Today’s guest, Dr. Yosi Amram talks to us about spiritual intelligence – what it is, why it matters (particularly at work and in leadership), how to activate and develop it, and the results it yields based on his extensive research.
In this episode, I chat with licensed clinical psychologist, pioneering researcher, and author, Dr. Yosi Amram about spiritual intelligence.
We dive into what it is and how to activate and develop it, as well as:
- Finding your North Star
- Our interconnectedness and interdependence
- Shifting priorities
- Leaning into evolution and growth
- Why all of this matters at work and in leadership
"When we understand our interconnectedness and interdependence, we start caring for the totality that we’re in...
Leaders with SQ have teams with more commitment, higher morale, lower turnover, and who produce better financial results...
It transforms our lives (if we let it)."
—
Yosi Amram, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, and an executive coach catering to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other influential leaders. He has coached over 100 CEOs many of whom have built companies with thousands of employees and revenues in the billions. Previously a founder and CEO of two companies that he has led through successful IPOs.
Holding an MBA from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Sofia University in Clinical Transpersonal Psychology, Yosi is a pioneering researcher in the field of spiritual intelligence whose research received over 1000 academic citations. He is the author of Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired.
Yosi is committed to enabling individuals to unlock their potential through spiritual intelligence, which grows out of a profound connection to the core of one’s existence – their spirit, where inspiration and their deepest interconnectedness reside – that enriches their overall functioning, improves their effectiveness as leaders, and enhances their wellbeing as humans.
You can learn more about his work at yosiamram.net and/or connect with him on social (LinkedIn or Facebook, he also has a YouTube channel: Awakening Spiritual Intelligence).
- I'm Celine Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast, a conversation series, exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Yosi Amram, a distinguished clinical psychologist, A CEO leadership coach, and the author of "Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired." Welcome, Yosi.
Thank you, I'm delighted to be here with you.
I'm excited to have you here with me. So every podcast starts the same way. I'm gonna ask you a question, and that is, when you hear the name of this podcast, which is Leading Through Crisis, when you hear that phrase, what comes up for you or what does that mean to you?
Wow, I can go on for a long time, hours and hours about it, but a couple of key words here is crisis. And I think we all deal with crisis. I mean, we deal with personal crisis in our life. I'll talk about one that was very transformative for me. We deal through organizational crisis, whether we work in a non-profit or a for-profit company, there are crises that happen from time to time. And I think we're dealing with global crises at the political and geopolitical and human level. Right now, there's plenty of crises, environmental crises happening, political crises, in terms of polarization. And there are wars, and it's just the future of humanity is at stake. So I think for me, the word crisis is a pivotal point where the forces of change are so strong that this sort of a non-linear thing that's happening and we need a different way to manage it. So at the personal level, one crisis that happened to me that was a very much of a defining moment. I was a CEO of a public company that I founded. It went public, I was worth a lot of money. I was healthy physically, so I was healthy and wealthy. But yet there was some part of my heart that wasn't really fulfilled, was seeking something deeper. And I had been working for a long time and got burnt out. And it got to the point where there was sort of what's called in the spiritual field a dark night of the soul, where I sort of hid depression. And somehow in the midst of that and going inward, I had a spiritual awakening where I saw through the illusion of our separation and realized our interconnectedness. Now that coupled to move me into a manic episode, in fact. So I became so consumed by this energy of oneness and there was so much energy moving through me, and I just couldn't contain it all. And I had so many ideas that were visionary. I wanted to move in so many directions. A lot of those visions all came true years later. But in leading the company through that transition, while at the same time the internet was coming and booming and there was just a lot of change, inner and external. And that was a crisis because my board and my team could not follow me. I wasn't grounded and I couldn't bring them along. So that crisis really led to my getting pushed out of that company. So it was a devastating loss for me because that company was my baby. I had dreamed about building it from my teen years, and it was really my vision and ambition, fulfillment of my deepest dream. So that got me to look deeply within myself about what was that about? Why was it so important? What was the meaning of it? So my life took on a new direction after that. I went back to school to understand what had happened psychologically and spiritually, and that's how I became a clinical