Pauchant, T.C. (2004). Integral leadership: A research proposal, Journal of Organizational Change Management : An academic paper on the theory behind the project and its scientific methodology.

Integral Leadership: A Research Proposal
Thierry C. Pauchant
Professor, Holder of the Chair in Ethical Management
HEC Montreal , Canada
and Consulting Faculty,
Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara , USA
Thierry.pauchant@hec.ca

Paper sent to the Journal of Organizational Change Management,
Special Issue on the relevance of Ken Wilber’s theories in administrative sciences

Version: October 19, 2004

We would like to thank Sergio Castrillon, Denis Cauchon and Diana Haladay for their commentaries on previous drafts of this article and the SSHRD of Canada for its financial assistance. 

Integral Leadership: A Research Proposal

Abstract

In this article we propose a research program on the content and process of integral leadership. This type of leadership has been exemplified both by well-known leaders such as Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi and Rachel Carson, among others , and by many men and women without fame. This leadership is not efficient in a conventional way; rather, springing from the post-conventional development of integral leaders and the development of their stakeholders, it is effective at healing the deepest wounds of our societies: poverty, breach of human dignity and social justice, war and violence, environmental decay, and lack of common purpose and meaning. As this research requires taking a multi-disciplinary, multi-level and a developmental approach, Ken Wilber’s integral model is used as a frame, going beyond the limitations of current leadership inquiry. The research’s design is articulated by the analysis of a great number of individual cases of this leadership pattern (up to 100) and the collective analysis of these cases, adopting a micro, meso and macro perspective through three methodologies: interpretative biography, institutional analysis and historical inquiry. Considering its scope, the research program requires the participation of about 100 researchers over a 10 year period and could lead to a developmental theory of leadership, informing both its practice and training.

Introduction

Many authors, including Max Weber in the beginning of the 20 th century, have suggested that the need for leadership flourishes in times of turbulence and crises (Weber, 1947). Of course, leaders knew this all along: Abigail Adams, for example, wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1790 that “Great necessities call forth great leaders” (Quoted in Bennis and Nanus, 1985, p. 1). The current consensus on this turbulence is fueled in business by macro evolutions such as increased competition and uncertainty, the rise of turbulence and globalization, the acceleration of change and exponential innovations in technology (Conger and Benjamin, 1999; Weick, 2001). Other factors such as the rise of corporate crises and scandals, the increase in terrorism and violence, the extent of poverty and environmental decay and a greater emphasis on the search for meaning even in affluent nations are also contributing to this heightened uneasiness and the wish for another kind of leadership (Mitroff, 2003; Quinn, 2004; Senge and Carstedt, 2001). As a sign of this tendency, corporate America currently spends more than $12 billion each year on executive and leadership training (Conger and Benjamin, 1999). As another sign, academic research in leadership has increased (House et al., 2004; Yulk, 2002). This has lead to the introduction of new theories in leadership in a search for a more effective, mature, ethical, responsible, humane, compassionate or more encompassing leadership which could address the different concerns mentioned above. In the 1980s some of the proposed theories were labeled “transformational leadership” (Bass, 1985), “charismatic leadership” (Conger, 1989); “visionary leadership” (Westley and Mintzberg, 1989); or “transformative leadership, (Bennis and Nanus, 1985) (see House and Aditya, 1997, and Bryman, 1996, for reviews of that literature). Differently, the theories emerging in the 21st century are labeled: “Alchemist leadership” (Handy, 1999); “authentic leadership” (George, 2003); “conscious leadership” (Chatterjee, 1998); “covenantal leadership” (Pava, 2003); “courageous leadership” (Hybels, 2002); “crisis leadership” (Mitroff, 2003); “ethical leadership” (Kanungo and Mendonca, 1996); “exemplary leadership” (Kouzes and Posner, 2002); “global leadership” (Adler, in Boyacigiller et al., 2004); “humane leadership” (Seligman, 2000); “integral leadership” (Wilber, 2000a), “learning leadership” (Rooke and Torbert, 1998); “level-five leadership (Collins, 2001); “moral leadership” (Coles, 2000); “soul leadership” (Bolman and Deal, 2001); “spiritual leadership” (Vaill, 1998); or “transcendental leadership” (Sanders, Hopkins and Geroy, 2003). Some of these theories are not new but borrow, explicitly or not, from previous ones which had anticipated many decades ago our current situation and search for a different type of leadership (i.e., for example, Barnard, 1938; Burns, 1978; Greenleaf, 1977; Maslow, 1969; or Parker Follet, 1918). However, all of these new theories express in diverse terms our concerns and aspirations for a leadership which is more effective, ethical and spiritually informed.

In this article we present a research program framed by one of these new theories - Integral Leadership - introduced by Ken Wilber (2000a, p. 94). This choice is motivated by the theoretical sophistication of this theory, answering many of the current limitations in leadership research, its practicability in organizations and communities, and its explicit inclusion of the post-conventional dimensions observed in integral leaders, as we will see below.

I. The Integral Leadership Theory

Ken Wilber’s theory has been evolving since 1974, the date of his first publication (Wilber, 1974). As he states himself, he sees his theory as a work in progress and even refers to it in a developmental way, i.e. as “Wilber 1”, “2”, “3”, etc. (Wilber, 1999, p. vii; see Visser, 2003, for a bibliography of this work). The first part of Wilber’s work focused on the conceptual mapping of the development of human consciousness at the individual level, borrowing both from western and eastern knowledge (Wilber, 1974, 1977, 1979). He then explored more fully the cultural development of groups and societies (Wilber, 1980, 1981, 1983a; 1983b). In the mid 1990s, he proposed a more encompassing model of integral development by adding a subjective and an objective frame, making more explicit its relevance in many professional domains such as business, government, law, medicine or the arts (Wilber, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000a, 200b, 2000c, 2001). While his readership was mostly confined for a time to people interested in psychological and cultural development, including new age adepts and liberal activists, this new iteration of his theory, still evolving today (Wilber 2003, 2004), has attracted a number of management and leadership scholars (Benefiel, 2003; Bradbury, 2003; Cacioppe, 2000; Cacioppe and Albrecht, 2000; Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Murell, 2001; Neal, 2005; Pauchant, 2002; Pauchant et al., 2004; Prewitt, 2004; Rooke and Torbert, 1998; van Eijnatten and van Galen, 2002; Volckmann, 2004; Young, 2002).

