Global Leadership and Wisdoms of the World

This innovative book excavates hidden wisdoms from 17 diverse language cultures around the world, from Arabic and British-English to Russian and Swahili. Further, it explores their critical insights for global leadership, extrapolating important lessons on group dynamics, decision-making, conflict management, motivation, ethics, communication, diversity, strategy, and organizational effectiveness.

Integrating an international team of experts, Global Leadership and Wisdoms of the World is based on the premise that languages, and especially hard-to-translate terms, reveal assumptions, values, and praxes that are often misread outside of regional contexts. Each chapter uses examples from local leaders and businesses to scrutinize how key language terms around wisdom reflect and guide many aspects of management and organization, including cognition, emotion, moral standards, mission and vision, collaboration, and execution. Ultimately, the book showcases how these ‘wisdoms of the world’ enhance leadership literacy and bridge global environments, pursuing a sustainably positive impact while navigating the complexities of international business and cross-cultural management.

Students and academics seeking to navigate complexities and challenges in business management, leadership, ethics and trust, climate action, and diversity and inclusion will find this an invigorating read. The strategies and methods for incorporating local wisdoms are also highly beneficial to professionals in media and communication, education, diplomacy, and public policy.

‘But what is a wise leader? In Global Leadership and Wisdoms of the World, Kessler and Wong-MingJi have addressed this question in an exciting and important new book, acknowledging and documenting that there is not just one way to be a wise leader. Across 17 chapters they have assembled authors who write about wisdom in leadership in different countries ranging from the West to the East, spanning a wide range of societal and cultural traditions and practices. This book can serve as an important basic source of fundamental information about the nature of wisdom around the world and how these different forms of wisdom can serve leadership across a wide range of different countries.’ -- Howard Nusbaum, University of Chicago, US
‘Eric Kessler and Diana Wong-MingJi have brought together experts on language and culture to shed light on how languages, particularly terms that are difficult to translate and comprehend out of context, reflect deep-seated values and assumptions. The editors provide themes that connect across the 17 languages to suggest characteristics of global leadership based on wisdom embedded in various “language cultures”. Wisdom is sensitively woven throughout the volume, from the dedication to the editors’ mothers to the original poem at the end that incorporates wisdom from all 17 languages. The focus on languages as sources of wisdom, rather than languages defined by national borders, is a valuable and liberating framework for the current environment of managing multilingual global teams and facilitating the mobility of millions around the world.’ -- Sheila M. Puffer, Northeastern University, US
‘This fascinating volume blends conventional perspectives on leadership with insights from Indigenous and non-Western philosophical traditions. Thoughtful explorations of language and meaning bring the wisdom of diverse cultures and histories together in constructing a new body of knowledge for twenty-first-century organizations. Worthwhile reading for global leaders and scholars of global leadership.’ -- Fiona Moore, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
‘By convening a consortium of distinguished experts from various countries, environments, and circumstances, who generously share their profound perspectives at the juncture of sagacity and worldwide governance, the editors and authors furnish us with invaluable and timely enlightenment regarding the astute leadership exhibited by global leaders as they navigate the intricacies of our complex world.’ -- Abraham Carmeli, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Edited by Eric H. Kessler, University Distinguished Professor and Henry George Professor of Management, Pace University New York and Diana J. Wong-MingJi, Futrell Fellow and Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Eastern Michigan University, US and President, Sensei Change Associates, LLC

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