psychologist and did all this research around spiritual intelligence. So anyway, the point is that it was a crisis which changed... It was a critical pivotal moment in my life that changed the whole direction of my life, and it required reorientation of my psyche and my environment and my work and so on. So at a company, my company at the time was facing a crisis because we started out delivering personalized news via the fax machines well before the internet came. And then the internet came, and all this stuff came available, free, ad supported. So we had to change our business model and there was a lot of competition. So we had to adapt. In order to adapt, we had to launch internet products that were free and ad supported, that cannibalized our core business, which was on a subscription fax basis. So navigating that change was very hard. And so that was a crisis at the company level. So this is all... I'm talking about crisis, and then leading through crisis, the word leading. So you get into what is leading and first of all, I wanna say that leading anybody starts with leading ourselves. We can't lead anybody, we can't inspire anybody unless first and foremost we are able to lead ourselves. And so how do we lead ourselves? We have to have a North Star of where we're going, what we're about, what our values are. We have to be rooted and grounded in ourself. That's where I failed. I had these great visions, but that wasn't rooted and grounded and that's why everything became wobbly. So to lead through crisis, we have to be rooted in ourselves, clear about our values, clear about our North Star, our vision of for ourselves, our organization, where we're going and what our values are. What is important about how I go about this thing, and asking ourselves, what... How do I wanna go about this situation now? What's it calling forth in me? What's gonna be important when I look back at it 10, 15 years from now, that I'll say, yeah, I lived my values, I led through it with integrity? And so those are some of the things that come up for me when I think about this notion of leading through crisis individually, organizationally, collectively.
About 114 questions I wanna ask you after that. So this is gonna be a real challenge for me. Thank you for sharing that.
I take it as a compliment.
Definitely
Brought up some good things, thoughts.
Absolutely. I'm going to... So I wanna start where you... One of the latter things that you said before we go to one of the earlier things that you said. But I wanna ask the question. So when you talk about... I think we talk... I have certainly had a lot of conversations with leaders, with people on this podcast within the world around the idea of with coaching, whatever, around the idea of values. I think that is better understood than it once was. I do think, however, though, that this concept of a North Star is extremely intimidating to people. And often, and I'm gonna say confusing to them, but confusing in the sense that, how do I know if my North star is right? How do I not make a mistake when declaring a North... I think that comes up for a lot of people way more often with the concept of a North Star or purpose or whatever you wanna call the version of that that you subscribe to, versus values. And I say all that to ask, can you tell me a little bit about what that means for you or how that shows up or if someone were to say to you, "What if I choose the wrong one?" What would you say to that?
Okay, good, what if I choose the wrong one? I think the right... First of all, you will know it because you won't be in alignment. For a while, it may seem to work and you think, this is my North Star. My North Star is to make a million dollars, or my North Star is to become a founder and CEO, My North Star, this is my purpose in life, et cetera. But at some point we get there or something in our... Which was for me, my North Star for a long time was to be an entrepreneur and take a company public and blah, blah, blah. It had other aspects about how to build an organization that facilitates the growth of each individual and in the community context, in a team context. But at some point that North Star, so to speak, or that guiding light lost its meaning for me because I got there, I was a CEO of a public company, and something wasn't fulfilled. So sometimes our North Stars change. What was right for us in our teen years, in our childhood... In our childhood, our North Star is to learn and play. In our teens, maybe it's to belong or whatever. In our 20s, 30s, it's about career and family or whatever. But at some point, we keep growing, we keep changing. So I think what I would say is, first of all, trust in yourself and that the evolution that life will show you the way over time. And that's one thing I would say. The other thing is, ultimately, we're not really... The right North Star, we don't quite choose. It's not, you think about it, what... I mean, you do need to contemplate, but at the end of the day, it feels like a calling. Something calls us that's outside of ourselves and it has to do with what are my gifts? What has life gifted me? And that is my own unique essence, and how can then I actualize those gifts in service of others? And that's how life calls us. So it's not like you could choose anything. It has to be aligned with your essence, your unique gifts, your superpowers some people like to call it. And then you feel the call to bring those gifts to fruition, to serve others. And yeah, so that's what I can say about that.
