The core activities is praying and working, ora et labora:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ora_et_labora
The praying is done at fixed times:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_of_the_Hours
With work and other activities (meals) planned around them. Nuns have a similar framework:
* https://www.franciscansisterstor.org/about/daily-schedule
I'm sure you could find "time to think" in there, but the schedule is pretty packed.
There’s a lot less of the cutthroat competition, than you’ll see in industry and academia, and many folks plant trees that they will never use for shade.
Personally, I’m not religious, but have many close friends that are, and I see this mindset in action.
I also worked for an old-fashioned Japanese company, which had many of the same features.
Even though many people see these as conservative (or weak) traits, they actually work well, for development of new things.
Big things take time, and teams.
Time is supplied by people taking the long view, and making long-term plans, and teams benefit from people not stabbing each other in the back, sublimating personal goals, in favor of those of the collective, and trusting each other, and their management.
I agree with most of this, and also have experienced the positive outcomes of people thinking ahead and sublimating short term reward for long term gain (for the collective).
However it seems antithetical to put a reward function on it so there is this catch-22 about what makes the thing "good" also makes it difficult to achieve.
Good behaviour is ideally its own reward: intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation—either (monetary) reward or punishment—is (AIUI) less effective.
Fulfillment through meaningful relationships and accomplishment has been considered the basis of happiness for quite a while:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia
Wealth, honour/fame/glory, power, pleasure are not bad in themselves, but generally can be considered as means to an end of and not really ends in themselves:
They know they will outlast some of their reports, so they're incentivized to build memory and maintainability at the levels below them.
And good managers get promoted, i.e. leave the team but stay in the company, so there's a reputational incentive to leave things in a good place for whoever comes after you. (Though this is only true at good orgs -- at bad orgs, the next person will get fully blamed for a bad handoff).
The best leaders have values that transcend their bank account, and understand their legacy depends on being able to transition effectively.
Your career and relationships transcend any single gig, and there is a dignity that people recognize in departing well, and even in making the best of a bad job. Campground rule, leave things better than you found them.