1

A LEADERSHIP EDUCATION MODEL FOR JESUIT

BUSINESS SCHOOLS

David C. McCallum, S.J., Ed.D

James Connor, S.J., Ph.D

Laura Horian, M.A.

Introduction

Business schools (B-schools) around the globe offer similar programs made up of disciplines

such as accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, management, economics, and business

law. Some institutions also offer business ethics, global supply chain management,

entrepreneurship, and courses designed to help graduates become more proficient across cultural

boundaries. While there is ongoing debate about what constitutes a solid business education, B-

school programs include useful topics with associated teachable skills that produce degreed

graduates with an average or better chance of getting a job in their field.

But getting a job is not the sole goal of B-school graduates, not even in the current scenario of a

struggling economy and high unemployment rates. Graduates also want to make a difference in

the world, to find work with meaning and find meaning in their work. Many conscientious young

people want to be part of transformative change that leverages resources toward making a

difference for a greater number of people, including those who are poor or marginalized. Many

seek a calling rather than a career alone; a life position that allows them to contribute outside the

office walls to the community and society beyond. Do traditional B-schools prepare students for

the broader role of leader, change-agent, visionary?

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) To reinforce the case for how a Catholic, and in this

case, a specifically Jesuit B-school education is more comprehensive than the traditional B-

school in producing a mature, self-aware, ethically informed graduate who is equipped to be an

innovative, influential, excellence-seeking leader committed to the service of others—who are

indeed the types of people our society needs and wants at all organizational levels. 2) This

whitepaper proposes a model of leadership education to help optimize the Jesuit educational

experience.

Case for a Jesuit B-School Education

The question posed earlier was: Do traditional B-schools prepare students for the broader role of

leader, change-agent, visionary? A growing consensus response from such experts as Mintzberg

(2004) and Bennis & O’Toole (2005) is: Not so much. There is increasing thought that B-school

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programming is limited to teaching business language, theory, and skills, and that in fact, much

of this is not delivered well. Graduates talk the talk and know how to do business things, but they

lack the ethical, emotional—and Jesuit educators might argue, spiritual— “leadership

intelligence,”1 to make purposeful decisions and effectively respond to unanticipated challenges

in a moral and socially responsible manner.

Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khuran, and author of From Higher Aims to Hired

Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of

Management as a Profession, describes the situation this way:

Too much of contemporary business education offers a narrow concept of the role of

business in society. It is not holistic, nor does it take into account the competing claims

that a variety of constituents have on the firm. Consequently, the leadership training in

business schools tends to be narrow, functional, and specialized. It does not produce a

broad, integrative understanding of business.2

Not only is there a growing sense that current models of business education are overly narrow,

functional, and specialized, in light of the global financial crisis, critics and educators alike are

asking whether or not “something big has failed,” as Angel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird

School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona recently opined:

We can look the other way, but come on. The C.E.O.’s of those companies, those

are the people that we used to brag about. We cannot say, ‘Well, it wasn’t our

fault’ when there is such a systemic, widespread failure of leadership.3

The failure that Cabrera is describing relates to not only the fact that traditional B-schools have

educated their students without sufficient attention to ethics but also to the way they also have

failed to challenge the dominant culture of the marketplace. The dominant culture on Wall Street

is driven by the maximization of shareholder profits, often to the neglect of other principles,

values, or ways of understanding the bottom line. Professor Kurana said, “a kind of market

fundamentalism took hold in business education,” continuing that, “the new logic of shareholder

primacy absolved management of any responsibility for anything other than financial results.”4

Such a widespread and fundamentalist logic of decision making has led to a durable and often

destructive ethos that makes it increasingly difficult for individuals to speak up or speak out

about not only corporate improprieties, but about the failure of business to contribute to society

beyond the shareholders.

1 Lindsey, William, and Pate, Larry. “Integrating Principle-Centered Leadership into the

Business Curriculum: lessons from the LMU experience 1,” The Journal of Executive Education,

Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2006, pp 17-29. 2 “The Future of Business School,” Bloomberg Businessweek,

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2009/bs20090526_498100.htm (May 26,

2009). 3 “Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?” Kelly Holland, The New York Times, (May 10, 2012).