I love that you... And I'm gonna totally own that I agree with this, which is probably why I love it. I'll own it. But I love that you talked about North Stars changing and that it's not one North Star for life, which has always been a point of contention with me when it comes to values as well, is people are like, "Your values never change." Well, I don't actually believe that because I think there are stages of life where things that will affect what our values are, and some may be, whether you subscribe to 3 or 5 or 10, I think some might be consistent. And I also think it's absolutely likely that if we are growing and changing as a human, our values are likely growing and changing as well. And I think that, which is why I'll fully own that I love that you talked about a North Star changing and being open to that, because I also think it takes the pressure off the idea that there is a right North Star that's... And people like to be right, they don't wanna make a mistake.
Yeah, we don't wanna marry the right one, but know the fact is that we go through multiple relationships, but I'm sorry.
No, but it's true. We can't predict the... We're making the best decisions we can in the moment. That's all we got, that's all we have.
Exactly. Exactly. But to your other point about their values changes, even if we... Even if the values might be the same, their priority changes and shifts in different phases of our life. At certain stages we're gonna value productivity. In our 20s and 30s, and we're trying to be productive. We're the prime of our productivity. At certain stages of life, the value's gonna be more inward directed. Am I growing spiritually, am I evolving? And so on. So we might value both productivity and inner growth and spiritual awakening throughout our life, but the balance is gonna change. If you are in your 20s or your 30s and you're a parent, a lot of your energy is gonna have to go to your work, your career, family and children. Family and children may continue to be a value, but when they've flown out the nest or whatever, then that value is still a value, but it's not gonna be your primary driving value. So yeah, values, priorities change. Different phases of life call us... Call forth different qualities, different priorities, and that's just part of the excitement of life. I think Jung said it beautifully, I forget how he worded it, as like, "We cannot expect the same thing in the first part of life, when the sun is rising versus it's setting," it's just different energy. So if we try and live the values that were appropriate for our 20s when we're in our 40s and 50s, it's just gonna not work. We're not gonna be happy. It's gonna feel misaligned.
Yes, yep, I'm with you, I agree. And I think it's one of the challenges that a lot of people face. And I will say maybe especially in North America, maybe it's English-speaking countries, I'm not sure, but I hear it a lot, which is this... It's like we've been fed this idea of longevity being the thing that matters most. If you work for the same company for 25 years, if people see you the same way they did when you were a teenager, if you're with the same person that you dated when you were 16 years old, whatever the idea is, this idea of... You pick a career, you stick to it for 40 years. People have been fed this idea that longevity is the greatest indication of success. And that is so counter to change and stages of life and evolution of the way we think or see things. And I think it's really important that we acknowledge that. And I love that you've talked about that in all the ways that yeah, things will reprioritize and change because-
Yes, we grow, that's the point is we're... Key words are, we're evolving. And all the research now also, one of the things I notice, Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, got him to be the highest market cap company in the world. And one of the things this article at "Inc" magazine was talking about is that he changed the culture from being, the focus on being right to growth and learning from mistakes. And that's a huge shift in our psyche. People that are growth oriented tend to be happier and more fulfilled and they naturally grow, because that's what... If we're focused on quote-unquote "Being right," then we contract, we're afraid to be wrong. 'Cause no, we can make mistakes, we can be wrong. And every one of those is an opportunity for learning and growth. So if we're focused on evolution and growth, then life is much more of an adventure and fun because every mistake, every failure, so to speak, every time we fall down, we actually fall forward, we fall upward. It uplifts us through our learning, our growth, our evolution. And so when we understand we're here to evolve and grow, it just shifts the whole way we hold our life and the decisions that we make. And we are less driven by fear, because if we're focused on making everything right and being right, then we're afraid to make a mistake, we're afraid to fail. Whereas otherwise, it's just like, no, I make the best choice I can for what's now and I may be proven wrong and I'll learn and grow and evolve through it. And that's part of the adventure.
Absolutely, it is part of the adventure. I appreciate you saying that. Excuse me. So now I wanna go back to something more closer to the beginning of when you were talking about your lens on leading through crisis. And you talked about having a spiritual awakening and the crisis, crises that led to that for you. And I'm gonna guess that that is part of perhaps the kind of inspiration behind your book, behind this concept of spiritually intelligent leadership. And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit more about that and what that is.