In a parallel fashion, a large number of managers, executives, educators and consultants have borrowed from Wilber’s theory, attesting to its relevance in organizational settings. For example, many universities, research institutes and consulting firms in the world are presently using this framework and offer seminars in “integral leadership”. This includes, in the U.S. , the Adizes Institute, Axialent, the Center for Creative Leadership, Diverse Solutions, Eluminate, the Global Value Network, Integral Development, the Integral Institute, LeadCoach, as well as Antioch University , the Fielding Graduate Institute and the University of Notre Dame, among others. Outside the U.S., the Spiral Dynamics group (Beck and Cowan, 1996), for example, has been very active in offering integral seminars in Australia, Brazil, the U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, Sweden and many other countries, and in October 2002 co-sponsored the first “Integral Leadership Conference” in London. On his side, Ken Wilber has associated himself with around 100 people considered innovators in their respective fields of expertise (business, law, government, law, medicine, the arts, etc.), including management and education scholars such as Warren Bennis, Robert Kegan, Ian Mitroff and Bill Torbert, and in 1997, launched the Integral Institute as its CEO. In the spring of 2004, he along with several associates, began to offer seminars on integral leadership and is actively pursuing the development of, what is currently being called, the Integral University (Pauchant et al., 2004).

As these activities suggest, the notion of integral leadership, attempting to better integrate the natural, cultural and spiritual realities, is presently seducing many people around the globe, in private, public, associative and governmental organizations as well as in business schools, management institutes and research centers. We should, however, be careful with this seduction as many in the past, even those with the best intentions, have lead to drawbacks or even major crises. For example, the movement in human potential which started in the 1960s, while interesting in its endeavor, also triggered the rise of pop psychology, pseudo science, new age thinking and even dangerous dogmatism (Seligman, 2002). As another example in the domain of leadership - and much more dramatic - totalitarian leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini, who combined their grandiose dreams with mystical chimeras, seduced millions of followers, triggering some of the greatest hardships of the 20 th century as well as skepticism in Europe toward the promises of charismatic leadership (O’Toole, 1996). As Ken Wilber is himself aware, a popular trend can easily turn into pathology and needs to be carefully experimented with, using scientific rigor and ethical grounding (Wilber, 1995).

Part of the appeal with this model can be explained by the nature of its width and its depth. Using a multidisciplinary approach as well as a multi-level analysis, the integral model integrates the individual and collective components of leadership as well as it objective and subjective nature. This feature is very interesting at a time when leadership research and practice have been assessed as lacking integrative frameworks (Bass, 1990; Bryman, 1996; Yulk, 2002). In addition, this model exhibits a great level of depth, using the existing theories on consciousness and adult development. This feature is also very interesting at a time when research and practice in leadership have been judged as lacking grounding in human development (Kegan, 1994; Bennis and Thomas, 2002b). Details on the width and the depth of the model are discussed below.

II. The Width of the Integral Model

In his model, Wilber proposes two pairs of reality presented on two axes (Wilber, 1995; 2000a; Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Pauchant 2002). The horizontal axis presents a continuum between "internal" and "external" realities, and the vertical axis a continuum between "individual" and "collective" realities. These two axes form four quadrants as shown in Figure 1, namely quadrants A, B, C and D.

	Interior	Exterior
	A “I” Personal meaning and sense of self B “IT” Body and interpersonal behaviors D “WE” Culture and shared values C “ITS” Institutions, systems and processes, nature
Figure I: The four quadrants of Ken Wilber’s integral model

Quadrant A refers to the interior reality lived by a person. It is only accessible through profound dialogues with a person, access to her private writing, speeches or other productions or through interviews with her and her close associates. This realm includes the person’s meaning and experiences, her subjectivity, dreams, conversations with herself, sense of confusion and vocation, spiritual raptures. It is articulated by an internal language or other form of "intra-personal" conversation, i.e. images, sounds, emotions, feelings, intuitions, bodily sensations, etc. This is the reality of "I"; the subjective world lived by a person, as modulated by her levels of consciousness.

Quadrant B refers to the reality as perceived externally, through the intermediary of the senses, a technology or a tool. This reality is the world of the individual “it”. It consists of organic matter that makes up a person, her brain, synapses, muscles, senses, her body, as well as her actions and overt behaviors with others and in the world. This reality is perceptible externally by observation and modern science, for example the positivist-logic sciences, using empirical observation, measurement and analysis.

Quadrant C refers also to the concrete world of that which is tangible, measurable and quantifiable and can be apprehended from the outside. This is the world of the "its”. It is formed by institutions, enterprises, technologies, laws and rules, management and leadership tools, such as the structuring of management processes, financial strategies, means of production, techniques of marketing, information and communication technologies. This collective and concrete world can be expressed at different levels, be it at the group, organizational, national or global level and includes the complex relationships existing between the human and technological world with the natural world, such as natural resources, climate, geography, geology, beautiful landscapes, the animal world, etc.

Lastly, the world of Quadrant D contains once again the subjective and the ineffable, as did Quadrant A, expressed this time in a collective fashion. This is the world of values, taboos, informal norms, cultural paradigms and shared meanings. This world of the "we" is characterized by a common language and signs that can be understood and shared with others. It also includes the levels of consciousness expressed at the collective level, be it a group, an organization, a society or the entire world, its “cultural axis” or its “axial age” (Jaspers, 1951, p. 99).

It is important to note that Wilber does not present this model as a typology. Rather he claims that to understand a phenomenon in an integral fashion, all four quadrants need to be explored and related to each other. To take an example, an integral understanding of power in leadership would include, for instance, a phenomenological analysis of this dimension on the subjective meaning of individuals (Quadrant A); observations of these individuals’ behaviors (Quadrant B); a prompting of the tools and processes used at the collective level in relation to power (Quadrant C); the uncovering of its cultural dimensions and social characteristics (Quadrant D); as well as the relationship among these different quadrants (i.e. how Quadrant A affects Quadrants B, C and D and vice versa, etc.). To say it another way, Wilber is not suggesting that a dimension, in our example the dimension of power, be narrowly located in one quadrant. He is rather suggesting that this dimension be studied from the perspective of each quadrant as well as from their complex interrelations. We suggest in Figure 2 some of the disciplines most associated with each quadrant, each providing a rich but partial view of the integral reality.

