Values and the power of three

Citation

Fulford, K.W.M.(B). and Gilbert, P. (2011), "Values and the power of three", International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlps.2011.54707baa.001

Values and the power of three

Article Type: Guest editorial From: The International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Volume 7, Issue 2

This second special issue on the theme of spirituality, leadership and values, following as it does so hard on the heels of the first reflects the richness of material in this expanding field. We indicated in our editorial to the first special issue that a time of cuts and crises was propitious for a renewal of what we called the “the power of three”. Carr’s (2010) call in that issue, writing from her personal experience as a service user, to “take control of our crisis” still resonates. Sunil Kariyakarawana, a Buddhist Army chaplain, captures essentially the same idea in this issue with his evocative Buddhist imagery of the fragrant lotus rising from the “stinky mud”.

We also though warned of the difficulties. Notwithstanding the power of three, we pointed out, previous attempts to bring together spirituality, leadership and values had fallen to earth with a “mechanistic bump”. There is nothing wrong with mechanisms of course. The danger as Peter Gilbert vividly conjures with the title of his lead article “I Robot”, comes from people being treated as mechanisms and hence as lacking all those essentially human attributes such rights, responsibilities, hopes, wishes, desires and so forth, or, in a word values.

This is why this second special issue has a particular focus on values. Values like spirituality and the faith traditions are still regarded by many as “fluffy” or a “luxury”. Well, one thing that we hope this second special issue will achieve is, to borrow Pauline Darby’s robust phrase, to “blow apart a few stereotypes”. Each of our contributors brings out in one way or another and in different contexts the many powerful roles that values may play: reducing recidivism among men in the prison population (Liz Bird’s account of a spiritually supercharged prisoner re-offending programme); building morale in hard pressed staff (Julian Raffay’s account of the many challenging roles of the hospital chaplain); at the hard end of policing (witness-experienced police officers like Jonathan Smith in his reflections on “Leadership Fitness” and Adrian Lee’s more personal account); and (with cuts and crises in mind) improving the cost-effectiveness of services (Michael Hobkirk and Neil Deuchar’s values-based commissioning).

Some “fluff”, then, these values, and certainly very far from being a “luxury”. Working with values of course, presents many challenges. For one thing values come in many varieties: ethical values are challenging enough; but what about needs, wishes and preferences, not to mention goals and aspirations? Then again, there is the sheer diversity of values: each of the many varieties of values may find a different (possibly unique) instantiation within different cultures, at different historical periods and in different individuals. And as if all this were not challenging enough, values have an inherent tendency to come into conflict. Peter Gilbert and Julian Raffay are among the contributors to this special issue who note the recurring tensions between individual and community values, for example.

With challenges, though, as our contributors also make clear, go resources. The ever-resourceful group of Roman Catholic nuns described by Pauline Darby drew on sources ranging from the Harvard Business School to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Bantu-based “Ubuntu theology”, to drive through their change process. A coherent approach in this and in many other projects described in this special issue is made possible by the fact that values themselves, if diverse, are not incoherent. Several contributors describe frameworks of shared values that have been used to guide and shape decision-making in this or that particular context. As Liz Bird points out there are also cultural universals shared by all faiths and indeed with secular systems of belief.

Care is needed with shared values, it is true. Jehovah’s Witnesses, the “unexpected heroes” of Christine King’s historical account of survivors of Nazi atrocities, were empowered by their shared world view; but as Christine King points out, so too were their Nazi persecutors. Intolerance need not go with “strong” values: the Christian tradition of spiritual direction is just one example of how a strong personal faith can be combined with complete openness to very different values and beliefs in others (Atwell and Fulford, 2006). Skills are needed to turn this trick: skills for example of understanding and of conflict resolution. But again, there is no shortage of skills available. Managers, Hobkirk and Deuchar remind us, have well developed skills of conflict resolution. Understanding, too, as Ellen Anderson found in her journey as a blind woman to become a social worker, becomes possible even across widely different world views where those concerned are willing to work together in partnership.

So are the robots coming? Is our “power of three” notwithstanding these resources set to follow its predecessors and fall back to earth with a mechanistic bump? Advances in the neurosciences might suggest so. Michael Wong, writing as a psychiatrist in a view from Australia warns of the potentially dehumanising effects of brain imaging and other new neurosciences (the “faith is just a brain trace” syndrome). Yet advances in the related field of artificial intelligence suggest a contrary conclusion. The concern there is increasingly with the ethics of man-machine relations and “robot rights” (www.asimovlaws.com). It seems that even as advances in the neurosciences threaten to turn people into machines, advances in robotics threaten to turn machines into people. There is a nice symmetry here – and it turns on values.

K.W.M. (Bill) Fulford, Peter GilbertGuest Editors

About the Guest Editors

K.W.M. (Bill) FulfordFellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford and an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health, University of Warwick. In 1994, he set up the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health Programme, originally in the Philosophy Department but now housed in the Warwick Medical School. He is also the Lead Editor for an international book series from Oxford University Press on International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry, and of the international peer-reviewed journal from The Johns Hopkins University Press, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology.

Peter GilbertEmeritus Professor at Staffordshire University, national Project Lead for the National Spirituality and Mental Health Forum, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Worcester. He is the author of Leadership: Being Effective and Remaining Human, and editor of Mental Health and Spirituality. Peter Gilbert was Director of Social Service for Worcestershire County Council (UK).