Titles

Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World

Chris Lowney
Loyola Press
October 2003
ISBN: 0829421157

Author Chris Lowney offers leadership lessons from the Jesuits, the renowned religious order whose originality and expertise have stirred admiration for nearly five centuries. Lowney, a former Jesuit and investment banker, shows how the Jesuits have grappled successfully with the same challenges that test great companies today: forging seamless multinational teams, motivating inspired performance, remaining “change ready” and strategically adaptable.

The Jesuits eschewed a flashy leadership style in favor of a holistic approach, focusing on four unique values: self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. Lowney explores the four principles in detail, illustrating each with anecdotes from Jesuit history. He examines the Jesuit success formula of attacking real-world opportunities with real-world leadership strategies, showing how their formula can be used today to practice effective, whole-person leadership.

The four pillars of Jesuit leadership:

• Self-Awareness: understanding your strengths, weaknesses, values, and worldview
• Ingenuity: confidently innovating and adapting to embrace a changing world
• Love: engaging others with a positive, supportive attitude
• Heroism: energizing yourself and others by embracing ambitious goals and a passion to excel

Author Bio

Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit, served as Managing Director at J.P. Morgan in New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and London for seventeen years. Lowney currently lives in New York where he is a consultant for the Catholic Medical Mission Board. He is the author of A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment.