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Book: Leading with Wisdom
By Peter Pruzan and
Kirsten Pruzan Mikkelsen,
together with Debra and William Miller
With
permission from the publisher, bi-monthly
we post an excerpt from the book
with 2 leader
profiles:
>
Click here to download
the bi-monthly excerpt
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Leading with Wisdom: Spiritual-Based
Leadership in Business portrays an
emerging global culture. This ground-breaking book
offers the experiences and perspectives of 31 top
executives from 15 countries in 6 continents. It is
based on extensive personal interviews. These are
business people who express from first-hand
experience what it is like to lead a business from a
spiritual basis. They tell down-to-earth,
real-life stories about how spirituality and
rationality can go hand in hand in leadership and
life.
Their words of wisdom demonstrate that executives
who lead from a spiritual basis can achieve success,
recognition, peace of mind and happiness, while at
the same time serving the needs of all those
affected by their leadership.
Written in an engaging style, where the special
‘voice’ of each leader is heard, this book will be
profoundly valuable to business leaders at every
level and for all people who want to lead with
integrity from a spiritual basis. |
Published in South Asia by Response Books, a
division of Sage Publishing (www.sagepub.in)
and other parts of the world
by Greenleaf Publishing
(www.greenleaf-publishing.com)
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Reviews
"This book cuts right to the chase
in speaking about spiritual-based leadership in a business
setting. With high ranking corporate officials from the
likes of such multi-national companies as Motorola, Franklin
Covey, Infosys and Ernst & Young - the book takes a chainsaw
to the myth that a stringent corporate culture devoid of
human values is the best path to success. It tears at the
fabric of the stereotypical consciousness that business is
just business - by allowing these corporate executives to
share their experiences which exalt characteristics such as
compassion, humility, service, and intuition in daily
business."
The WorkLife Monitor
Read the full review and listen to a
podcast of an interview with co-author Peter Pruzan
Leading with Wisdom is an
absolutely sensational book. I’ve never
seen anything like it. I can’t wait to
share it with the leaders I meet.
Patricia Aburdene (USA): author
of Megatrends 2010: The Rise of
Conscious Capitalism and, together
with John Naisbitt, of Megatrends
2000: Re-inventing the Corporation
I found the profiles in Leading with
Wisdom to be absolutely
fascinating. I could feel the identities
of the leaders and their business
challenges, even as I appreciated the
variety of their spiritual orientations
and religious traditions. What I
particularly like is the book’s
realistic premise that ‘it is enough to
realize that these executives have
achieved their leadership position while
being spiritual’. This is a book for
those of us who are naturally sceptical
to read, ponder and possibly allow
ourselves to be changed by.
Sandra J. Sucher (USA): Senior
Lecturer, Harvard Business School;
author of The Moral Leader:
Challenges, Tools and Insights and
Teaching ‘The Moral Leader’
Leading with Wisdom is a
milestone in moving conventional
thinking forward to a time when we will
look back at the present and wonder how
people could have led from anyplace
other than a spiritual centre. This
artificial vacuum — this ‘hole in the
leader’s soul’ — has been a root cause
of much pain, stress and damage done in
the name of free-market capitalism. This
book can help leaders become whole—to be
fully alive, vital and engaged in what
they do.
John Renesch (USA):
Businessman-turned-Futurist; former
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of New
Leaders Press; author of Getting to
the Better Future
Leading with Wisdom is a
fascinating attempt to capture the
essence of the timeless in the tapestry
of our times. The authors bring together
very credible voices in corporate
story-telling. The book will take the
reader on a voyage of self-discovery. It
may just as well provide a fundamental
shift in the way we look at the very
purpose of business. It is a
trend-setter and a refreshing contrast
to conventional success literature.
Dr Debashis Chatterjee (India):
Professor and Head, Leadership Centre,
Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow
Compassion, humility, love, and at times
even responsibility, are rare attributes
in today’s corporate world. Leading
with Wisdom shows how these
attributes can lead individuals and
organizations to excel. Reading it is a
deeply enjoyable and enlightening
journey into the potential of
spiritual-based leadership. I warmly
recommend it!
Elena Bonfiglioli (Belgium):
Director, Corporate Citizenship,
Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and
Africa); Chair of the Business Group,
European Academy of Business in Society
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Leading with Wisdom is a rare
gem: a truthful, reflective,
inspirational text from the front lines
of business management. It is a radical
interpretation of business as a mission,
as a purposeful pursuit that goes to the
heart of our existential quest,
fulfilling humankind’s ultimate reasons
for being. If only this book will pave
the way for such interpretation, it will
have achieved a tremendously important
objective.
