Customer Reviews

The Spirit of Leadership: Optimizing Creativity and Change in Organizations

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Robert Spitzer has been the President and CEO of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. He also has extensive experience as an organizational consultant. It is from this experience he has written The Spirit of Leadership. The main point of the book is valid and clearly expressed. Far too many individuals in leadership positions spend a large amount of energy and resources to improve the products or processes of their organizations with mediocre results. As Spitzer comments in the introduction of this book, "Joe had blinded himself consistently to one of the three Ps of leadership. By concentrating on product and process, he had altogether ignored people".

The Spirit of Leadership correctly emphasizes that when people are ignored; their essential spirit is stifled resulting in a lack of trust, common cause, participation, teamwork and creativity. The purpose of the book is to show the reader how to create a espirit de corps within the heart of an organization. Spitzer defines this as the ability to transcend the material world to "gain energy when doing something creative". He continues to define espirit de corps in terms of the capacity to go beyond the self, or beyond known paradigms, or to become more alive. He believes this is fostered by three elements: vision, rational communication and four sets of commitments discussed in the book. This allows for an environment of inspired and motivated workers as well as high performing teams.

The Spirit of Leadership is composed of eighteen chapters within five well organized sections. The sections are entitled, The Mind and Vision of the Inspired Leader, The Heart of the Inspired Leader, People Commitments, Ethical Commitments and Leadership Commitments. As you can tell by these titles, Spitzer believes a great leader must have a consistent and heartfelt commitment toward growing people, sound moral behavior, and the responsibility that comes with being a leader! He begins the book by making a compelling case for the need of Inspired Leadership, in contrast to the traditional Driven Leadership we see so often in organizations today. He concludes the book with how to create a espirit de corps in your organization. Many chapters are featured with numerous steps, stages or points to clarify the author's main ideas.

The Spirit of Leadership does not break new ground, but it is a good read. Some of the strengths of the book are its readability, ethical foundation and it's many charts that condense larger ideas into visual snapshots. If you believe and understand the importance of building people in your organization, this may be a good book for your library.

I have often heard people refer to this author as a "Genius", a "Great Administrator", a "Superb and inspirational teacher", but all these descriptions (while true) fall short of what the man and his work really are. If you read this book, what you will really be reading are the words of a holy man.

In the tradition of Ricci, Verbeist, and other great Jesuits, Father Spitzer has doned the garb of contemporary culture for one very simple, but incredibly important reason-that the gospel message will be proclaimed in a language which people will listen to, people who otherwise might not hear it.

This task of translating the good news into the language of business is no small matter (not if it is going to be done with subtlety), or one that is easily undertaken. We ought to wrap our minds around the extreme humility of the author and consider the sanctity of his life as perhaps the greatest testimony of all.

What else would a serious mission to a culture like our look like? Take for instance the some 15 books for sale on amazon.com right now by Robert J. Spitzer-look at the titles alone. Talk about Mission!

This persons authority is not limited to one discipline but spans so many that it temps me to question his very humanity, for it is not like the humanity I know.

Given the "S.J." which follow his name, we consider a person who has taken a vow of poverty and yet has probably generated millions-all given away freely. A man who's gifts causes him to shine more brightly than any CEO of any corporation in this country, and yet he has chosen a path of obedience.

The question why? begs an answer. This book is not about business alone, read more carefully, each line has about 3 layers of meaning.

I highly recommend this book...especially for the business professional who is interested in "leading" versus "managing" and who desires to learn more about "collaborating" rather than "comparing". Truly a worthwhile investment of your time.

I enjoyed his books. Father Spitzer does not seek to gain millions by publishing his books. He broadcasts his ideas in the books on EWTN for free. Thank you and God bless you Father Spitzer!

simply want to gain a better understanding of what an organization should be, this is a good source of good ideas.

My opinion is that he expresses the "ideal" organization. I think he gives good insight of why things go wrong in organizations, what is missing and how to fix them, and specially how to fix oneself. This is not a silver bullet, but a pointer in the right direction. He uses well-known management concepts and gives them a spiritual spin.

Mr. Spitzer is an expert in high level management and a Jesuit priest. A rare combination.

I am not an organizational leader myself - probably will never be - but I've personally experienced the impact of the kind of situations he describes. I've directly experienced the pain caused by some of leadership's arrogance and compulsion. At least now I have an idea of what happened.

Very inspiring read.