Leadership for the Common Good

Most business programs approach leadership for how it can benefit the organization and stockholders. EMU takes a broader view to consider how individuals–with the leverage of a leadership role–can not only benefit the organization but also a wider range of stakeholders. This perspective suggests that business must become a force for positive social and environmental change in the world, and it results in an integrated lens of global citizenship, business ethics, and sustainability.

Program Values

Following are the values we bring to leadership education:

Leading as Service: Transformative leadership starts with self-awareness and leads to empowering and serving others.

Planning for Sustainable Organizations: Business, organizational, community and global economic success, as well as an acknowledgement of our interdependence with our environment, are vital for healthy societies.

Building Community: We live, learn, grow, and thrive in relationship with others. We believe that learning occurs best in the context of diverse community.

Global Citizenship: We are interdependent and mutually accountable to local, national, and global communities. As a result, we believe in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and interfaith engagement around world problems.

Growing Spiritually: As leaders, we are on a journey of spiritual formation and growth, drawing on our spiritual resources to improve our communities and organizations.

Balancing economic viability while striving for social & ecological sustainability

Multistream (common good)	Mainstream (orthodoxy)
Emphasis on multiple forms of well-being for multiple stakeholders	Emphasis on materialism and individualism, primarily for shareholders
Meeting needs/interests of all stakeholders	Meeting needs/desires of shareholders
Provide goods or services to improve the human condition	Provide goods/services that people want & max. profits
Organizations provide employment and livelihood	Members have role in making organization successful
Outward (from organization) and longer-term orientation	Inward (toward organization) and shorter-term orientation
Balance needs for self with others and ecological systems	Primacy of needs and wants for self beyond other needs
Interest in sustainable systems	Often becomes extractive & unsustainable
Adequate profits, plus people and planet (wellth)	Profit maximization as bottom line (wealth)
Effectiveness and searching for significance	Efficiency for sake of maximizing productivity
Collaboration (share good ideas)	Competition (increase market share at expense of others)
Consider place of organization within the whole	Specialization more of focus than broader context
Whole-life balance within broader meaning and purpose	Work/wealth-centric approach, spurning spirituality
More relational	More rational
Metrics more qualitative (more challenging to assess)	Metrics more quantitative (simpler to assess)
Share (and give up) control	Retain control at all costs
Confidence grounded in others	Confidence grounded in self
“we can do it together”	“I can do it, with your help”
Honesty is an end in and of itself	Honesty is a means to an end
Sustaincentrism and egalicentrism (our way + our future)	Egocentrism (my way, now)
Sustenance economics	Acquisative economics
Concern for people	Concern for task
Organization-Specific Responsibility (b/c it serves others)	Corporate Social Responsibility (b/c is increases profits)
Look out for the “least of these…” (employees and others)	Select and retain only the best and brightest
Leaders deflect praise to others	Leaders seek, and welcome, recognition
Servant leadership (strong & self-confident, not weak)	Controlling, top-down, and uni-directional leadership
Driven by concern for others (proximal and temporal)	Driven by high emphasis on individualism/materialism

Sources: Dyck (2005, 2010), Schroeder (2005), Neubert (2010), among others

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