According to Jesuit James Martin (2012), “Live for a few days in a Benedictine Community, and you will soon taste their expansive, welcoming spirit, passed down from St. Benedict – not a surprise for someone who said, ‘All guests should be welcomed as Christ’ (p. 3). As a willingness to enter into another person’s joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties, monastic hospitality receives guests as they are. Through a rhythm of solitude and community, guests can disentangle from their daily pace to discern authentic needs and discuss ultimate concerns – an outcome that has captured the imagination of pressurized business leaders who long for a psychologically and spiritually safe space to pause and ponder (often unexplored) inner yearnings such as more meaningful work, experiential leadership development, an adult spirituality, community, a moral compass, and/or a more holistic approach to life-work integration.
Consequently, an online master’s program in Organizational Leadership at a Jesuit university in the Inland Northwest of the United States has taken graduate students to a Benedictine monastery located in the upper Mojave Desert of California as part of a course on “Leadership and Community” for over 15 years. In this immersive experience, graduate and/or doctoral students become participant observers, joining the small community of monks at Saint Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo for a week in the activities of their life there: chanting psalms at four daily services, using lectio divina to reflect on important readings, and taking their meals in a contemplative and mindful fashion. This 1500-year-old monastic tradition of hospitality and community and its contemporary expression serves as an integrative metaphor for leadership students, especially those interested in adapting design elements from contemplative contexts to support workplace spirituality initiatives. Thus, our paper presentation of pedagogical practices and qualitative feedback from graduate students explores the following questions:
1) What value does monastic hospitality and community have to offer contemporary organizations and business leaders?;
2) What pedagogical practices help graduate students of organizational leadership access and appropriate the Benedictine approach to hospitality and community to their lives as persons and professionals?; and
3) How has this immersive course on Leadership and Community shaped graduate students’ understanding and practice of leadership in their professional and/or personal contexts?