International Journal of Servant-Leadership

Contact: ferch@gonzaga.edu

Poet and prose writer Shann Ray Ferch teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. Dr. Ferch is the author of a work of leadership and political theory, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity: Servant Leadership as a Way of Life (Rowman & Littlefield), and the editor, with Larry Spears, of Conversations on Servant Leadership (SUNY Press), and The Spirit of Servant Leadership (Paulist Press). In his role as professor of leadership studies with the internationally renowned PhD program in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga, he has served as a visiting scholar in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and North America. His novel, American Copper (Unbridled Press), is a love song to America revealing the radiant and profound life of Evelynne Lowry, a woman who transcends the national myth of regeneration through violence. The novel won the Foreword Book of the Year Readers’ Choice Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the High Plains Book Award and the Foreword Book of the Year Award for Literary Fiction.

A former professional basketball player, his collection of stories American Masculine (Graywolf Press) was named a "3 Books Every Man Should Read" selection by Esquire Magazine, and won the American Book Award, the Bakeless Prize, and two High Plains Book Awards, for Best Story Collection and Best First Book. A finalist with Ted Kooser’s Splitting an Order and Erin Belieu’s Slant Six, his book of poems, Balefire, (Lost Horse Press) won the High Plains Book Award for Poetry.

Recent publications:

• Servant-Leadership, Feminism, and Gender Well-Being: How Leaders Transcend Global Inequities Through Hope, Unity, and Love
• Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness: How Leaders Help Heal the Heart of the World
• Global Servant-Leadership: Wisdom, Love and Legitimate Power in the Age of Chaos
• Atomic Theory 7: Poems to My Wife and God

Contact: ijsl@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

Jenny Song is Associate Professor at Northwestern College. After earning her Master of Engineering in China and working in the field of IT for 14 years, Jenny came to the United States to pursue a Master of Divinity from George Fox University. After completing her second Master’s degree, she earned a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies from Gonzaga University. Through this process, she has discovered that she has a passion for both effective leadership and academic work.

During her career in China, she served as the Operation Director of an IT company and managed the Operation Service Center and Marketing Department for seven years. She obtained a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and an IT Service Management certification and worked as a project manager for more than 10 years. During her graduate study at George Fox University, she worked as Teaching Assistant for Dr. MaryKate Morse, teaching and tutoring graduate students in New Testament Greek. She has been active in ministry to international students and visiting scholars at George Fox University since 2013. She graduated from George Fox University and received the Dean’s Award for “superior academic achievement, exemplary Christian character and extraordinary potential for service as a Christian scholar.” At Gonzaga University, she worked with Dr. Chris Francovich as a data analyst for National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE project. She taught project management and spiritual formation at George Fox University. Currently she is Assistant Professor of Business at Northwestern College and serving as Associate Editor with Dr. Shann Ray Ferch and Larry C. Spears for The International Journal of Servant-Leadership. She received Faculty Excellence in Faith and Learning Award from Northwestern College in 2022. She enjoys reading servant-leadership studies and essays from all over the world.

Recent publications:

• Servant-Leadership, Feminism, and Gender Well-Being: How Leaders Transcend Global Inequities Through Hope, Unity, and Love
• Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness: How Leaders Help Heal the Heart of the World
• Global Servant-Leadership: Wisdom, Love and Legitimate Power in the Age of Chaos

Contact: spears@gonzaga.edu; lspears@spearscenter.org

Larry C. Spears is President & CEO of the Larry C. Spears Center for Servant-Leadership, Inc. (Indianapolis), established in 2008; and, he is Servant-Leadership Scholar at Gonzaga University (Spokane). From 1990-2007 he served as President & CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership.

Spears is also a writer and editor who has published hundreds of articles, essays, newsletters, books and other publications on servant-leadership. Dozens of newspapers and journals have interviewed him, including Fortune, the Indianapolis Business Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, and Advancing Philanthropy. A 2004 television broadcast interview of Spears by Stone Phillips on NBC’s Dateline was seen by ten million viewers. Larry is editor and contributing author to fifteen books on servant-leadership, including Conversations on Servant-Leadership(with Ferch, McFarland, and Carey; 2015, SUNY Press; The Spirit of Servant Leadership (with Shann Ferch; 2011, Paulist Press); and, Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit and Servant-Leadership (1998, John Wiley & Sons). He has also contributed chapters to another sixteen books, among them, The Jossey-Bass Reader on Nonprofit and Public Leadership (2010, Jossey-Bass); and, Robert K. Greenleaf: A Life of Servant Leadership (2004, Berrett-Koehler).

Larry has given over two hundred keynote addresses on four continents, a dozen countries, and forty states. He spent time with Robert Greenleaf and first encountered Greenleaf’s writings on servant-leadership in 1982. Among several honors, Spears is the 2018 recipient of Gonzaga University School of Leadership Studies Hall of Honor; the 2008 Community Leadership Award given by DePauw University, and the 2004 Dare-to-Lead Award given by the International Leadership Network. The Spears Center is committed to enhancing the global understanding and practices of servant-leadrship.

Recent publications:

• Servant-Leadership, Feminism, and Gender Well-Being: How Leaders Transcend Global Inequities Through Hope, Unity, and Love
• Servant-Leadership and Forgiveness: How Leaders Help Heal the Heart of the World
• Global Servant-Leadership: Wisdom, Love and Legitimate Power in the Age of Chaos

James A. Autry retired in 1992 as president of the Meredith Magazine Group. In addition to Love and Profit – which won the Johnson, Smith and Kinsely Award in 1992 – Mr. Autry is the author of two books of poetry (Nights Under a Tin Roof and Life After Mississippi) and was one of the poets featured in Bill Moyers’ PBS series, “The Power of the Word.”