Yeah, great, thank you. So yeah, I mean it was a crisis and that led to a change of direction in my life and led me to where I am now. So it was a spiritual awakening. By that I mean seeing through the illusion of our separateness and to the truth of our interconnectedness. It's a cliche when people say, "Well, we're all one, et cetera." But when you think about it, you look out, I'm looking at you, there's a sense that you're there and I'm over here and we're separate, right? But modern physics and quantum physics and gravity and everything says that no, there are forces and we're actually at the physical level all connected. The Earth and the sun exerting gravitational field on each other. So at the most basic level, there's a connectedness and there's a system and everything is influencing everything else. So when we experience that interconnectedness in our interdependence, it shifts how we relate to ourselves and each other. I call this sort of the Copernican Revolution that we're undergoing. Or my friend Steve Ferrell at humanities team calls it the Galileo Moment. Up until Copernicus and Galileo, you looked at the sky and we assumed that the Earth's at the center of the universe, because the sun, as you look through the day, is moving up the sky. And so naturally, we assume the Earth's at the center of the universe. Well then they came along and said, "No, the sun is actually at the center and the Earth is rotating around it." In fact, the Earth is an offshoot of the sun. The Earth is an offspring that got thrown out of the sun, and the sun is giving it life energy and sustaining it. So with the spiritual awakening, we shift our awareness from seeing ourselves as a separate individual, an egoic simple identity. And we look at life and we're always thinking about, well, how can this person help me? We're in this dog eat dog world and we're in this jungle and we're competing with each other and there are limited resources, and I have to fight to take care of my needs. But the Copernican revolution is, it means that we're shift... The center of our universe from the ego to the big S Self, as some traditions call it, or the totality of reality that we're just a cell in this broader organism. And just like the heart in our body won't survive very long if it said, "Okay, I gonna hold the best blood, most oxygen, the healthiest blood for myself," well, for a minute or two it might feel better, but after a while, the lung is gonna start decaying and the brain's not gonna do so well. And the heart itself won't function very well and the whole body will wither and die. So if we understand our interconnectedness and interdependence, then we start caring for the totality that we're in. And of course, we have to take care of our instruments so we can play the most beautiful music we can with this instrument that has been gifted to us. Like we talked about, our purpose, and we play it in harmony with the greater totality. So that's kind of the spiritual lens and awakening that I experienced. Okay, so all of that, how does that relate to spiritual intelligence? And so spiritual intelligence, I was very familiar with emotional intelligence and all the research and everybody now knows about it. And years ago, we used to think, before emotional intelligence came, there used to be a dichotomy between reasonable and emotional. You are either reasonable or you were emotional. If you're doing a job interview and someone said, "Oh, so and so is emotional." I'd say, "Oh, I don't know if I wanna hire them on my team." But then there's emotional intelligence that collapsed the gap between emotional and reasonable. And so someone says someone is emotionally intelligent, you'd say, "Oh, that's wonderful." Now there's a dichotomy between the practical and the spiritual these days. We think that spiritual is woo woo. It's like, I don't know, reincarnation and angels and whatever. So it seems ungrounded and unpractical. But what spiritual intelligence says, and this is what came through my research, is there are qualities that have been hailed by all the world's spiritual traditions that are considered virtues. And these are purpose and service and compassion and gratitude and integrity and humility, and so on. So regardless of your belief, and some of my clients are atheist and they still can develop their spiritual intelligence because they can practice gratitude, they can practice joy, they can have a greater sense of purpose, they can live in integrity, they can bring in their presence. And all of those qualities support our wellbeing and our effectiveness as leaders. So my research has shown that leaders with higher spiritual intelligence lead teams with more commitment, higher morale, lower turnover. Other research since has shown that those leaders produce better financial results for their organization. So that's a complimentary and analogous to emotional intelligence. The two compliment each other. They have a small overlap, a small to moderate correlation, we can analyze why that would be the case from their very concept, but they're complimentary and they both contribute to our individual wellbeing and our effectiveness as leaders. So that's what my research and my passion is about, is to help people awaken greater spiritual intelligence and embody these qualities in daily life so we can be more inspired and connected and powerful leaders that are empowered, and everybody around us wins. Leaders that lead with this way, their teams are happier. And then that energy and wellbeing propagates out to their families, to their communities. Because, we're suffering from loneliness epidemic now, everybody understands and work is our biggest community. People spend more of their waking hours at work. And so if we have a sense of community and overcome our isolation, share a common set of values and mission and a vision of a future, we're all working together, then we have a sense of community, we're aligned with others, we're happier, we're more fulfilled, and we carry that energy forward. And we're kind of like wifi extenders of this vibration of joy and gratitude and love. It just radiates out.
