Page 188 - Appreciative Leadership

The Path of Integrity 161

from them. “Mentors should be cross-departmental in order to build
bridges on personal and departmental levels.” Relationship-enhancing
conversations encourage people to meet and get to know one another.

They demonstrate confidence in people and seek to bring out their best.

They build and strengthen relationships as a foundation for perfor-
mance, learning, and resiliency to change. Relationship-enhancing con-
versations are a positively powerful practice for demonstrating respect,
establishing trust, and inspiring unprecedented collaboration in service
to the whole—whether it is a whole department, project, organization,
community, or the world.
The path of integrity deepens relationships and spans time. When

asked, “What is Zen,” the Venerable Goto Roshi replied: “Simple, sim-

ple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past; infi nite ser-

1
vice to all things present; infinite responsibility to all things future.”
Appreciative Leadership practices are similarly threefold. Th ey foster

gratitude for the past. They embody service in the present. And they
exemplify responsibility for the future. Your path of integrity has to do
with how you learn from, honor, and appreciate the best of what has
been. It has to do with the ways you care for the whole of life: your-
self, other people, other living beings, and the earth. It has to do with
the choices you make: with whom and how you relate, how you bal-
ance your needs with those of others, and how you generate, use, and
care for resources. And it has to do with the impact of your thoughts,
words, and deeds—the legacy you leave for generations to come.

In Service to the Whole

To be on the path of integrity is to be moving, growing, and evolv-
ing toward wholeness; and to be supporting and enabling others to
do the same. Appreciative Leadership attends to wholeness on many
levels: seeking the whole story, aligning the whole organization, car-
ing for the whole world, applying holistic approaches, and being
open to the “holy.” Appreciative Leadership seeks the whole story. By
inviting, being open to, and sincerely listening to all voices, collective
wisdom—the sense of the whole—emerges. People want leadership to