InteriorExterior

Figure II: Associated disciplines in each quadrant

(Expanded from Wilber, 1996, p. 86)

Wilber argues that modern science has been mostly concerned with the right columns of the model, i.e. quadrants B and C, thus being fragmented (Wilber 1995, 1999). Similar arguments on the necessity of integrating the interior and exterior dimensions of reality as well as its process, have been made through the 20 th century by distinguished scholars as diverse as Anna Arendt, Gregory Bateson, John Dewey, Albert Einstein, William James, Barbara McClintock, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Simone Weil or Alfred North Whitehead. Different scientific fields have even been created in an attempt, in part, to reduce this fragmentation. This includes, for example, post-modernism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, feminist research, systems theory or deep ecology. In the field of leadership many critics have argued that the behavioral model, a Quadrant B reality, still dominates both research and practice (Bryman, 1996; Narayanswamy, 2001; Yulk, 2002). Many studies still focus on establishing relationships, often through the statistical method, among a reduced number of behavioral variables (House and Aditya, 1997; Kisfalvi and Pitcher, 2003). In training, most of the practice consists at evaluating the behaviors of leaders and leaders-to-be and attempts to modify them through different means in order to achieve gains in efficiency, productivity, competitiveness and profitability (Dotlich, Noel and Walker, 2004; Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon, 2001; Pitcher, 1997; Quinn, 1996). While such activities are legitimate, they are also fragmented.

This fragmentation in leadership research is also observed on the individual - collective axis of the integral model. Most of the present research is focusing on leaders themselves and their impact on their so called “followers”, and less on the process of leadership among many people, including their multiple influences on themselves and the world at large (Kofman and Senge, 1993; O’Toole, 2001; Mitroff, 2003). This trend is even accentuated in studies on charismatic leadership, the type of leadership found to be the most attractive in 62 cultures around the world (House et al, 2004). As observed by a senior researcher in the field, many studies have a “leader-centered perspective with an implicit assumption that causality is unidirectional” (Yulk, 2002, p. 12), i.e. that leaders act and “followers” react.

In an attempt to correct this bias, several researchers, but still in minority, have proposed to replace the word “followers” with a more active notion such as “associates”, “partners”, “collaborators”, “teammates”, “constituents”, “stakeholders”, etc. (Burns, 2003; Collins, 2001; Kouzes and Posner, 2002). Integral leaders such as Mother Teresa, for example, used the term “co-workers” to refer to these associates, a term introduced by another integral leader, Mohandas Gandhi (Chawla, 1998, p. 97). Some researchers are also attempting to integrate the context of the leadership process (Osborn, Hunt and Jauch, 2002), thus allowing for a better balance between the individual and collective quadrants, in Wilber’s language. However, even in some of this research, the focus is still placed on the leaders and how they can influence the behaviors of their “followers” but this time at a distance, using means such as TV, advertisements, pamphlets, videos, websites, emails and the like (See, for example, Antonakis and Atwater, 2002).

To a real extent, the myth of the heroic leader who personally empowers followers, while denounced by many researchers, is still very present both in scientific research and in the popular accounts of leadership. In the words of senior researchers in the field:

The leadership literature is based on a limiting set of assumptions: (…) Almost all of the prevailing theories of leadership, and about 98% of the empirical evidence at hand, are rather (…) individualistic rather than collectivistic, stressing follower responsibilities rather than rights, assuming hedonism rather than commitment to duty or altruist motivation, assuming centrality of work and democratic value orientation, and emphasizing assumptions of rationality rather than asceticism… (House and Aditya, 1997, p. 409).

III. The Depth of the Integral Model

But integrating the various realities in the four quadrants is only one aspect of the integral theory. Another aspect addresses their depth dimension, i.e. the different stages of consciousness which influence (and are influenced by) the content of each quadrant. As suggested in Figure III, Wilber

has superimposed on his four quadrants a developmental model often presented by ten stages of increasing complexity (Wilber, 1995, 1996, 2000a).

Figure III: The four quadrants, their 10 stages of development and their three general levels

While we cannot provide a description of all the stages in each quadrant in this article (See Wilber, 2000a for an introduction and Wilber, 1995, for a more extended presentation), we briefly present below the three generic levels indicated in Figure III, i.e. the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. Also, we summarize in Table I the correspondences between Wilber’s ten stages of development with the stages described in four other models, chosen out of many. These models are examples of the focus of each quadrant: Cognitive development for Quadrant A (Cook-Greuter, 1999); social interactions for Quadrant B (Brummett, 2002); the evolution of the techno-economic base for Quadrant C (Lenski, 1984); and the basis for moral judgement for Quadrant D (Kohlberg, 1984, complemented in italics by Wilber, 2000b).

General levels and specific stages (K. Wilber)	A. Cognitive Development	B. Social Interactions	C. Techno-Economic Base	D. Basis for Moral Judgment
I. Pre-Conventional
1. Archaic	Sensory and motor actions		Hunting & gathering 1
2. Magic	Preoperational actions	Family, clan, band	Hunting & gathering 2	Magic wish
II. Conventional
3. Mythic-literal	Concrete operations	Tribe, territorial	Horticultural	Punishment, obedience
4. Mythic-rational	Abstract operations	Theocratic Empires	Agrarian	Naïve hedonism
5. Rational	Formal operations	National states	Industrial	Approval of others Law & order
6. Pluralist, holistic	Systemic operations	Supra- national	Informational	Social contract Universal ethics
IIII. Post-Conventional
7. Psychic	Meta-systemic Paradigmatic	?	?	Spiritual
8. Subtle	Direct non- symbolically	?	?	Panenhenic, all earthy beings
9. Causal	Mediated apperception	?	?	Panentheistic, all sentient beings
10. Nondual	Metacognitive	?	?	Siddha

Table I: Wilber’s levels and stages with their correspondences with four other models
(Adapted from Wilber 2000b, p. 197-217)

The pre-conventional or pre-personal level corresponds to the preconscious, pre-verbal world of infants, dominated by biological and emotional impulses and later by the developmental processes of children. This level is first dominated by the needs for security, nutrition and affection. The differences between the internal and external worlds are negotiated as well as the wish for magical thinking, and rudimentary cognitive and moral capacities are acquired. Socially, this level is associated with a strong bonding with a perceived powerful figure, a family or a clan and is viewed to have been associated historically with the activities of hunting and gathering. While research suggests that the first stage (archaic) is relatively rare in adults, the second pre-conventional stage (magic) is more frequent, suggesting that the person’s development has been arrested at that stage (Kegan, 1994; Kohut, 1985). In leadership research, this level of consciousness has most been studied by authors drawing from psychoanalytic theory (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1984; Kisfalvi and Pitcher, 2003; Lapierre, 1989; Pauchant, 1991; Zaleznick, 1989).

