Stewarding Sensitivity

Learning in the Workshop of Life

Portico entrance of the Centre for the Study of the Sacred Texts. Copyright © Bahá’í International Community

It has been two months since my last post, Sensitivity as Intelligence: In Organizational Life. In that time, life itself has once again become the classroom. I’ve been living inside the very questions that article began to explore, and they have become much deeper than I first imagined.

As one with the powers of perception, I am discovering that the deepest work is not simply learning to perceive more clearly. It is learning to steward perception with justice, love, wisdom, patience, humility, and faith, so that sensitivity becomes a trustworthy instrument of service.

In this, my understanding of Anello and Hernandez’s transformative leadership framework continues to deepen through lived experience. Human growth, in this view, involves the development of the self, the strengthening of relationships, and service to social transformation.

I am beginning to see that sensitivity is not only a personal trait, but something that must be educated and disciplined so that it can become an instrument of service. This is no easy task, yet I am discovering it to be a source of profound meaning and joy.

Within this, moral capacities are not abstract ideas, but lived practices—such as justice, love, wisdom, patience, humility, and faith—that shape how perception becomes action, and action becomes service.

In this sense, sensitive leadership and transformative leadership are different ways of naming the same unfolding process of growth, and it involves learning, the refinement of character, and the gradual unfolding of the latent capacities of the human soul.

This is reflected in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’:

…Yet man must ever remember the earth plane is a workshop, not an art gallery for the exhibits of powers. This is not the plane of perfection, but earth is the crucible for refining and moulding character. — Star of the West.

Colonnade of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice. Copyright © Bahá’í International Community

An understanding and a blossoming framework—for myself, which may help others—is slowly forming from these experiences. Until then, I wanted simply to share this small milestone with gratitude: the recognition that sensitivity alone is not enough—it asks to be formed.

The workshop continues, and, by divine grace, so does the learning.

O Son of Man! Rejoice in the gladness of thine heart, that thou mayest be worthy to meet Me and to mirror forth My beauty. — Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words, Arabic 36.

With an open heart, I leave you with this piece of music as we continue together—wherever we are in this world—in life's workshop of learning.

Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.

Quote by Baha’u’llah, from The Lawh-i-Maqsúd Tablet