Integral leadership: the case of Mahatma Gandhi

Abstract

Abraham Lincoln defined leadership as a growth process - a course of development and maturation that encourages people to act from "the better angels of their nature". Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi. Rachel Carson and many others demonstrated the power of such leadership. In the process, they changed the world around them. Imagine what could happen in our societies if all leaders were as purposeful, meaningful, ethical, integrate what would happen if we were developing in ourselves and others some of these same qualities. What are leaders who are considered to be operating at a more mature level of development doing differently. How have they achieved this maturity? How can we help future leaders to undergo such development. answers to these questions could modify our current views of leadership and change the way leaders are chosen and trained. These answers could also help us to address the four great challenges of our world, as defined by l TNESCO: The challenges of peace, poverty, ecological viability and collective meaning and purpose. Integral leaders are not only men and women of great principles. They also help us to effectively tackle the most challenging problems of our world. They have developed themselves beyond the stage of development that Abraham Maslow called "self-actualization", involving a de-centering or a transcendence of self, lead differentlv and for different purposes, when compared with leaders who have not reached this developmental plateau.