Navigating the Study of Executive Leaders’ Spirituality

Abstract

This Meet the Person article presents a synthesis of two interviews with André Delbecq, senior fellow at the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education and professor of management at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. André was a pioneering researcher in a number of areas of management scholarship such as group decision-making (e.g., the Nominal Group Technique) and managing innovation and change, with a career extending over 58 years. He experienced a shift in his late career toward the study of executive leaders’ spirituality. In the interviews, André talked of that shift, providing an inspiring example of a successful career transition, as well as his personal insight on venturing into new areas of research. André’s career is an example of engaged scholarship, academic researcher development, and the decentered academic product.