Welcome to the Center for Responsible Leadership. We would like to share a few things about our vision, mission, overall goal, and focus.
Our vision is to be internationally recognized as the preeminent source of leadership research for the purpose of understanding and developing leadership that is responsible in its relationship with constituents and stakeholders. Our mission is to advance the understanding, practice, and development of responsible leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. Our overall goal is to be both intellectually engaging and personally meaningful in our attempt to understand and develop responsible leadership.
We fulfill this mission and goal by:
- Conducting world-class leadership research and development that promotes responsible leadership at all hierarchical levels in private and public organizations
- Developing conceptual frameworks and methodologies on the cutting edge of leadership research
- Mentoring students interested in the study of leadership and its development
- Providing a mechanism for social embeddedness through the development of community-based leaders and engaging in a variety of projects relating to responsible leadership
- Serving as an entity for the pursuit of external funding, largely interdisciplinary in nature, pertaining to leadership
- Recruiting recognized professors, scholars, and executives to the Center (e.g., faculty fellows, visiting and post-doctorate scholars, and prominent executives who personify responsible leadership) to exchange views and concepts
- Partnering with other major leadership research centers for the purpose of joint research, conferences, and other cooperative endeavors
Our focus is on multiple levels of organizations and networks by encompassing four broad themes:
- Core understanding of responsible leadership: conduct scholarly research, theory, and developmental application from the diverse fields of inquiry about leadership, especially as it pertains to the demonstration of responsibility. As a trans-disciplinary Center, we encourage intellectual thought and developmental application from diverse fields of inquiry. These fields include, but are not limited to, psychology, political science, sociology, economics, organizational behavior and theory, marketing, education, anthropology, neuroscience, and history.
- Individual leadership and responsibility: the relationship between the individual's values and the firm. Topics include individual strategies for actively promoting and protecting responsibility in the workplace, values-based leadership, corporate crime and investigations, and dealing with ethical dilemmas.
- Corporate social responsibility: how companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders. Topics include how leadership relates to the social and environmental impact of business operations, sustainability, business conduct in emerging markets, and corruption. We will also consider society's expectations of business and business leaders.
- Corporate governance: the processes and systems by which corporations are directed and laws and customs applying to those directions. This includes, for instance, the workings of boards of directors and the relationship between and distribution of rights and responsibilities of auditors, boards, executives, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. To date, leadership research has intersected very little with corporate governance issues, although it is clear that decision-making and other behavioral processes are relevant.
These themes are interrelated. For example, responsible corporate governance and corporate conduct ultimately rely on the responsible behaviors of people in leadership positions. Moreover, balancing the sometimes competing interests of shareholders and other stakeholders raises important questions for individual leaders. In sum, our focus will help to advance understanding, practice, and development in these areas - and ultimately, benefit society worldwide.
The academic Fellows and students of the Center bring much knowledge and expertise to bear on addressing the topic of responsible leadership including:
- a broad-based understanding of leadership theory and its application at various levels of organizations and their networks
- the psychometric assessment of leadership qualities
- multi-source feedback and other traditional leadership development techniques
- neuroscience techniques for assessing and developing leadership qualities