The Spirit of Leadership: Optimizing Creativity and Change in Organizations

Many organizations have invested in the skills and structures of change, but have forgotten the more intangible quality of spirit. As a result, their changes have been short-lived, their adaptibility slow, and their ability to move to the "next level" nonexistent. The absence of spirit (even with all the right skills and structures) has prevented these organizations from developing a self-motivated desire to change for the common good. Indeed, the absence of spirit has led to abject resistance to change.

Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D., is the president and CEO of Gonzaga Universityin Spokane, Washington, and the former Director of Gonzaga's Institute of Professional Ethics and the Institute on Character Development. He has consulted more than 40,000 executives, managers, team leaders, administrators and supervisors in over 500 large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Costco, and Toyota). This book is a result of extensive testing of leaders and organizations in North America, Europe, Japan, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East.