Have You Explored the Power of Silence?

Like many in the Jewish faith, worldwide, we began our annual High Holiday sprint this past weekend. It started with Rosh Hashanah… the New Year (actually, by tradition, the anniversary of the creation of the world), and culminates with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. ?

It is a period of deep self-reflection and personal stock-taking. As is my custom, I always look forward to sharing, with my dear readers, some of the lessons I learn that I feel are universal and applicable regardless of what you believe (or don't believe).?

Whatever your religious beliefs or views, the Bible remains an interesting and inspirational source for life lessons. (KNEE JERK ALERT…this is not a religious post.) I am not proselytizing or sharing New Age spirituality, so please keep that in mind when commenting…

Back to being inspired...?

The New and Old Testaments revolve around people and their behavior within the contexts of various situations and challenges. Many of these biblical tales offer lessons in leadership, and I was recently reminded about one that demonstrates a particularly powerful lesson for us all.

Elijah the Prophet was a larger-than-life figure to the people around him. He exhorted them and enthusiastically challenged priests of a competing pagan religion but, when ignored, he became short-tempered and ungracious. Angry and disheartened that no one seemed to listen to his prophecies (and possibly afraid for his life), Elijah absconds to the wilderness, where God finds him and gives the great seer a lesson in leadership. God gives Elijah the following instructions :

"Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."

The passage then tells us that a powerful wind comes and knocks down trees and throws boulders around—but God doesn't emerge from the wind; then comes an earthquake that splits the ground, but God isn't in that either. Then comes a raging fire—and guess what? Nada—no sign of God. All these powerful manifestations of nature come and go, terrible to see and hear, frightening, no doubt, but God appears to be all but missing.

Then comes silence…and a?"still, small voice " is heard. God has finally arrived.

We, too, often conflate loud and brash with power and leadership—who can "disrupt" the most, who instills fear, who makes the biggest scene. Yet, the story of Elijah tells us that loud and brash may frighten and inspire awe, but silence makes us listen. In listening, the "still and small voice" resonates and creates leadership as others are drawn in and open themselves to their own listening.

Make no mistake. This is not the silence of abandonment or scorn. This is the silence of listening—the still and steady true voice of leadership. Listen:

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” —Leonardo da Vinci

Think about that for a moment. Travel the arc with me from the Bible to Leonardo, but the power of silence doesn't stop there, not for real leaders.

Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song for the ages , The Sound of Silence . We "bow and pray to the neon gods...." As content and data and noise and posts and pictures and more noise and videos and even more noise fly at us and inundate us, studies show that despite all that we are connected or plugged into...loneliness has never been more rampant. "People talking without speaking; people hearing without listening."

Simon and Garfunkel's song rings truer now than ever.

Listening is a form of silence. Doing so creates a vacuum into which others speak and share. In today's world, we continue to miss... "The words of the prophets…written on the subway walls and tenement halls." The sad cacophony has limited our ability to garner real insight, as the noise so consumes us.

And maybe, just maybe, as we seem to have a leadership crisis in the world today, we need the authority of silence and all that it brings: humility, listening, and openness.

Yours in active silence…

What do you think?