4 Ibid.

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This failure to attend to ethics and the importance of thinking in terms of multiple bottom line

values, including the good of society and the sustainable use of resources, has inspired a number

of schools to create centers of business ethics and the outreach of organizations like the Aspen

Institute, which focuses on leadership for the good society.But while many schools are

scrambling to respond by reorganizing their curriculum to include more practical and relevant

approaches to business education that include experiential learning, courses that address the

ethical dimension of management, and service in the community, these efforts might result in a

kind of “patch work” that substitutes for a more systematic approach to moral professional

education.

The question of the integrating principle for this learning still remains unanswered. Judith F.

Samuelson, executive director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute

comments, “there are extraordinary thing taking place in business education, and much of it is

very promising. But what’s the central theorem of business education? It’s wanting.”5 David A.

Garvin, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School has suggested the need

for more emphasis on not only business and management skills, but also “a sense of purpose and

identity.”6

What is this purpose and identity more specifically? It is linked to the question posed earlier:

Students graduating as ethically informed leaders, change-agents, visionaries—Is that what the

world needs? The answer is easy for the Jesuit educator: An unequivocal yes. As one speaker

stated boldly at a 2000 Jesuit Business School conference, “Jesuit Business Schools must have a

soul…We have a moral obligation towards the needy of our nations.”7

And it is not only Jesuit educators who are making this claim. Traditional B-school leaders echo

the world’s need for the type of leader that Jesuit B-schools strive to produce. Dipak Jain, former

dean of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University said this at the University

of Delaware:

To move beyond business is to focus on both business and society and to move beyond

success is to focus on both success and significance…Where business schools have gone

wrong is to lose the focus between performance and purpose…Asking questions like

'how soon can I get a job,' or 'what is the highest salary I can get' leads to a direction that

isn't best…To do anything of significance, you need to be successful. The purpose of a

management school, then, should be to create a curriculum that will push students to do

something of significance.8

A group called “50+20,” representing three professional networks concerned with the future of

management education (World Business School Council for Sustainable Business, Globally

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Kirk O. Hanson, ”Jesuit Business School Strategies for Engaging Business Executives,”

Journal of Jesuit Business Education, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Sum 2011): 21-29. 8 UDaily, “Former Kellogg School dean addresses the future of business schools,”

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2010/mar/jain031610.html (March 16, 2010).

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Responsible Leadership Initiative, Principles of Responsible Management Education), conducted

a survey on the future of business education. The results will be presented at the “RIO+20 United

Nations Conference on Sustainable Development” in June 2012. Preliminary posting of results

from the 145 respondents from 37 countries show that:

81% demand that business schools focus on developing leaders that drive global problem

solving.

51% demand that business schools focus on the bottom 4 billion of the pyramid

(developing and emerging countries).

82% say that developing leadership skills is the number one priority (for young students

leadership skills are defined as ethics, values and developing the person; for

professionals/executives leadership skills are defined as responsible, sustainable and

ethical behavior).

80% say that executives are expected to understand the larger context of business,

societal and environmental issues.

Leadership competences to be developed most are deeply engrained ethics and

responsible behavior (77%) as well as critical reasoning and holistic decision-making

(64%)9

Educators teaching in the Catholic, Jesuit tradition would suggest that the crux of the challenge

posed implicitly in these demands is not only the formation of the intellect, but the formation of

the self. No matter how skilled and well published one’s professors might be, no matter how

many internships and even global experiences one has had, in the final estimation, it is the person

who integrates and applies his or her learning. If the person is immature, egoistic, and self-

serving, not even the most elite B-school education will keep them from making unethical

decisions. On the basis of this perspective, unless B-schools produce graduates with an adequate

understanding of self and attention to character, they will fail to address the integrating factor for

all theoretical, technical, and ethical learning.

Rooted in the heritage of the Catholic intellectual tradition of Christian humanism and the liberal

arts, Catholic Social Teaching, and the principles of Ignatian spirituality, the Jesuit approach to

business education begins with cura personalis, the attention to the whole person. While other

approaches to education focus on intellectual formation, or the development of vocational skills,

ideally, a Catholic, Jesuit education engages the affective and moral sensibilities of the heart as

rigorously as it does this intellect. And this education is oriented toward a purpose beyond itself,

for the service and transformation of society. As Andre Delbecq and colleagues write:

The Jesuit perspective goes further in its concern for educating the whole person.

