Leadership today—whether in religion, healthcare, politics, business, or any other sphere of endeavor, needs a change of heart—requires a discovery of one's inner self and values, a renewal, a conversion. It requires new qualities such as faith, vocation, vision, integrity, community-building, contemplation, and spirituality. Spiritual Leadership was written for those individuals who want to integrate their leadership role with the values of their lives. Spiritual leadership is a form of ongoing daily conversion that unites what we do and how we do it with who we are and the values that motivate us in life.
Spiritual leadership is a form of faith-motivated commitment, a sense of call to live in a new way with new priorities and to make all judgments in light of these values. It is the result of a deliberate personal choice that is motivated by love. In that context, this book:
• Responds to the current need for an integrative approach to leadership • Shows the attitudes to leadership result from the inner values of mind and heart • Presents the new qualities of leadership as faith, vision, integrity, community-building, contemplation, and spirituality • Provides a model of spiritual leadership • Outlines the stages in the development of an organization led by a spiritual leader • Sees leadership as a faith-motivated commitment • Reacts to today’s climate of abuse of power and of arrogance
Author Leonard Doohan explains that the essence of spiritual leadership lies in focusing on others rather than on oneself and moving away from self-centeredness to other-centeredness, and even to self-transcendence. This book challenges individuals make a personal journey in search of their own authenticity and destiny in this world and to discover a breakthrough to a new vision of one’s role in the world. †