The second generic level of consciousness is the conventional or personal one, i.e. the manifestation of ideas, concepts, reason, cognition and conventional morality. It is also the level where a person develops her own personality and finally differentiates between herself and the external world if the development is not arrested. The later stages in this level, leading to identity, individuality, rationality, self-esteem, self-realization, agency and humanism, are generally seen in our modern societies as the final conditions of autonomy to be mastered in achieving adulthood. As such, this level of consciousness is presently the most studied in leadership research, with a strong emphasis on behaviors, rationality and effectiveness, as noted previously. Socially, this level has expressed itself in communities of increasing complexity such as tribes, kingdoms and empires, national states and more recently in supra-national systems, as well as in diverse economic systems such as the horticultural, agrarian, industrial and, more recently, the informational system.

The third generic level of consciousness is the post-conventional or the transpersonal one. When a person access this level of development and its different stages, the earlier goal of autonomy is transcended as well as the conventional views and norms learned previously, including formal rationality. This level can lead through a long process to the transcendence of one’s individuality, emphasizing inherent interconnections with others, nature, the universe, the cosmos and the spiritual reality, experienced and defined in one’s own terms . Less habitual than the two previous levels, as the great majority of people have only transient accesses to this level, less materially centered than the first level but concerned about material conditions, less mentally centered than the second level but using all its formal and systemic operations, this level of consciousness is difficult to describe as it goes beyond standard rationality and the precepts of traditional logic. As no civilization has yet been centrally based on this level, no empirical evidence is available for describing with a degree of confidence its preferred social interactions and economic systems, suggested by the question marks in Table I. As noted in the beginning of this article, a number of leadership and management scholars have started to conduct research on this level of consciousness (Biderman and Whitty, 2000; Bolman and Deal, 2001; Delbecq, 2001; Kouzes and Posner, 2004; Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Neal, 2005; Pauchant et al. 2002; Quinn, 2004; Senge et al., 2004). It should be emphasized that the existence of this level of consciousness is not postulated from a metaphysical claim but from empirical evidences derived from leaders and their associates. As such, leaders themselves have documented, in their views, some of the experiences and activities associated with this level (See, for example, Carter, 1997; Chappel, 1999; De Pree, 1997; George, 2003; Havel, 1989; Hesselbein, 2002; Hock, 1999; Mayor, 2000; Roddick, 2000; Templeton, 1997).

We define “integral leaders” those who have centered their ultimate concerns and actions from this post-conventional level of development in a stable fashion and, at minimum, its first sub-level or stage (See Table I). The notion of stability is crucial in this definition as all men and women have the ability to access these post-conventional levels but in a transient way. Examples of integral leaders include Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi and Rachel Carson, among others, as well as many men and women without fame. These leaders are not only a group of “nice” and “enlightened” people: they were able, with the cooperation of their associates, to address very concretely some of the deepest wounds of our societies and to implement effective solutions in order to decrease poverty, breach of human dignity and social justice, the propensity for war and violence, pollution and environmental decay and the lack of common purpose and meaning. While their actions have not solved all the problems of our world, we can, however, learn much from the leadership pattern these leaders have encouraged, at the individual, organizational and societal levels. The aim of this research project is thus to better understand the developmental process experienced by these leaders and the nature of their activities, as well as to better understand the nature and process of the integral leadership pattern, of which leaders are only a part.

While this short presentation on the three generic levels of consciousness is helpful for introducing the depth of Wilber’s integral model, it necessarily mutilates its sophistication. The field of developmental psychology, originated by authors such as James Mark Baldwin, Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson, has increasingly studied the process of adult development (Stevens-Long, 1988; Commons et al. 1990). Wilber has integrated many of these theories as well as others. This includes the theories focusing on specific lines of development such as ego development (Loevinger, 1976; Cook-Greuter, 1999); cognitive and interpersonal development (Kegan, 1994); emotional development (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2002); moral development (Gilligan, 1982; Kohlberg, 1984); or faith development (Fowler, 1981); theories in psychoanalytic theory and in the social sciences, including authors as diverse as Melanie Klein, Heinz Kohut, Jürgen Habermas or Gerhard Lenski; theories which explore the spiritual development of individuals and societies, including Carl Jung, Ernest Becker or Jean Gebser; and theories provided by the wisdom traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism and Zen, among others (For a review of these different theories and their proposed correspondences, see Wilber, 2000b, where are suggested correspondences for about 100 theories).

This sophisticated integration allows Wilber to derive his developmental model from many different lines of development. Previous research indicates that a high level of development in one line (for example cognition) is not obligatorily associated with a correspondingly high level of development in another (for example moral development) (Wilber, 2000a; Gardner, 1999; Miller and Cook-Greutrer, 1994). In the field of leadership, many authors have documented examples where leaders with a high cognitive level lack morality (Chirot, 1994; Delbecq, 2001). This empirical evidence renders suspect the use of instruments focusing on one line for measuring the development of individuals, leaders or social systems. In the domain of leadership this issue is even more problematic as the use of several instruments is often rendered impossible due to issues of access and time. In the proposed research project, we will document the process of development in individuals and social systems through many different clues located in the four quadrants of the integral model, drawing from existing developmental theories (See Table I) and from the disciplines indicated in Figure II., as we will see later in more detail.

In addition to this lack of automatic correspondence among different developmental lines, many researchers have also questioned the sequential view of development. While some authors agree with Jean Piaget that human development proceeds from a linear succession of specific stages (Commons, Richards and Armon, 1984), which represents the “hard-stage approach”, others see this development in non-linear dynamics (Fisher and Bidell, 1998), some deny the existence of any stage (Ford and Lerner, 1992), some others substitute to the notion of “stages” for the one of “tasks” to be met in life (Vaillant, 2002), and still others propose a “soft-stage approach” (For a review of these different positions, see Stevens-Long and Michaud, 2003). This last strategy has been adopted, for example, by Kohlberg in moral development. In this view moral stages are not seen to be developing automatically, are not obligatorily linear or universal, do not lead only to a rational, normative and operational function, and can include post-conceptual experiences (Kohlberg and Ryncarz, 1990). This more soft-stage approach has received empirical support. While empirical evidence did not confirm the existence of all of the six (and, later, seven) specific stages proposed by Kohlberg or their suggested linear sequence, the generic three levels of pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional morality have received strong empirical support in over 800 studies, many conducted in different cultures (For a review of these studies see Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau and Thoma, 1999).