It orients business education through moral and justice perspectives, avoiding a

singular focus on business profits. Leaders of Jesuit institutions are encouraged to

challenge students, faculty, and stakeholders to champion high principles in the

unfolding drama of modern business enterprise.10

9Katrin Muff, Ph.D., “What do stakeholders in Management Education Want?,”

http://50plus20.org/archives/630 (March 7, 2012).

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As an endeavor of humankind and a benefit to human society, the Jesuit educator understands

that business is one of society’s most influential institutions, and that business leadership

properly understood is a calling to service, not only to corporations or shareholders, but also to

the wider community, especially to those who are poor.11

For this reason, a Jesuit educated

business leader sees the marketplace, not only in terms of consumption and competition for the

sake of profit, but as an opportunity for wealth creation and as a means of directing resources to

those in need.

Here are some comparative observations between the traditional B-school and the (albeit ideal

version of) the Jesuit B-school:

Traditional B-school Jesuit B-school

Teaches leadership skills so students know

what to do in various business capacities as

CEOs, CFOs, senior managers.

Equips students with the critical thinking

skills to discern on their own what needs to

be done regardless of role in the

organization. Leaders are not the people at

the top, but are those persons who can

influence and foster change.

Teaches the roles and responsibilities of

leading and managing in a variety of case

situations.

Prepares students to recognize who they

are, what they value, and how to use their

strengths in any situation.

Teaches management skills and techniques

for setting goals, establishing objectives,

developing strategy, building teams, etc.

Provides a compass or way of proceeding

that enables students to adapt to unknown

situations because they know what they

want to achieve.

Prepares students to graduate with the

skills needed to perform tasks in their

chosen field.

Encourages self-understanding, self-

management, and a lifetime of evolution

through discovery.

A Jesuit B-school seeks to build the moral character of the individual, such that competence is

complemented by conscience, and a compassionate concern for others beyond oneself.12

While

the Jesuit B-school curriculum looks similar to other B-schools, the college and class culture,

coupled with the faculty’s approach to create learning (see Handbook section of this document),

should also reflect the characteristics and value based principles and priorities of Jesuit

education.

While there are undoubtedly many ways of formulating these values, we find compelling the

Four Jesuit Pillars of Leadership articulated by Chris Lowney in Heroic Leadership: Best

Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World. Lowney’s unique experience

as a Jesuit scholastic (seminarian) and then later as a Vice President for JP Morgan provided him

10

Andre Delbecq, et al., “Jesuit Higher Education for Business,” 2010. 11

Ibid. 12

*Copyright © JSEA 2005. Profile of the Graduate of a Jesuit School at Graduation appeared

originally as a monograph (JSEA, 1981); it was subsequently published as Section 8 in

Foundations, a compendium of documents on Jesuit secondary education (JSEA, 1994).

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the unusual perspective that allowed him to translate the nearly 500 year old leadership

principles of the Society of Jesus into the language of contemporary business. Using these four

pillar principles of self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism as a basis for categorizing

essential dispositions, skills, and habits, Lowney uses these somewhat unconventional terms to

express what lies at the heart of leadership.

Jesuit Language Latin

Inspiration

Today’s Language

1. Self-Awareness examen Know your strengths, weaknesses,

motivations, affectivity, and worldview;

reflectivity and self management

2. Ingenuity vita agilis Embrace change with freedom from bias;

adapt with discernment and agility.

3. Love cura personalis Engage others with emotional intelligence,

care, and ethical maturity.

4. Heroism magis Aim high, discerning and serving the greater

good by taking risks to transform existing

conditions; energize oneself and others with

passion for excellence.

Words such as “love” and “heroism” may not seem to fit in the business world, but the character

traits that they represent are critical to producing an innovative, influential, excellence-seeking

leader committed to the service of others. We will unpack what each of these pillars might look

like in a Jesuit B-School leadership course, and in the Appendix I: Four Jesuit Principles that

Enhance the B-School Experience.

A Model of Leadership Education for Educators & Students of Jesuit B-

Schools

Presently, at least one school, Loyola Marymount University, has used Lowney’s Four Jesuit

Pillars of Leadership to integrate the learning outcomes, course components, and experiential

activities of its curriculum for executive MBA students.13

At the same time, there is no one

defined recipe for incorporating these pillars into Jesuit B-school programs across the hundreds

of Jesuit colleges and universities worldwide, nor for the undergraduate business curriculum

where it is likely most needed. Is such a recipe necessary? If not necessary, could a standardized

approach to business leadership development help differentiate Jesuit B-Schools from their peers

and competitors by clarifying a specific brand distinguished by its quality, value, and impact?

While perhaps not necessary, a standard, yet flexible model of Jesuit leadership education for

business could help fill a gap that has opened up as Jesuit institutions have grown and evolved in

complexity, and as our faculties have become increasingly diverse. In general terms, a

consistency of focus on the universal mission of Jesuit education—to form men and women of

service to society—offers a clear and unifying vision that appeals to leadership educators of both

religious and secular backgrounds. And certainly these four pillars that Lowney emphasizes are

not only compelling by virtue of the “face value” acceptance that they receive; they are

13

Lindsey and Pate, 2006.

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conceptually inclusive of the significant theoretical and research based models of leadership, as

we will describe in the next section.

Undeniably, we must address the question of how distinctly or explicitly Catholic this model is.

Must a leadership development model in a Jesuit B-School be “baptized,” with religious, or

spiritual language or explicitly tied to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in order to be

considered sufficiently Catholic? We do not deny the important creative tension between the

religious basis of Jesuit business education and the utilitarian, pragmatic foundation of

professional schools. Here, we take our cue from Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits

and an administrator/saint who seldom allowed ideology to get in the way of being practical and

flexibly adaptive. In advising others in their evangelical method, he suggested, “we should go in

their door and come out our own.” By this, we take him to mean that we can engage people of

great diversity of background and creed, accepting them on their own terms, and learning from

them, while at the same time, living true to the message of Christ as expressed in the Gospels.

While care must be taken not to sacrifice essential religious beliefs or for the sake of expediency,

we believe that a primary focus on value based principles rather than explicitly religious

language can help Catholic and Jesuit business education avoid marginalization in an

increasingly secular and materialistic society. As Ignatius wrote in the Spiritual Exercises, “love

is better manifest in deeds than in words.”14

Likewise, the proof of the Gospel inspiration for a

Jesuit educated business leader is best expressed in his or her decisions, actions, and

commitments to society.

The Four Jesuit Pillars of Leadership can and should be very much a part of Jesuit B-School

programs for undergraduates, just as are the liberal arts. Just as the liberal arts provide a basis of

human values that help to underpin the approach to curriculum and teaching methodology, so to

these four pillars can help shape business curriculum, pedagogy and adult learning methods. For

instance, Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. includes in their 10 liberal arts learning objectives

these three that are distinctly Jesuit in flavor:

The ability to assess conduct and make decisions based on ethical concerns and

transcendent moral values, as articulated in Christianity and other religious and

philosophical traditions.

An active commitment to social justice and community service.

A commitment to personal growth and development motivated by an enthusiasm for the

life of the mind and the spirit.

Likewise, attention to fostering self awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism would help Jesuit B-

school educators deliver a learning experience that truly fosters character, and the capacity for

principle driven leadership and service. What follows is a topical outline for a handbook that

would help educators (faculty and administrative leaders), and also students to better understand

the Four Principles, and identify concrete ways to enrich the B-school experience based on them.

It is rooted in the leadership curriculum used by one of the authors in his semester long

undergraduate course, the focus of which is personal and interpersonal leadership. The overall

conceptual framework for this class is integrated around the Four Pillars using Torbert’s Action

14

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, #231.

