Wikio - Top Blogs - Religion and belief

Saturday 6 September 2014

Holistic leadership

I met Sue Howard, co-author of 'The Spirit at Work Phenomenon', this week as she ran a session for our Sophia Hub.

Sue's research draws on a holistic framework that supports dialogue around the centrality of spirituality to personal development and leadership choices (see http://www.holisticleadership.co.uk). Her publications include 'The Inner Life of a Christian Leader' Grove Books, 2011; and 'The Spirit at Work Phenomenon' Azure, 2004. Sue has previously worked for Cranfield School of Management; and World Vision UK where she supported management and leadership development programmes for managers in the UK and across West Africa. Sue has also worked with the Journal for Management, Spirituality and Religion where she helped to facilitate workshops at Ashridge Management School and Roffey Park Institute. Since 2007, Sue has worked independently to provide spiritual mentoring to business leaders, and has worked with Cass Business School’s Centre for Charity Effectiveness.

The Holistic Leadership approach recognises that leadership has many facets - from self-awareness and personal development, to building strong relationships, to making a difference and being socially responsible. Her continuing work with the Holistic Development Model enables people who want to build a lasting leadership legacy to map out how these various strands inform individual meaning and societal impact.

The blind spot in leadership is often a lack of clarity about who we are and how to interpret and translate this in work contexts. The complex make up of human beings, individually and collectively, is an endless source of academic and practitioner inquiry. Yet much recent research into leadership, our own included, shows that the spiritual foundation of a leader is a vital component in the sense making process. Holistic Leadership help bring to the forefront the deeper strands that underpin leadership identity.

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