Wilber has been seen by some critics as taking a hard-stage approach (see, for example, Washburn, in Rothberg and Kelly, 1998, p. 374-376). However, his position has more been a soft-stage one, akin to the one advocated by Kohlberg. Wilber often stresses also that a person never only experiences one stage of development but many at the same time, higher and lower on the developmental ladder, her “center of gravity” being more associated with one stage in particular (On this position, see Wilber, 2001, p. 132-138). In the field of leadership research, a few scholars have also suggested different stages of development for leaders, some using a hard-stage approach and others a soft-stage one. This includes Bennis (2004), who has recently suggested seven stages of development; Collins (2001), five stages; Harung, Heato and Alexander (1995), five stages; Kegan (1994), five stages; Torbert (1991), seven stages; and Young (2002), five stages . At present, no assessment on the similarities and differences between these models has been proposed and no consolidated theory on the development of leaders has been suggested. This lack of a developmental view is not only present in the field of leadership. It is also observed in the larger fields of management and administrative sciences (Kegan, 1994; Rooke and Torbert, 1998; Dotlich, Noel and Walker, 2004; Volckmann, 2004). In spite of advances in fields such as organizational development and the introduction of innovative typological and life cycles theories (such as, for example, Lippitt and Schmidt, 1967, Greiner, 1972, Tichy and Devanna, 1986, Barrett, 1998; Adizes, 1999), a comprehensive developmental theory in management still needs to be proposed. Considering this lack of robust developmental theories in management and leadership as well as the lessons to be learned from developmental theory, we will not impose a hard-stage approach in the proposed research but adopt a soft-stage one; further, we will assess the sub-levels or stages of development, in leaders and others, first from empirical evidence, using adult development theory as a general guide, and second, from the analysis of many lines of development.

We will use the developmental model offered by Wilber to structure the proposed research and avoid some of the limitations of leadership research, in addition to those already discussed in relation to the four quadrants. First we will follow the law of requisite variety (Ashby, 1960) by respecting the degree of complexity achieved by integral leaders. As suggested previously (See Table I), a post-conventional consciousness emerges from an egocentric and an ethnocentric stance to a nation-centric and world-centric one, embracing a pluralist and then a meta-systemic view. The current research in leadership has however been evaluated as quite ethnocentric: 98% of the studies conducted are U.S.-centered (House and Aditya, 1997), are based primarily on male leadership (Gerber, 2003), and continue to confuse a formal position of power with a demonstration of genuine leadership, most studies being based on managers, executives, CEOs or presidents (House and Aditya, 1997; Senge, 1995; Pava, 2003). In the proposed research, we will choose integral leaders representing many different countries, cultures and religions across history, find a balance between the number of men and women studied, and include leaders who have not held formal positions of power. Second, taking the notion of adult development seriously and understanding that it takes decades to unfold, we will study the entire life span of leaders in their context. Differently, many current leadership studies focus on a reduced number of characteristics during a relatively short period of time. Baldwin , Wagner and Roland’s study (1991), for instance, reporting on the difference of positive self-concept and trust in participants and non-participants in an outdoor challenge program, three months after the event took place, is an example among many of this non developmental type of research. Third, we will include leaders whose success is not measured strictly from a materialistic point of view. While many current studies choose leaders who have produced great profitability, achieved impressive career advancement, built empires or mobilized numerous followers, the higher reaches of adult development focus rather on the well-being of people and of the world at large, at the physical, psychological, social and spiritual levels. This materialist bias, focusing on the two right quadrants of the integral model (See Figure I) as well as on its pre-conventional and conventional levels (See Figure II), often influence researchers to group together leaders with very different levels of development. For example Bass (1985) has argued that Gandhi and Hitler were both transformational leaders considering that they both mobilized a great number of followers. While this author has recently attempted to qualify his position (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999), many scientific researchers and corporate trainers alike are still considering transformational leadership as a type of leadership which can be mimicked for achieving great materialistic results, including its set of charismatic behaviors (Carey, 1992; Price, 2003; Dotlich, Noel and Walker, 2004). By doing so, they miss the developmental grounding and concern of this type of leadership, which is in part to assist the human development of people, as proposed originally by Burns (1978), himself drawing from the developmental theories of Maslow and Kohlberg.

III. Methodological Choices

While the integral model answers many of the shortcomings of present leadership research, it has never been applied to the field of leadership in a scientific fashion. Wilber has provided several vignette analyses of different leaders, for example Ralph Waldo Emerson, Saint Teresa of Avila , Meister Eckhart and Sri Ramana Maharshi (Wilber 1995, p. 279-316), but these vignettes are only indicative. In leadership research, the same strategy of “analysis by vignette”, although interesting in its own right but limited from a scientific point of view, has been used in reference to Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Pope John XXIII, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ, Mohamed, Buddha and many others (See, for example, Bolman and Deal, 2001; Burns, 2003; Quinn, 2000; or Torbert, 1991). Further, many of the leadership scholars, who have conducted more in-depth analyses of leaders, have relied on a specific number of scientific traditions or views and have not adopted an integral perspective. This includes, for example, psychoanalytic theory (Erikson, 1969), political analysis (Burns, 1978), managerial analysis (Philipps, 1998), cognitive analysis ( Gardner , 1996); value-laided analysis (Nair, 1994), etc.

Using the integral model to frame a scientific research in leadership is challenging. It requires taking a multi-disciplinary approach conducting multi-level analyses in order to do justice to the width of the model; and it requires taking a developmental approach both at the individual and collective levels to integrate the depth of the model. As if these requirements were not enough, it should be noted that the description of the integral model provided in this article is, due to the constraints of space and the limitations of its author, quite succinct: many other characteristics and subtleties had to be discarded while they are debated in great detail by Wilber in his more than 10,000 pages of collected works.

As with many research endeavors (Bentz and Shapiro, 1998; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Gray, 2004), four issues are essential for framing the research: first to decide on the sources of the data to be accessed; second, to choose the methodologies necessary for collecting and interpreting the data in a comprehensive and valid way; third to decide on a design for the research to contribute to both theoretical and practical knowledge; and fourth choose diverse strategies to concretely conduct the research. These issues are discussed in turn.