Warren Bennis (1925-2014) was a distinguished professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. He was the author of On Becoming a Leader and Why Leaders Can’t Lead, and co-authored Leaders: Strategies for Change. He served in advisory positions to four U.S. presidents, as a faculty member, consultant, and university president.

Ken Blanchard has impacted day-to-day management around the world as a prominent author, speaker, and business consultant. His best-selling book, The One Minute Manager (co-authored with Spencer Johnson), has sold more than one million copies worldwide. He is the chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies and a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D.

Peter Block is an author, consultant, and speaker with over 30 years of experience working with governments, businesses, and communities worldwide to promote service and accountability. He is the founder of two renowned training firms – Designed Learning and Block Petrella Weisbord – and is the author of titles such as The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion, Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Empowered Manager, The Answer to How is Yes, and Community: The Structure of Belonging.

Dr. David Cooperrider is professor and chair of the SIGMA Program for Human Cooperation and Global Action at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. He has served as a researcher and consultant for a wide variety of organizations. His projects are inspired by the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodology – for which he is a co-originator – and he has received Best Paper of the Year Awards at the Academy of Management.

Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012) was an internationally respected leadership authority and co-chairman of Franklin Covey Company. He held an MBA from Harvard and a doctorate from Brigham Young University, where he served as a professor of organizational behavior and business management as well as director of university relations and assistant to the president. He is best known as the author of several acclaimed books, including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Max De Pree (1924-2017) wrote from over 40 years of experience in both the corporate and non-profit worlds, and 19 years as a grandparent. He was chairman emeritus of Herman Miller, Inc., a member of Fortune magazine’s National Business Hall of Fame, and a recipient of the Business Enterprise Trust's Lifetime Achievement Award. He served on the boards of Fuller Theological Seminary, Hope College, and Worlds of Hope, and was a member of the Advisory Board of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.

Ronald A. Heifetz, co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is renowned worldwide for his seminal work on the practice and teaching of leadership. His widely acclaimed book, Leadership Without Easy Answers, has been translated into many languages. A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, and the Kennedy School, Heifetz is both a physician and a cellist (having studied with Gregor Piatigorsky).

Joseph Jaworski began his career as an attorney with Bracewell & Patterson. In 1980, he founded the American Leadership Forum, later completing a four-year assignment as head of Global Scenario Planning for the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. In 1994, he joined the MIT Center for Organizational Learning and also founded the Centre for Generative Learning.

James Kouzes is president of TPG/Learning Systems – part of the Tom Peters group. He and his colleagues have developed innovative programs such as “The Leadership Challenge Workshop,” “The Credibility Factor Workshop,” “Leadership is Everyone’s Business,” and “The Liberation Management Workshop.” He is also co-author of The Leadership Challenge and has published numerous articles and book chapters on management education, leadership, and organizational development.

Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper (1935-2016) was celebrated as “the Pied Piper of corporate America” and a “prophet in the business wilderness.” Widely sought-after as a speaker and consultant, she authored titles such as Time Management for Unmanageable People and Building Brain Power. She held a doctorate from Columbia University, earned through a self-conceived interdisciplinary program in creative problem solving.

C. William Pollard is Chairman and CEO of ServiceMaster Company, recognized by Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times as one of the world’s most respected companies and ranked as the No. 1 service company in the Fortune 500. Pollard writes, speaks, and teaches on management and ethics and is the author of the best-selling book The Soul of the Firm.

Barry Z. Posner is a professor of organizational behavior in the Leavey School of Business and Administration at Santa Clara University. An internationally renowned scholar, he has published over 80 research and practitioner-oriented articles and co-authored works such as Credibility and The Leadership Challenge. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Business and the author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. He has lectured extensively worldwide and collaborated with leaders across business, education, healthcare, and government. Senge earned his B.S. in engineering from Stanford and his M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on May 16, 1952, Fr. Spitzer is a Catholic Priest in the Jesuit order and currently serves as President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith. He is also president of the Spitzer Center on Catholic Organizations – an initiative aimed at strengthening faith, culture, and spirit in Catholic organizations for new evangelization – and the Chief Educational Officer for the Ethics and Performance Institute, which offers web-based education on personal efficacy, organizational culture, leadership, and ethics.

Margaret Wheatley writes, teaches, and speaks about radically new practices and ideas for organizing in chaotic times. As President emeritus of The Berkana Institute, a global charitable foundation, her newest book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, is a collection of practice-focused writings that illustrate the personal and organizational behaviors bringing her theories to life. She is also the author of Leadership and the New Science, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, and A Simpler Way (with Myron Kellner-Rogers).

Danah Zohar was born and educated in the United States. She studied Physics and Philosophy at MIT and pursued postgraduate work in Philosophy, Religion & Psychology at Harvard University. Co-author with Ian Marshall of the best-selling books The Quantum Self and The Quantum Society, in 1997 she and Marshall published Who’s Afraid of Schrödinger's Cat? – a survey of 20th-century scientific ideas. That same year, she released a business title, ReWiring the Corporate Brain. Her latest book, co-authored with Marshall, is SQ: Connecting with our Spiritual Intelligence. Zohar teaches in the Oxford Strategic Leadership Program and lives in Oxford, England.