Blessing for a Leader

The Practice of Blessing

We do not offer nearly enough blessings to one another as we go about our hurried days. Blessings can be a prayer, but they are also affirmations, encouragements, and expressions of hope that we may delight in your good fortune.

I am working to develop my capacity to bless others as I go about my life and work. It is not so hard for me to affirm someone else for a good result, but it requires greater attentiveness to the person and their circumstances to bless another person. To improve this practice of blessing, I recently picked up a book of blessings called, To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donahue. This collection of blessings for life passages, seasons of joy, seasons of pain, and many gratitudes will give you inspiration, and a blessing you can read aloud to others in those poignant moments when you are called upon to speak, but can’t quite find the words.

Today, I am thinking about leaders that are taking on new roles as well as those who have been serving in leadership roles for many years. May O’Donahue’s blessing “For a Leader” be a blessing to you this day.

For a Leader

May you have the grace and wisdom

To act kindly, learning

To distinguish between what is

Personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable to criticism.

May you never put yourself at the center of things.

May you act not from arrogance but out of service.

May you work on yourself,

Building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know

You see and respect them.

May you learn to cultivate the art of presence

In order to engage with those who meet you.

When someone fails or disappoints you,

May the graciousness with which you engage

Be their stairway to renewal and refinement.

May you treasure the gifts of the mind

Through reading and creative thinking

So that you continue as a servant of the frontier

Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,

And you never become a functionary.

May you know the wisdom of deep listening,

The healing of wholesome words,

The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,

The decorum of held dignity,

The springtime edge of the bleak question.

May you have a mind that loves frontiers

So that you can evoke the bright fields

That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.

May you have good friends

To mirror your blind spots.

May leadership be for you

A true adventure of growth.

Do you need a companion for the lonely journey of your leadership? Contact Michael Le Roy for a free confidential consultation.