Leadership Matters

Matthias Ripp via Compfight

Conceptualizing Responsible and Humanistic Leadership within the Asian Context- and Why

Leaders around the world are faced with pressing challenges. Growing levels of inequality, corruption and poverty, and challenges of peace, justice, and sustainable economic growth are complex and widespread. It is within this backdrop that disappointment with ‘how organizations and societies are being led’ has been growing globally. The 2017 Edleman Trust Barometer, an instrument that has been measuring global confidence in institutions, businesses and governments since 2012, indicated general public distrust with all 4 major institutions, business, NGO, media and the government. Many commentators and academics have attributed the worldwide rise of populism to this distrust (Khilji, 2017). People’s concerns with the social challenges they face, have begun to show up as their fears and in their anger.

The ground beneath us has been shifting steadily. As management scholars, we have tolerated and oftentimes perpetuated a gap between society and organizations and their leaders. For decades, we have held on to misconceived assumptions about good leadership, which has been focused primarily on personality or psychological traits and their development. Pirson (2017) in his book, Humanistic Management, argues for a ‘fundamental rethinking of how we organize at the global political level, the societal level, the economic level, and the organizational level’ (p. 1). Kempster & Carroll (2016) contend that the problems we face today require a ‘big picture, multiple party, long term-process’ (p. 1). Inherent in these statements is the call for business leaders to consider social problems. Pless (2007) defines leadership as the ‘…motivation and commitment for achieving sustainable values creation and social change” (p. 438).

In recent years, the idea of responsible leadership, with its emphasis on values-based and principles-driven relation between leader and the stakeholders, has gained prominence, particularly because of the enactment of UN Global Compact (UNGC) (Stahl & De Luque, 2014). One may ask: in what ways are responsible leadership and humanistic leadership relevant in Asia; and how do Asian organizations/ leaders contribute to the idea of global responsibility. In my address, I adopt a romantic view to emphasize responsible and humanistic leadership as a multi-level practice that connects individual, organizational and institutional factors, while highlighting the need for a paradigmatic shift in leadership. In conclusion, I present a variety of questions for the audience to engage them in research and informed practice. 

This keynote was presented at a conference in March 2018. For a complete paper, please contact the author directly at sekhilji@gwu.edu