26 January 2009

Spirit in Business: The Expanded Consciousness of Inspiring Leaders and Entrepreneurs

Global crises such as the climate crisis, the poverty crisis or the financial crises are also “value crises” and symptoms of a “consciousness crisis”. Our motivation and capability to address such issues depends on our awareness of the bigger picture and our consciousness how we individually are linked to these issues. New leaders and entrepreneurs in the fields of Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability have become aware of this bigger picture. They have an expanded consciousness and followed their life-mission to be change agents and leaders in changing the world.

Change due to expanding consciousness can be seen in various academic, economic, societal and political fields. In economy, change can be seen in social and spiritual entrepreneurship, CSR and new forms of visionary and conscious leadership. In medicine, it is the trend towards holistic medicine including the growing acceptance of alternative healing. In physics, it is quantum-physics and in politics the election of Barack Obama is energizing globally.

There are many open questions: For instance, how has peace nobel-prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus seen potential rather poverty in Bangladesh when establishing Grameen’s micro-finance scheme? Why did Microsoft founder Bill Gates change his life mission from for-profit seeking towards fighting global illnesses? How are we transforming capitalism to make our global economy sustainable?

My thesis is that they have in common an expanded consciousness which is the foundation for extraordinary mission-motivation, leadership and achievements. What do you think?