest itself in a different way than we thought it would when we started our journey, but we just have to trust.

Distinction Between Spirituality and Religion

I think spirituality is taking the principles that are taught in most religions and living them as a natural way of life. I am respectful of organised religion, but not to the point where I would sell my spirituality or my soul for it.

Spiritual Purpose, Principles and Values

I have known that I have a spiritual purpose ever since I was 10 years old, but I don’t feel that I have manifested it to my fullness. I know that I am to inspire and coach people. I know that when people are feeling downtrodden that I am supposed to pick them up and give them some wind to their backs so they can move forward. I know that I love to mentor people who feel wounded. I know that I practice courage and I love to break through barriers.

I know there is something about giving back in a most unselfish way. My years of work have given me a wisdom and comprehension of life – and of the issues that people walk around with every day – that are important and will play a part in my soul’s work.

Consciously Growing Spiritually

I used to affirm that I wanted to be intellectually fit, physically fit, emotionally fit, and spiritually fit. But now I realise that if I really get in touch with my spirituality then the rest takes care of itself. I don’t even have to worry about all of those other things, they happen naturally when I am spiritually fit.

Meditation is a key component for me to stay spiritually fit. I pray every day, several times a day. I ask for guidance and am humbly grateful, and I let that be known. I do not try to control, whether it’s my work environment, my husband, or my family. I come to work to live; I do not live to work.

When I am in touch with my spiritual nature, it feels as if I am really in touch with my essence. I can do this when I am meditating and I can do it when I am in a meeting, it doesn’t matter. I think meditation is important in that it does train me to quiet the noise and that’s an important thing for me.

Style of Leading

Whether in our personal life or corporate life I think that it is a principle of life to give back. I have found time and again that every time I give in this pure way that it comes back to me many times over, sometimes in even embarrassing ways. You give and it comes back, that’s just the way it works.

In truth, I believe that a position of power is a position of serving the people around you. I feel it is my job to serve people. No one gets anywhere by themselves. I must give energy to people and not be draining their energy all the time. I am only powerful when my energy is connected with other people’s energy. and we do things as a team.

I am only as good as the people around me. I can only achieve our organizational goals by nurturing people. I encourage people to really believe in themselves and not let the system dictate who they are. I also encourage them to forget about the corporate hierarchy structure. I don’t identify myself with my title; that’s a label that someone decided to put on me, and I ask them to not let that get in the way.

Sometimes I lead them and sometimes they lead me, I have to be willing to let them do that too. Yes, there are times when a command and control style is necessary in a crisis, but for me it must be needed, and it must be short lived.

Building trust through integrity

I have had numerous times when people outside of the company asked me to cheat in the name of business. I have run into this all over the world. Within myself, I knew I didn’t have to cheat; I knew that I didn’t have to pay bribes or go behind the law.

I have stood firm many times to not paying bribes and as a result people realise that they can trust me. A wealthy man in an Asian country once attempted to get me to hire a person so that he could buy some property for his personal use through Motorola. I stood firm that I would not do that. He reminded me that he was one of our largest customers in that country and I told him I didn’t care. To this day my contacts in that country tell me that they want to deal with me because they know they can trust me.

In another Asian country we had worked very hard to put together a huge partnership and contract. At the very end of the deal, the partner told us we would have to make a payoff in order for them to sign the contract. They thought they had our soul and that we wouldn’t back out. My higher-ups had told me earlier not to go and do this deal, but I believed in my heart and soul that I could pull it off without a compromise. I refused to make the payoff, so I came back with my hat in my hand and admitted that I had made a mistake. Yes, it was very embarrassing, and I admit that those above me were very right in many ways. But there were also ways in which they were not right and we all learned a lot together from this experience.

Moving through Dark Periods

In my career I have been through some extremely difficult downsizing situations and personal attacks. I have been put into some impossible situations when I felt that I was under intense pressure by those in power above me to solve an unsolvable problem, or times when the organization just wouldn’t work together to get things done.

Every once in a while, I have lost my way and those were really dark periods. And yet I knew I would be okay. I’ve been demoted and I’ve been celebrated and through it all I have learned not to get attached because none of this is what’s real.

Today, I could not tell you that I never feel fear; however, I do continue to feel it less and less. As I grow spiritually, I don’t get so disappointed or affected by human behaviour that is negative or disrespectful towards me.

Purpose of Business

I believe that a corporation has a soul and what that means to me is that yes, you do perform in a capitalistic model, but you do it with integrity, with absolute deep respect for people – not hollow words, but really treating them with dignity. You walk your talk.

A company that has soul has compassion. It doesn’t mean they can’t be tough and it doesn’t mean they can’t strive for big goals. You can be competitive with compassion, but if you are competitive without compassion, you will lose your soul.

Leaders who are sincerely compassionate hurt if they have to downsize. People know the truth and they know when you are sincere. If the company has leaders that use hollow words and are not sincerely soulful and compassionate, people know.

Importance and Priority of Financial and Productivity Goals

Financial and productivity goals used to have a huge priority for me. In the past I measured my success on reaching those goals. Today they do not have as much priority for me. I am productive and I do reach for goals. I do perform monetarily because that is expected of me – but I don’t do it at the expense of doing things that are wrong. People have said that I am ethical to a fault and I don’t mind having that title.

If your goal is to be successful, there will be a day when you will come down – someone else will come to replace you. If your goal is to live your principles and make sure that you left life better than how you found it, then you will be able to ride through the ups and downs and accomplish many things. Yes, it’s important to learn your lessons, but only take the ones that are really yours.

Developing an Organizational Culture

I believe in talent, and I believe that you can create giants out of ordinary people when you act in balance and harmony with people. Sometimes this requires tough love and that can be done within proper bounds. I feel that I’m in a very good place right now in my career because I do not feel lost in my ego, and I really like that. What that means is that I can appreciate people at all levels, and I can express my compassion and love to others in an open way.

It is possible to speak openly about spirituality at work. If you are going to speak about spirituality in a capitalistic corporation, then put it in terms that people can relate to. My caution is to “know your audience.” You may need to speak in different terms for different audiences, unless you have taken on the challenge that you are going to specifically teach spirituality and you’re going to do it at all costs. If so, then be prepared to know that many people will be very afraid of spirituality because they do not know how to relate to it.

Role of Business in Benefiting the Local Community, Nation and Society as a Whole

The role that business could play in benefiting the world could be huge. It could help education by investing in kids and showing them, by example, how to lead in a spiritual way.  It could channel the money it makes into giving back to society. I honestly believe that if a CEO came forward and was willing to genuinely show their spiritual side in making and selling good products as well as using their profits to help society, the results could be unbelievable. I truly believe that people want to follow goodness and are looking for these kinds of examples.

I believe if people could see that corporations are investing the profits they are making back into the society without a self-serving interest, it could be a new recipe for attracting and keeping shareholders.

Relationship with Other Executives

I’ve never looked at people in high power positions and been in awe. I’ve always been able to talk to the janitor, to the street person, or to the CEO, or to the president of our country, because to me they are all the same. Yes, some have different circumstances or environments or experiences, but inside they are all the same. This way of seeing people has always been a part of me since I was young, and I don’t know why.

When you stay true to your spiritual principles you can walk lightly. I have found that people who are phenomenal spiritual leaders are not entangled with the world; they have empathy and compassion and can even look at the world through your eyes. However, they do not attempt to control you. If you feel joy, they will also feel your joy, if you feel hurt, they will feel your hurt, but not to the point of losing their own soul or their own spiritual centre. They have a compassionate observance of others and of themselves.

Expressing love in the workplace

I think that we don’t need to be embarrassed with our feelings of love for each other. At work, I embarrass people with my warmth, and I don’t care. My boss today is very spiritual. I walk into his office, and I walk out soothed. Everything about him is spiritual, he is a deeply spiritual man, and he expresses such joy about everything. I would say that he has integrity beyond compare.

Last year, the organization I had been in went through a horrible process. I watched things that I created get destroyed and I watched the effect on people’s lives. After coming out of that tremendously difficult circumstance, my current boss was the one who asked me if I would like to come to work for him. He let me know that he cared and that he knew I had been through a hard time; it brought tears to my eyes. For me, out of 30 years of knocking heads with my bosses, this is one of the most soothing circumstances I have experienced.

I feel that I’m in a very good place right now in my career because I do not feel lost in my ego and I really like that. What that means is that I can appreciate people at all levels and I can express my compassion and love to others in an open way.

Continued Growth as a Spiritual-Based Leader

There was a time when I thought I wanted to save the world and then I discovered that my motivations were ego driven. Once I began to understand the essence of who I was, I began to also understand how driven I was by my ego, even though it was often disguised.

Someone asked me the other day what my goal in life was and I said, “To take all of the chatter out of my head.” I will know when I’ve made it spiritually when I can sit and not jabber, when both my mind and mouth can be quiet. When I die I want people to say that I cared, that I worked hard and tried my best every day to make a positive difference, and that I was spiritual and treated people fairly.

Guidance and Advice for Aspiring Spiritual-Based Leaders

I give career talks a lot, and one of the things I always tell my audiences is to look way into the future and think about how you want people to remember you. It’s important for you to get in touch with your principles early and let them guide you. I add that while you may admire someone as your role model, it is important for you to be yourself and integrate what you see or like in him or her, in your own way.

Bob Galvin, the former CEO, was once asked what kept him awake at night and he said, “The fear of arrogance and if we become arrogant, we will no longer be watchful.” I believe this is very critical as well. I tell people to watch out for arrogance, believing you are invincible, letting power seduce you, getting into the wrong crowd and selling out on your personal principles.

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This case story is excerpted from an interview with Janiece conducted by William Miller and Debra Miller in 2002 and originally published by the Global Dharma Center as part of its research on Spiritual Based Leadership. Janiece had been a consulting client of William’s from 1992 to 1997. You can view the full interview of Janiece Webb and 3 dozen other executives at: https://globaldharma.org/sbl-knowledgebase1volumes.htm