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Inquiry (2005). Action Inquiry is an action science model of leadership education that uses a

developmental approach to integrate the personal, interpersonal, and organizational dimensions

of experience.15

It is an ideal framework for use in Jesuit B-School leadership education because

of its emphasis on value based principles (integrity, mutuality, and sustainability), its emphasis

on reflective learning and adaption, and the integrated way in which it includes attention to both

mindsets and behaviors at the personal and interpersonal levels.16

The Four Principles of Jesuit Leadership

SELF-AWARENESS

The essential starting point for all leadership is with the self, though always cognizant of the

social/organizational context of relationship with others. Self awareness is the cornerstone of

emotional17

and leadership intelligence.18

While certainly much of human behavior is driven by

unconscious factors (compulsions, fears, attachments, basic impulses), mature self-awareness of

one’s strengths, weaknesses, and motivations is a source of inner freedom. Inner freedom is a

pre-condition for good decision making, executive functioning, and the agility required by

leaders in the face of challenges and opportunities.

We propose that any truly Jesuit approach to leadership development is based in such self-

awareness, and so, is facilitated by pedagogy and practices that foster reflectivity and

mindfulness, or what the early Jesuits called, contemplation in action. The Ignatian Examen, a

reflective tool that fosters gratitude, cultivates a spirit of inquiry, and promotes goal oriented

learning and adaptation, has become increasingly popular as a basis for daily self-exploration;

however, it is only one of many tools and practices that can promote self-awareness. Other

means of growth in self-awareness include feedback rich methods of evaluation like 360 degree

surveys, personal coaching, and the use of instruments and inventories that help students develop

insight into their personal theories in use, logics of action, styles of communication and conflict,

etc.

One of the authors of this paper assigns weekly reflection papers that invite students to explore

their experiences and articulate their understanding of their implicit theories of human nature,

their personal values and sense of purpose or calling (provisional though these may be).

Additionally, he introduces the Ignatian Examen, and mindfulness meditation, inviting students

to journal about their experiences of practicing these methods over the course of the semester in

order to encourage making these practices habits. The course includes an Action Inquiry project

that invites students into reflection about the alignment (or lack thereof) and integrity of their

personal goals, their mindset, behaviors, and the outcomes of their actions. And in each course,

15

William Torbert and Associates, Action Inquiry: the secret to timely and transforming

leadership. San Franciso, CA: Berrett-Koehler. 2004. 16

Ibid. 17

Boyatizis, Richard and McKee, Annie. Resonant Leadership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

Business School Press. 2005. 18

Lindsey and Pate, 2006, p.7.

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the professor develops an ethos of inquiry using the case in point learning method19

, such that

students are encouraged to pay attention to their thoughts, feelings, judgments and actions as

they are interacting with the instructor and one another.

INGENUITY

Ingenuity is the capacity for creativity and problem solving that attends to existing conditions,

applies imagination and expertise, and often employs multiple diverse perspectives to generate

innovation. From the Jesuit perspective, this capacity for innovation requires the inner freedom

from attachment to the familiar or habitual approaches, prevailing assumptions, or unhelpful

mindsets. Here we would differentiate from core values or beliefs, such as one’s respect for

human dignity, or the belief in treating others as one would want to be treated, from non-

essential prejudices or patterns of action. With the attention given to students’ self-awareness of

their values, beliefs, and purposes, they gain confidence in their ability to discriminate between

those core values and everything else. This confidence and self-knowledge provides the inner

freedom to be creative, agile, flexible, and adaptable—to exercise individual and collective

ingenuity.

In practical terms, students develop their ingenuity when engaging in a variety of experiential

learning activities both in and out of the classroom. Role-plays, case studies, and team challenges

that deal with unstructured problems provide the conditions for individual and interpersonal

ingenuity. A key dimension of these activities is the “action inquiry review,” a practice to help

the students debrief and learn from both what they did well, and from their mistakes by exploring

the gaps between their intended and actual outcomes.20

The course also introduces other

approaches to problem solving like Appreciative Inquiry,21

the Simplex Method,22

and Theory

U23

.

LOVE

Though at times strict and uncompromising, Ignatius of Loyola was no Machiavellian leader.