Marcello Palazzi (Netherlands):
Founder-President, Progressio
Foundation; Co-founder, Spirit in
Business (EU and USA)
This book is full of eloquent stories.
It profiles people who are breaking new
ground and leading the way towards a
more humane role for business in the
world. This is a book that will appeal
to your mind, your heart and your soul.
It will give you the courage to live and
lead and love from a more integrated
place.
Dr Judi Neal (USA): President
and CEO, Association for Spirit at Work;
President, Judi Neal & Associates;
author of Edgewalkers
A marvellous challenge to conventional
thinking about leadership and the
purpose of business in society as well
as support for leaders at all levels
seeking authenticity in expressing their
spirituality in day-to-day decisions and
actions. My one wish is that the
inspiration of this journey in
spiritual-based leadership will reach
tomorrow’s leaders, many of whom are
sincerely seeking this reassurance that
spirituality and leadership are mutually
reinforcing.
George Starcher (France):
President, European Baha’i Business
Forum; former Director, McKinsey & Co.
(Paris and Milan)
This inspiring book is an authentic
account of spirituality in business. The
Pruzans engagingly demonstrate that
spirituality need not be separated from
business practice. The documented
examples of extraordinary business
leaders show that spirituality can
survive and flourish, even in
large-scale business organizations.
Dr László Zsolnai (Hungary):
Professor and Director, Business Ethics
Center, Corvinus University of Budapest;
Co-founder, European SPES Forum
(Spirituality in Economics and Social
Life)
Leading with Wisdom provides a
wealth of intimate insights into the
critical importance of our inner
compasses in guiding our very purpose
for providing leadership to others.
Without this well-developed sensibility,
no number of policies, rules or systems
will provide the much-needed
accountability of our leaders for their
actions and impacts.
Dr Simon Zadek (UK): CEO,
AccountAbility; Senior Fellow, Center
for Government and Business, J.F.
Kennedy School, Harvard University;
author of the award-winning book,
The Civil Corporation
This is an odd and dangerous book — and
utterly delightful. Odd, because the
authors, who obviously know their game,
try to obfuscate things with their
attempt to fit subjective ruminations of
31 astonishingly likeable business
leaders into an objective scheme.
Dangerous, because this book will change
your mind; you’ll find yourself
re-weighing many pieces of your life.
Delightful, in every sense of the word:
brilliant, light and nimble, and shining
with love. It’s a great leadership book!
Dr Jack Hawley (USA):
bestselling author of Reawakening
the Spirit in Work: The Power of Dharmic
Management and The Bhagavad
Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners
Leading with Wisdom shows us
that it is possible to be a human being
in the business world, and not be
reduced to being simply a ‘human doing’.
It invites us to ask ourselves what kind
of wisdom is needed to lead today’s
organizations, and how we can access
this wisdom.
Dr Josep M. Lozano (Spain):
Professor, ESADE Business School,
Barcelona; Director, Institute for the
Individual, Corporations and Society
Leading with Wisdom touched my
heart as a leader. But not only did it
deeply appeal to my feelings; it also
heightened my conscious awareness of the
roles of wisdom and love in the art of
leadership.
Maria Helena Gomes (Brazil ):
Vice President for Latin America,
AyurVida S.A.; former President, Olsten
do Brazil Ltda
This book highlights the role of
businesses in service to society. I
truly enjoyed reading this in-depth
analysis, brought to life with real-life
examples.
Dr Ajay S. Mookerjee
(India/USA): President, Harvard Business
School, India Research Centre; Country
Head, KPMG Business Advisory Services;
former Managing Director for Asia,
Capital One
So far no one has been able to break
into the intellectual fortress: how
leaders understand and relate concepts
like spirituality, leadership and
wisdom, and how they integrate and apply
them in their daily life. But
Leading with Wisdom pierces a big
hole in its walls. A hole through which
the reflective reader will be able to
glimpse what one day will be the
standard way to conceive of the purpose
of business in society, and of what
business leaders need to do to integrate
the inner truths they pursue with the
external responsibilities they face.
Dr Maurizio Zollo
(France/Italy): Professor, INSEAD,
France; from September 2007 Professor,
Bocconi University, Italy and Director,
Bocconi International Center for
Advanced Management Studies
Leading with Wisdom shows that
one can achieve leadership positions
while being spiritual but is not tempted
to claim that people will be more
successful in business if they are
spiritual. At no point are the authors
trying to ‘sell’ spirituality or to
‘translate it into a set of tools’.
Spirituality, as experienced by the
leaders in this book, is their personal
journey which is a source of inner
strength and humility.
Dr Marjo Lips-Wiersma (New
Zealand): Senior Lecturer, University of
Canterbury; past Chair of Management,
Spirituality and Religion Interest
Group, American Academy of Management
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