So this is fascinating and I have possibly a strange question for you, but it is what came up. It's what came to mind immediately, so I'm gonna ask it anyways. I suspect that there are a lot of people who would hear the idea of spiritual intelligence and spiritually intelligent leadership and might be half listening to this and would say, "Oh, I'm religious, I don't... This doesn't, I'm Christian, I'm whatever..." Muslim, whatever their religion is. "I'm good, I am already spiritually intelligent. I'm already a spiritually intelligent leader." And I say, with great confidence, that there are many people who would consider themselves religious in whatever their religion who probably do not fall under the category of spiritual intelligence. And I'm curious if you have seen that, how that has shown up, how you would possibly redirect someone who is so confident that they are already in this camp to maybe explore that they are not as much, as spiritual intelligent as they might think they are.
Okay, yeah, that's a good question. Well, first let me clarify that spiritual intelligence, like any other form of intelligence is a multidimensional construct. When we say someone has a high IQ, well what does that mean? IQ consists of many forms of intelligence. It's verbal comprehension, it's the ability to write well, it's mathematical reasoning, it's logical reasoning, it's spatial reasoning, it's processing speed. So IQ is a composite of many things and most people have a verbal IQ and a mathematical, logical IQ, et cetera. Now, spiritual intelligence has 22 dimensions in my research. So someone may very well be coming from a religious orientation, may have deep spiritual intelligence qualities around certain dimensions they might have practiced. They practice forgiveness, they practice compassion, they speak the truth, they try to live with integrity, whatever it is. But there are other qualities having to do with presence, having to do with joy, having to do with whatever, higher self, intuition, intention, inner-directedness and so on. So I don't know anybody, including myself, that has completely developed. I think we have unlimited potential in all these dimensions to bring more love, more compassion, more joy, more inner connectedness and more beauty to our lives. So I think I would caution everybody, anybody from thinking, oh, I'm already set, because I think it's a lifelong journey. And most of the spiritual traditions speak about humility as a key value. So I think the say I'm already done doesn't feel, in its very nature to be... It misses the quality of humility and the quality of openness. One of the other qualities of spiritual intelligence is openness. Openness to learn anew and being inclusive. So that would be my answer.
And I appreciate that. I think it is honest and I think it feels accurate. And I love that you called out humility as one of the traits, 'cause yes, that's true. And also, and I'm sure you've heard this as well, but if I were to tell you the number of people when doing any kind of work around emotional intelligence around quote-unquote "Soft skills" who go, "Huh, I'm good. I'm already emotional intelligent, I got this." And you're like, "Eh, just call out that I don't..." If you're declaring that I am already emotionally intelligent or I've got this covered, I know it all, chances are pretty good that that's not the case. Which is why I asked the question. 'cause I can see people hearing that and not knowing about the 21 dimensions, sorry if I got that wrong.
22, yeah.
Okay, good. And or not understanding or really connecting that it is a bigger concept than just what they think of as spirituality. So them hearing that, and I think people understanding that is really important to people becoming more spiritually intelligent and accessing that and using it to the benefit of themselves and the people around them in that way that is about kindness and inclusivity and aligned with integrity, all of that.