Rather, he encouraged Jesuits to use authority with all the love, humility, and kindness possible

so that individuals and teams could operate in conditions that would bring out their best work.24

This concern for cura personalis, for individuals and for the wellbeing of organizational

members as a whole, models an approach to human resources that balances the focus on results

with concern for the positive and emotionally resonant25

overall culture, norms, communications

19

Parks, Sharon Daloz, Leadership Can Be Taught. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School

Press. 2005. 20

Torbert, 2003. 21

Cooperrider, D., Whitney, D., and Stavros, J., 2003. The Appreciative Inquiry Handbook. San

Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler 22

Basadur, M., 1995. The Power of Innovation. Toronto Canada: Applied Creativity Press. 23

Scharmer, O., 2007. Theory U… 24

Ganss, G., trans. 1970. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit

Sources, #667 25

Boyatzis and McKee, 2005.

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and processes. This pillar also includes priority for empathetic and ethical behavior, not only in

relation to legal parameters, but also in the context of human relationships and in the way that

power and authority are exercised.

In light of the many contributions of the emotional intelligence research and literature, the

leadership course includes inventories and surveys that measure dimensions of emotional

intelligence.26

These instruments provide a means of heightening student awareness of the

variety of factors involved in healthy, functional, professional relationships.

Since communication is the key medium for all relationships, the course dedicates significant

attention to the skills related to spoken and written communication, as well as in conflict

management. Action Inquiry provides a helpful model for establishing mutuality of

understanding through use of “four parts of speech,” and for promoting exploration of

assumptions and biases.27

It also provides a method for learning from past critical incidents using

tools for analyzing gaps between students’ intentions and the results of their communications.

Students using the model expand their capacity to express themselves in a manner that is

empathetic and effective.

While case studies are a powerful means of introducing students to ethical decision making, so

too are the personal testimonies of leaders and the stories of those who have suffered as a result

of ethical lapses of judgment. The course includes visits from guest presenters who bring

extensive organizational experience, including that of mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy,

failed change initiatives, public relations debacles, etc. These in-class encounters provide

students with vivid exposure to the real ethical challenges that they will face in the course of

their professional lives, and help sensitize them to the human side of business.

HEROISM

Leadership, at least from a certain perspective, is about creation. It involves individuals and

groups using imagination, ingenuity, and effort in manifesting visions, realizing goals, and

shaping that field of ambiguity and potential that we call the future. Inspired by the invitation to

become co-creators with God in their experience of the Spiritual Exercises, Jesuits have

understood for hundreds of years that it takes ambitious goals to set hearts on fire with

motivation and the willingness to risk moving from the comfort zone. Certainly, any effective

manager knows enough to be results oriented, but not every manager understands the importance

of this kind of risk. Some educators might prefer to speak in terms of courage, or the

commitment to excellence, but there is value in not backing away from the call to heroism, even

if this heroism must be translated in terms that are less romantic or blockbuster than we might

imagine.

26

While emotional intelligence receives criticism for a number of reasons, including the

questionable validity of self-report surveys, and the question of the predictive value of EI, the

model serves an educational function to heighten awareness of critical features of self-

management, social awareness, and social relations. 27

Torbert, 2003.

11

Realistically, few college undergraduates have experienced such heroism personally or even

second hand, but a leadership course can provide a context wherein they can take concrete steps

toward ambitious and purpose filled personal goals, or toward making a difference in the lives of

others. One of the authors uses the work of Robert Quinn (2005) in tandem with the Action

Inquiry model to introduce students to a practice of intentionally moving beyond their comfort

zones into an optimal state of centered awareness, intrinsic motivation, learning and adaptation,

and results oriented effectiveness. 28

The project involves students identifying an area of their

personal, interpersonal, or work lives where they have discerned that they want to make a change

for the better. They envision the desired future state that they want to create, develop a strategy

and tactics for achieving that vision, work at implementing it, and then evaluate their

performance and their learning. As is often the case, students who fail to achieve their goal seem

to learn more in the long run than those who manage to succeed. The overall lesson is usually

related to the importance of choosing to leave their comfort zones, to risk failure, and to discover

that whether they succeed or fail, they increase their confidence by learning.

Other Features of a Jesuit B-School

We acknowledge that a single class or even a series of courses that unpack the Four Pillars of

Jesuit Leadership in concrete and practical terms is likely insufficient for the purpose of helping

students integrate their business education experience in a holistic manner. These courses need to

be situated in a school wide ethos that affects each discipline and fosters a deep, life long

commitment to moral leadership, whether this be in the field of accounting, management,

marketing, finance, human resources, etc.

