Spiritual-Based Leadership Research Programme

The Global Dharma Center, in partnership with Dr. Peter Pruzan, professor emeritus at the Copenhagen Business School and his wife, Kirsten Pruzan Mikkelsen, a journalist and former editor who worked for almost 30 years at Det Berlingske Hus, a major publishing house in Denmark, launched this research programme in 2002.

The overall purpose of this 5 year research programme is to contribute to the emerging field of, and the consciousness about spiritual-based leadership in work organisations worldwide, by making high quality and reliable data, information, knowledge, and development methodologies about spiritual-based leadership easily accessible.

While consciousness about spiritual-based leadership is relatively new in the work world and as a field of study, the research team feels it has gained a strength and momentum such that it deserves a focus of research at this time.

A knowledge-base of executive interviews containing 33 full-length interviews with spiritual-based leaders from 6 continents and 16 countries, as well as data collected and sorted by specific search criteria, is now available for researchers, teachers, students, consultants and leaders. Organisational leaders, faculty, students, consultants, researchers and journalists throughout the world may download and use material from this SBL Knowledge-Base for their own purposes at no cost, http://www.globaldharma.org/sbl-research.htm.

A book titled “Leading with Wisdom: Spiritual-based Leadership in Business” by Dr. Peter Pruzan and Kirsten Pruzan Mikkelsen is released in spring, 2007 by Response Books (Sage Publishing) in India and south Asia, and later on by Greenleaf Publishing in the West. The book will include 33 profiles of business leaders sharing their experiences and perspectives on leading from a spiritual basis.

The following business leaders are selected and featured in the SBL knowledge base and also in the book mentioned above:

• AGUENZA, FLORIDAS, F. - President & COO, Planters Development Bank, The Philippines
• BEHNER, JOHN - Former Country Manager, Nabisco, El Salvador
• BUDIN, PHILIP - CEO, Royaltons Ltd., USA
• CANADA, FRANCISCO ROBERTO - Director and Partner, Errepar S. A. Publishing, Argentina
• CHAND, AMBER - Founder, The Amber Chand Collection / VP of Vision and Co-founder, Eziba, USA
• CHATTOPADHYAY, A. K. - Senior Vice President, ACC Limited Refractories Division, India
• COVEY, STEPHEN - Vice Chairman, FranklinCovey, USA
• CRUZ, ALVARO - CEO, I.C.M. Ingenieros Ltda. / Former Governor of Cundinamarca,
  Cundinamarca State, Colombia
• CUNEO, FEDERICO - Chairman, American Glass Products / Former Corporate Director,
  Bank of Boston, Peru
• DAUGHERTY, THOMAS - VP of Spiritual Care and Values Integration, Methodist Health Care System,   USA
• DELBECQ, ANDRE -Institute Director, Santa Clara University School of Business, USA
• FRANKLIN, CAROL - Former Head of Human Resources, Swiss Re / Former CEO,
  World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Switzerland
• GOVINDAN, RAJAN - Former Senior Managing Director, Bankers Trust, USA
• JENSEN, NIELS DUE - Group Chairman, Grundfos Mgmt A/S, Denmark
• JIANG, NIRAN - CEO, Institute of Human Excellence, Australia / Former Marketing Manager,
  S. C. Johnson, USA / Former Senior Manager Trends, Coca-Cola, USA
• KANU, VICTOR KRISHNA - Director, African Institute of Sathya Sai Education, Zambia
• KOLIND, LARS - Former CEO, Oticon, Denmark
• LEVY, RICARDO - CEO and Co-founder, Catalytica Inc., USA
• MAITRA, ASHOKE - Director Human Resources, Times of India Group, India
• MERCHANT, NILOFER - President, Rubicon Consultants, USA
• MOITRA, DEEPENDRA - General Manager, Engineering, Lucent Technologies, India
• NARAYANA, G. - Executive Chairman, Excel Industries Pvt. Ltd., India
• NARENDRAN, PARANTHA - Strategy Director, Eurotel, Czech Republic
• OLLE, RAMON - President, Epson Europe B. V., The Netherlands
• PILLAI, ANAND - VP of Sales and Marketing, HCL COMNET, India
• PLOIX, HELENE - Chairman and Managing Director, Pechel Industriesa & Pechel Industries Partenaires,   France
• RAGHAVAN, N. S. - Founder Director & Joint Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd., India
• RAMAN, ANANTH - Chairman & CEO, President, Graphtex, Inc., USA
• RANGANATHAN, V. V. - Senior Partner, Ernst & Young India, India
• SINCLAIR, JAMES - Chairman, Tan Range Exploration, Ltd., USA/Tanzania
• VRETHAMMAR, MAGNUS - Former President for Europe, Pergo Flooring,
  UK / Former President Consumer Division, Finess, Switzerland
• WEBB, JANIECE - Senior Vice President, Motorola Corporation, USA
• WELLING, S. K. - Executive Director, HMT International Ltd., India

The following are the intentions and rationale that underlie the engagement in this research:

Many people are sceptical about the mix of business and spirituality. Some people are positive about business and sceptical about spirituality: “You can’t really be competitive in business if you’re spiritual.” Some people are positive about spirituality and sceptical about business: “Business greed is too corrupting for spirituality to make a difference.” Our intention is to address views such as these by investigating if and how business can be effective while operating from a consciously held spiritual basis.

Traditional business goals typically focus on financial/productivity gains. Texts from spiritual traditions worldwide propose that there is a much more profound role for human endeavour – that of selfless service to society and the spiritual upliftment of everyone. Our intention is to help investigate how business goals can be defined and prioritised from a spiritual basis, and how businesses can thrive and evolve from that basis.

The students and faculty at universities as well as consultants and organisational leaders require examples of, and knowledge about, spiritual-based leaders in work organisations. Our intention is to provide an easily accessible knowledge base and website, which will include cases, stories, examples, and analytical data for class work, teaching, and publications.

There may be significant, demonstrable differences among spiritual-based leaders in their perspectives, qualities, and attributes. The practices and processes of spiritual-based leaders might also vary depending on the type of organisation (family owned, publicly traded, etc.) and the cultural traditions of the society the organisation operates in. Our intention is to develop a typology for these diverse types of spiritual-based leaders and to identify a framework within which people can consciously develop themselves as spiritual-based leaders.

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