IV.1. Data Sources:

Deciding whether a leader can be considered “integral”, or more precisely that a leader has access to one or to several stages of post-conventional development in a stable fashion, poses several challenges. To begin with, we have some indications that integral individuals are rare. Overall assessments of this rarity have been suggested by psychologists who have reflected on their clinical practice: Jung, for example suggested that no more than two per cent of the people he worked with could be considered “individualized” (Jung, 1989); Maslow proposed that only one to two per cent had entered the level of “self-transcendence” (Maslow, 1971); and Frankl that two to three per cent could be considered “authentic” (Frankl, 1984). Wilber has himself proposed that approximately one to two per cent of the world’s population has access to the post-conventional level in a stable fashion, and .01 per cent to its higher stages (Wilber, 2000a, p. 13). The available empirical research suggests similarly low percentages: For example, Cook-Greuter, based on 4,420 Sentence Completion Tests (SCT) protocols, has found that 0.8 per cent of them showed a post-autonomous development of consciousness (Cook-Greuter, 1999, p. 104); Loevinger, based on the test she designed for measuring ego development, has suggested that less than two per cent of her respondents had achieved the autonomous stage (Loevinger, 1976); Kegan, using the subject-object interview, found that between two and six per cent of his studied population fell between the fourth and fifth level of his developmental model (Kegan, 1994, p. 191-193); Vaillant has recently concluded that out of the 268 individuals he and his colleagues have studied and met with every year as part of a prospective research conducted across several decades, only two, i.e. less than one per cent, showed a deepening of spirituality (Vaillant, 2002, p. 263).

These low percentages should not deter us from conducting research on post-conventional development and its lessons for leadership: if this one per cent, on average, was evenly distributed in the world at large, more than 60 million individuals would have access to this type of consciousness in different countries, some of them being leaders in their communities. Further, since Kuhn (1970), we know that one of the ways that science progresses is from the study of anomalies, i.e. “non conventional” phenomena. However, this rarity factor brings a methodological constraint: In order to study experientially the development of integral leaders, which take decades to unfold, researchers would need to observe closely hundreds of individuals for years in the hope that a few might become leaders and another few achieve a post-conventional development, with the hope that these two match. This is, to say the least, a problematic strategy to follow for somebody who wishes to complete a research project, such as a Ph.D. dissertation, in a timely fashion! For these reasons, we propose to conduct this study in a retrospective fashion: We will select leaders who have been perceived to have achieved a post-conventional development, i.e. at minimum its first stage, and reconstruct the content and process of their leadership during their life span. While this strategy brings a number of limitations, such as access to the necessary data, it is less problematic than other alternatives.

Making the assumption that a very small percentage of leaders can be considered integral, probably less than one per cent, the issue then becomes to decide on a number of robust criteria for selecting them. Some researchers in leadership are using instruments, such as the SCT, to measure the levels of ego development of individuals and leaders in organizations (see, for example, Rooke and Torbert, 1998). We find this method problematic as it measures only one line of development and as the correspondences between the many lines of development are not assured, as discussed previously. We are also reluctant to base our selection on the attribution of honorific titles or prizes. For example, the Nobel Peace prize is not attributed to a person for her level of development but for specific activities that this person has performed in the past; to take another example, the attribution of the status of sainthood by the Catholic church does not guarantee that a political agenda has not influenced the decision nor that this status will be valued by other religions or by people who are not religious. Lastly, we are also reluctant to base our selection on the diverse lists of “exceptional people” provided by different authors, expert groups or communities as the content of these lists are too dependant on who has proposed them (For such lists, see for example, Bancroft, 1976; Crompton, 2001; or Rifkin, 2002).

Rather, we propose to use a set of four criteria. First the leader must have had an important impact on an organization or a community. We do recognize that the influence of a person, even living as a hermit, can have at term an effect on society or that a parent can play a leadership role in a family. However, we are convinced that the proposed research will better contribute to the theory and practice of leadership if the studied leaders worked in close contact with organizations or communities and if they had, with the collaboration of their associates, a major impact on them. Second, the actions of the leader must be judged positively by a diverse population, i.e. diverse in terms of age, gender, social class, race, culture, political allegiance, religion, etc., and this over a long period of time. This second criterion rejects the selection of leaders who have only achieved a large impact on society, as defined by the previous criterion. For example, Adolph Hitler has certainly affected the 20 th century, but he is only admired by a very specific subset of the world population who embraces the Nazi’s ideals. Further, this positive judgment needs to have sustained the test of time. As studies in leadership indicate, the legacy of a leader often fluctuates through time for military, political, media or other reasons. As an example, while Mao Tse Tung was greatly admired in the 70s and 80s, this is no longer the case today (Chirot, 1994). In the corporate world, this idealization of fashionable leaders is very common (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1984; Lapierre, 1989; Pauchant, 1991; Pitcher, 1997; Zaleznick, 1989). This has been the case, for example, with Kenneth Lay, past CEO of Enron, who had been admired for many years as the “messiah of energy” (Seay and Bryan , 2002). And third, the leader must have been publicly recognized for his or her post-conventional outlooks and actions, for his or her transpersonal “ultimate concerns” (Wilber, 2001, p. 197). As seen previously (See Table I), the post-conventional consciousness is open to a transcendent reality, not from the point of view of a belief or a value system or from a dogmatic position, but from an experiential realm which encourages selfless service to the world at large. Abraham Maslow described this type of consciousness as being (1968, p. iv):

[…] transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization […]. We need something "bigger than we are" to be awed by and to commit ourselves to in a new, naturalistic, empirical, non-churchly sense, perhaps as [Henry David] Thoreau, [Walt] Whitman, William James and John Dewey did.

Words used to describe such a leader are themselves not conventional: They are described as a “person of conscience”, with “great integrity of soul”; a “prophet for justice”, a “servant for world peace”; a “loving citizen of the whole world” commanding “universal respect”; an “enlightened and selfless being” possessing a “sacred wisdom”, a “kindred spirit”, transcending the cultures and the creeds (For other expressions, see Hicks, 2002). We will assess the attribution of these words by conducting a content analysis of major texts published on each studied leader, such as in obituaries or important tributes. While this procedure does not provide proof of the post-conventional maturity of the leader, it does, however, discriminate integral leaders from less integral ones: Those attributes have not been readily used for other leaders such as, for example, JFK, Bill Gates, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher or Jack Welsh, in spite of their notoriety. Of course the more objective assessment of the post-conventional development of the leader will be provided by the in-depth integral analysis conducted on him or her. This is the fourth criterion we propose to be used for ultimately confirming that the selected leader is a good example of integral leadership, going beyond the public image and folklore.

