IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY AND LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS TODAY

Half a millennium ago, Ignatius was not cognizant of certain termsconsidered nowadays as fundamental in organizational leader-ship: such concepts as transformational leadership, empower-ment, organigrams, organizational culture and learning organizations. Yet, judged by his writings, he seems to have had an intuitive grasp of these and other ideas in the way he applied them to govern an organization like the Society of Jesus. Ignatian spirituality has often been approached from the individual and group point of view but rarely from a corporate or organizational perspec-tive. How, and to what extent the principles, concepts and processes of organizational leadership applicable to today’s organizations can be found already, at least implicitly, in Ignatius ’ vision of a religious institution? This article intends to study those characteristics found in today’s organizational leadership literature and practice and their corresponding traces both in St Ignatius ’ writings and in his role as organizational leader. Some of these characteristics are clearly and directly related to Ignatian principles. Others are less familiar and not so applicable to his “way of proceeding”. On the other hand, there are elements of leadership in Ignatius ’ intuitions not yet taken up in today’s secular leadership or management. Finally, a few characteristics still need to be developed both in organizational leadership today and in Ignatian leadership. The sequence of this article follows these four types of characteristics