Yeah, yeah, so I'm glad you're highlighting that. And I would also like to highlight that on the other side, it's also true. Someone may feel the opposite. I'm an atheist, I don't believe anything about this thing about called spirituality that smells like woo woo. I'm into, I'm a hard science materialist and don't give me this bullshit about spiritual intelligence. I want something real and hard and tangible. And my response to that is that you could be an atheist. You don't have to believe in anything, but when you have a sense of purpose, you're more powerful. When you embody gratitude, your connections and leadership is gonna be improved. When you bring more joy to your life, when you appreciate more beauty and you uncover the beauty in your work. Beauty is not just art. You commented earlier about the art behind me, and that's beautiful. But can we find beauty in our work, in a spreadsheet, in a PowerPoint, or whatever. Is there beauty in this moment of connection between us? I can experience it. And so if I feel into the beauty of the moment, that opens my heart, et cetera. So I can be an atheist, but I can bring all these qualities into greater embodiment, greater manifestation in my daily life everywhere. I'm driving on the freeway and there are cars cutting in front of me and everybody's competing and I can get agitated and angry or I can go into a place of compassion and that calms my nervous system. I feel more connected. Instead of being an isolated individual with this metal box around me, protecting me against anybody else, we're racing all and competing, that's one perspective. But it's not good for me, it's not good for the world. Or I could be in the checkout line in the supermarket and I can take that moment to connect with the cashier and make eye contact and appreciate them, tell a joke, et cetera. That improves the quality. So I don't have to be quote-unquote "Spiritual" or religious to bring in these qualities and imbue them in my daily life. I can be an atheist. And these are virtues. Now why do we call it spiritual intelligence? Because these are the virtues that have been talked about through all the world's spiritual tradition. Whether you're a Buddhist and you believe in the Buddha was enlightened, or you're Christian, you believe that Christ is the Messiah, was the son of God, or you're a Muslim and you believe Mohammed was the final prophet, or you're Jewish and you believe the Torah was handed down by God on Mount Sinai, whatever it is, your beliefs, your dogma, they all speak about the value of compassion, service, forgiveness, integrity, humility. And these are the virtues through all the world's wisdom traditions and spiritual traditions, that these are the resources that are analogous to emotional resources. So emotional intelligence, the ability to draw on emotional resources and information to help functioning and wellbeing, regulating our emotions and spiritual intelligence, the ability to draw on these spiritual qualities and embody them. So, but you don't have to be believing or not believing in any dogma to live these values.
Yeah. So before we wrap up, because again, 114 questions and I am not gonna ask them all 'cause we just don't have that amount of time. But before we wrap up, I do wanna ask, is there anything that we didn't get to that you wanna bring up or that you might have mentioned that you wanna emphasize, for the listeners before this ends?
Yeah, so I think one thing that we haven't talked about that is important is how do we activate these energy? How do we get inspired? And if you do come from a particular religious, spiritual orientation and you probably have a pathway that you connect to, whether it's Christ or I don't know what, whatever it is. But what if you're not? And the one thing I think that we all have is our unique authentic essence and spark and force of life. So I think one thing that anybody could do is just take a moment, taking a few deep breaths, could do that together right now, feeling the rise and fall of our belly and the chest for a few deep breaths. So the breath is the breath of life, as they say. And the word spiritual comes from Latin spirit, which is the animating breath. So we can feel our life force through our breath. The other place we can feel our life force is through the pulsating flow of the blood through our heart and our veins and arteries. So when we connect to our breath, to our pulse and feel our feet and connect it to the ground, the support of Mother Earth, all of a sudden we're more rooted in ourselves. We're rooted in our force of life. And I don't know what you notice, but there's a deeper solidity and groundedness and power and we're calmer, we're more grounded. And from there, we start to root ourselves in this experience, in connection to the power of our life force and our sacred spark of life that we can start to feel this energy, this power, this inspiration that starts to transform our life. And these qualities of spiritual intelligence start to naturally emerge.
I hope that makes sense.
I love that. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today and sharing all of this wisdom with the audience and with me. And I hope to have you on again at some point. This is a very interesting conversation. And for anyone who's listening or watching, while this will be in the show notes, you can also check out Yosi's website, which is Yosi Amram, Y-O-S-I-A-M-R-A-M.net.
Yes, thank you, thank you. It's been a delight and you asking big, good questions and we could talk about them for hours and you can ask your 114 or 144 questions. I wish we could dive deeper into all of this.
Hopefully next time.
Well, we have a lifetime to do it, so we're not done.
Absolutely not. Thank you again, Yosi.
Thank you.
[Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.