Using the three first criteria, we have tentatively selected seven leaders: Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi and Rachel Carson. In order to assess criteria one and two, we used two surveys: the first one was conducted by Time Magazine in 2000 and established which 100 leaders have had the most impact in the 20 th century, positively or negatively; the second survey is conducted each year by the Gallup Organization and ranks the most admired leaders of the year. Also, we have assessed the third criteria by conducting a content analysis of the expressions used to describe these leaders in key publications, such as obituaries, Nobel Prize nominations, official ceremonies, etc., written by different people in diverse cultures. The integral analyses we propose to conduct will reveal if these leaders are good enough examples of integral leadership or if their public images were misleading.

As this research requires the study of 100 integral leaders, across time, space, occupations, cultures and religions, a list of such leaders would need to be established by a very diverse population in different countries. One promising strategy would be the use of an international survey which does not exist at the present time. This survey would ask representative populations in the world to nominate the leaders they consider the most effective, ethical and enlightened through history, i.e. the three first criteria described above. Such a survey could be organized by organizations suited to handle international logistics, such as the Gallup Organization, the Parliament of the World’s Religions or UNESCO. We believe that such a survey would be more reliable than the use of expert groups and it will also readily acknowledge the fact that the attribution of the quality of leadership is, among other things, socially constructed (Osborn, Hunt and Jauch, 2002).

IV.2. Chosen Methodologies:

We have selected three methodologies in order to respect the multi-level approach of the integral model and integrate the micro, meso and macro levels of the leadership dimensions (Antonakis and Atwater, 2002; Osborn, Hunt and Jauch, 2002): interpretative biography, institutional analysis and historical inquiry. As these three methodologies can accommodate a wide variety of data, they are particularly appropriate for utilizing the width and the depth of the integral model.

The interpretative biography method attempts to give an account of a person’s life and uncover how she attributes subjective meaning to her inner experiences (Denzin, 1989; Schutz, 1967). The source of the data used is diverse including autobiographies, biographies, diaries, private letters, books, press articles, art work, artifacts, films, TV and radio interviews, press conferences, social critics, emails, oral histories, interviews, group discussions, field observations, etc. This method leads to a “thick description” and an “experience near” of the subject, including the researcher’s own reactions to the material, outlook and purpose (Braud and Anderson, 1998; Denzin, 1989; Geertz, 1973). Central concerns in this method are family and class origins, educational and work experiences, cultural and religious influences, objective life markers and their subjective experiences, turning points and major decisions, etc. A large place will be attributed, in the proposed research, to the epiphanies experienced by the leaders as they are “interactional moments and experiences which leave marks on people’s lives” (Denzin, 1989, p. 70). As crisis points and liminal experiences, they have also been shown to be a key factor for stage development (Erickson, 1963; Commons, Demick and Goldberg, 1996). In the case of leaders, research suggests that their development is derived from experience and less from traditional education and formal training (Davies and Easterby-Smith, 1984; McCall et al., 1988; Yulk, 2000; Dotlich, Noel and Walker, 2004) including the role of both success and failure (McCauley et al, 1994). Hardship experiences include failure in decision, mistakes when dealing with people, career setbacks, personal trauma and illness, death of a loved one, traumatic events, etc. (Kaplan et al., 1987; McCall et al., 1988; Dotlich, Noel and Walker, 2004). Recently Bennis and Thomas (2002b) have proposed that one of the greatest sources of learning and development for leaders is the integration of their personal “crucibles”, named for the recipient used by alchemists for attempting to turn lead into gold. Based on the study of 43 leaders these authors have proposed four major sources of crucibles (Bennis and Thomas, 2002a): mentoring relationships, enforced reflection, insertion to a foreign territory, and disruption and loss. In the proposed research we will be in a position to test this proposition as well as better explain the sources and processes at work influencing leaders to transform or fail to transform after these epiphanies. Lastly, the fact that we are using a biographic method should not convey that this research will only be focused on leaders. While we cannot extend this very demanding methodology to all the leader’s associates, we will be taking into consideration the previous criticism that leadership research is often too centered on the leaders themselves. We will document and leave a large place to the reactions of these associates and other stakeholhers to the leader and to the overall context, as well as their influence on both, as related to the four quadrants of the integral model.

While the biographical method focuses on individuals in context, institutional analysis puts the emphasis on organizations and their relationship with a broader environment (Scott, 2001). At this level of analysis, we will be concerned with uncovering the ways that leaders can both shape and be shaped by organizations. As noted by scholars, institutions impose procedural, legal, cultural and moral boundaries but also provide individuals with a repertoire of actions not otherwise available (Barnard, 1938; Berger and Luckmann, 1967, Giddens, 1984). Using sources, when appropriate, such as primary and secondary data, interviews and field inquiry, we will examine the “three pillars” of institutions (Scott, 2001): its regulative, normative and cultural systems. For example, we will document for key institutions how the leader developed a regulative system through rule-setting, laws and regulations, power structure, monitoring, and rewards and punishments; we will also document the values and norms developed in these institutions and how legitimized means are encouraged for pursuing valued ends; lastly, we will document the nature of the social reality in these institutions and the frames from which meaning is collectively built through symbols, signs, stories, gestures, etc. When appropriate, the key institutions studied will represent different stages in the leader’s life, thus allowing the surfacing of similarities and differences across the life span of the leader and in all the quadrants of the integral model. This level of analysis will probe many of the dimensions studied in more traditional leadership research including the use of power, the decision-making process, the structuring of work activities, the management of shared visions and values, the environmental analysis performed and the strategies pursued, the encouragement of risk taking and innovations, the development of trust and community, the encouragement of motivation and collective purpose, etc. (Burns, 2003; Kouzes and Posner, 2002; O’Toole, 2001; Quinn, 2004; Yulk, 2002). We suspect that different notions and processes, beyond these more traditional ones, will emerge from this research on integral leadership.