The following points and guidelines describe some of the other features that should distinguish

the educational environment of a Catholic, Jesuit B-School from others. [NOTE: guidelines for

educators are in normal text; guidelines for students are in italics.]

COMMUNITY –

Seek out businesses in the local community that support Jesuit principles, and engage them in

guest lectures, internship opportunities, testimonial storytelling of integrity in their

workplace.

Form partnerships with community churches and non-profits to optimize student outreach

and service.

Invite respected business leaders to serve on college committees, boards, and advisory

panels.

Observe the needs of the world around you. Identify where you can influence change; seek to

make a difference.

COURSES –

Include courses in the curriculum that directly explore topics of, for instance: Serving Others,

Global Outreach Challenges & Opportunities, Jesus as an Entrepreneurial Thinker, Spiritual

Exercises: A Leadership Building Tool.

28

Quinn, Robert. “Moments of Greatness: entering the fundamental state of leadership.”

Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review. 2005.

12

Seek out courses that specifically address the Four Jesuit Principles. They offer leadership-

building content that are unique to your school and valuable to your future success.

CULTURE –

Encourage a student culture of challenging ideas in ways that are analytic, non-judgmental,

indifferent (free from prejudice and attachment).

Speak up in class and in social situations when you witness ethical contrasts or dilemmas.

Practice disagreeing without judgment.

INTEGRATIVE LEARNING –

Teach business models in the context of related Jesuit models. For instance, the continuous

improvement model of plan-do-check-act aligns well with the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm

of context-experience-reflection-action.

Integrate ethics issues into all classes, not just ethics classes. There are ethical concerns in

accounting, finance, organizational behavior, management style, etc.

Invite teachers to explore how the Four Jesuit Principles manifest themselves in their class

topics.

Listen in class for opportunities to discuss how the topic at hand connects with any of the

Four Jesuit Principles

LANGUAGE –

Incorporate the Jesuit language into B-School statements of vision, mission and core values.

Create awards for students that recognize demonstrations of the characteristics listed on the

Four Jesuit Principles (Appendix I)

Use characteristics listed on the Four Jesuit Principles Model (Appendix I) in your writing,

discussing, recognition of others.

OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM –

Conduct research that is directed to community and/or international problems representative

of the underserved.

Offer extracurricular content (lectures, guest speakers) that explores Jesuit principles.

Support extracurricular activities that engage people in serving an improvable community.

Seek out off-campus opportunities to serve others and promote justice. It is not so much

political activism that will help develop your leadership capacity, but moral and ethical

activism.

Conclusion

This paper is a whitepaper for a leadership handbook detailing the advantages of a Catholic, and

specifically Jesuit business education. In particular, we suggest that as business school education

undergoes increased scrutiny, and the public demands more integrity and ethical commitment

from business leaders, it is timely to focus on the value contribution of an educational process

that has always placed priority on both character and competence. Furthermore, we suggest that

as Jesuit B-schools continue to evolve and become more diverse in their faculties, it would be

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beneficial to provide a flexible yet normative approach to principle driven leadership

development rooted in the four characteristics outlined by Chris Lowney in Heroic Leadership.

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Appendix I: Four Jesuit Principles that Enhance the B-School Experience

SELF-AWARENESS; examen; Know yourself.

character

integrity

values

leadership

emotional intelligence

personal accountability

knowing what you stand for & want to achieve

awareness of strengths, weaknesses, talents

reflection and continuous improvement

INGENUITY; vita agilis; Embrace change.

clarity

creativity

innovation

flexibility

rapid response

delegator

opportunity seeker

out-of-the-box thinker

free of prejudice and attachments

global, cross-cultural perspective

LOVE; cura personalis; Engage others.

caring

compassion

humility

team-builder

mentor, coach

driven by passion

commitment to serve

diversity seeker

not motivated by fear

talent recognition and management

secures buy-in, support, loyalty

HEROISM; magis; Aim high.

courage

conscience

excellence

empowerment

walk the walk

role model

carpe diem

propelled by vision

intrinsically motivated

makes the mission personal

dissatisfied with status quo

inspires others to choose to follow

15

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