While the biographic method and the institutional analysis allow the study of individuals and organizations in context, historical research focuses on the macro context and relates it to both social systems and individuals. We do not associate historical research with only the study of the past. While this will be the case when studying integral leaders who have lived in past centuries, such as, for example, Saint Teresa of Avila or Socrates, historical research can also been used in the present as it is the study of the stories we tell about ourselves and about others (Howell and Prevenier, 2001). Using many of the same sources as for the interpretative biography methodology, with a particular emphasis here on the historical context and its evolution, an historical inquiry allows for better understanding the context – climatic, geographical, political, economic, legal, cultural, linguistic, religious, artistic, etc. – in which people live and act (Coles and Knowles, 2001). House and his colleagues (House et al., 2004) have recently demonstrated, in their cross-cultural study of leadership, some of the important differences these contexts can exercise on the content and process of leadership. Researchers have also proposed that even the most personal transcendent experiences, while unique to a person, are also influenced by their cultural and historical heritage (Barnard, in Ferrari, 2002). In the proposed research, guided by the integral model, we will attempt to replace the leaders and their associates’ activities in their historical context as well as prompting how these activities have modified that context. As we wish in this research to go beyond the present Americano-centrism of leadership research, we will seek the collaboration of researchers from different cultures and study leaders from different countries, cultures, religions, climatic zones and historical periods. Lastly, in order to facilitate the tracking of information and issues and in order to exchange data among researchers, we will use the qualitative software NVivo for all the levels of analysis, including biographical, institutional and historical data.

IV.3. Research Design:

The overall design of this research project requires the integral analysis of a number of leaders-in-context taken each as a single case analysis as well as the comparison of these individual cases between themselves, adopting a collective case study methodology (Yin, 1993; 1994; Stake, in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). We are not using the case study research in its explanatory variant, searching for cause and effect relationships among variables. Rather, we are using it in its descriptive variant, leading to a thick description of the integral leadership phenomenon and process of evolution. We will take as the unit of analysis the entire life span of the leader and how it relates to his or her activities as a leader in a given context. We propose to conduct a minimum of 10 individual case analyses before attempting a first synthesis. As the number of individual cases increases, which would be published in different formats as individual instances of integral leadership, we will conduct several multiple case analysis, the final synthesis being based on a hypothetical number of 100 individual cases.

For the study of each leader-in-context, we propose to first establish the periods representing the leader’s different stages of development. We will use the theories in adult development, as synthesized by Wilber, for guiding our inquiry as these theories provide “a description of how change takes place [in human development] and contribute to the clarity and reliability of comprehensive assessments” (Commons, in Commons, Demick and Golberg, 1996, p. x.). For each change in the stages of development, we will ground our observations in the process of epiphany, as explained above. In order to increase the validity of our assessment, each change from one stage to another will be documented in the four quadrants of the integral model as well as from the leader’s point of view and from the point of view of other stakeholders (family members, friends, co-workers, by-standers, opponents, biographers, historians, etc.). Thus for each change, we will attempt to gather empirical evidence for demonstrating differences in the leader’s sense of self (Quadrant A), physical functioning and behaviors (B), tools and processes used (C) and beliefs and values (D), and this both from the leader’s point of view as well as from others (See Table I).

In order to contribute to a better understanding of the content of integral leadership, the research will provide a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973; Rooke and Torbert, 1998) of each quadrant, drawing from the three selected methodologies, and this after the leader has been considered to have entered the post-conventional level of development. The developmental stage to be mastered and transcended before entering the post-conventional level has been named and described differently by diverse researchers and we will use these theories for guiding our assessment. This includes: the “vision-logic stage” (Wilber, 2000b); “self-actualization” (Maslow, 1969); “generativity” (Erikson, 1963); “universal ethics” (Kohlberg, 1984); “autonomous” (Loevinger, 1976); “authentic” (Wade, 1996); “universal faith” (Fowler, 1981); “magician” (Torbert, 1991); “level 4 order of consciousness” (Kegan, 1994); or “Ego-aware” (Cook-Greuter, 1999). The focus of the proposed research will not so much be to document the content of conventional leadership, which is already done by the more traditional research. It is rather to document the content and the process of post-conventional leadership in the four quadrants of the integral model (self, behavior, systems and culture) and from a micro, a meso and a macro perspective (See the darkest zones in Figure III and Table I). At present, we do not know if the data uncovered will be rich enough for differentiating among the different stages composing the post-conventional level itself. As we have seen (See Table I), Wilber and other theorists, distinguish among four stages, i.e. the psychic, causal, subtle and non-dual stages. Our reasoning, at this point, is that an empirical documentation of the content of each quadrant after the threshold point for post-conventional development has been reached will be rich enough for contributing to both the theory and practice of leadership and compare our results with other types of leadership. A finer discrimination among the integral stages could then be attempted at a later date.

However, in order to contribute to a better understanding of the process necessary for people to achieve any degree of integral leadership, the research will also provide a thick description of the passages among all the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. As proposed before, this thick description will be provided by careful documentation of the epiphanic process of each stage as related to each quadrant. We believe that this documentation of the developmental process of both leaders and co-workers will enrich our current understanding for training and development in leadership.

After having documented, from a number of leaders-in-context, both the content of integral leadership (from the post-conventional stages) and its process of development (across the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional stages), we will be in a position to compare the results between different cases. We believe that this collective case study design (Yin, 1993; Stake, in Denzin and Lincoln, 2000) will require some adjustments in the collected data as each case of leader-in-context is likely to uncover different contents and processes not uncovered in previous ones. We anticipate that this inductive and deductive process, going back and forth between the refinement of single case analyses with the comparison of several, will achieve, after a time, some kind of stability through the process of “theoretical saturation” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). We are, however, aware that the development of more subtle levels of consciousness can both express social similarities as well as individual anachronisms, as already suggested by William James in 1902 (James, 1902; Ferrari, 2002).

IV.4. Research Strategies:

We will use two main strategies in this research, relative to the handling of concrete tasks. First, as already pointed out, we will use the different developmental theories to guide our analysis in the four quadrants of the integral model. To demonstrate concretely what this means, we will take again the example of the four theories included in Table I, chosen out of hundreds of different theories. In Quadrant A, we could, for example, document how the leader, taking her context into consideration, operated at the meta-systemic, paradigmatic or metacognitive levels (and not only at the previous concrete, abstract, formal and systemic levels) and what it meant subjectively for her; in Quadrant B, we could exemplify how this leader has attempted to developed activities at the supra-community, supra-national levels, or even beyond (and not only from the previous community, ethnic or national levels) and what it meant for her relationships with others and for her own behaviors; in Quadrant C, we could document the nature of the work activities encouraged by the leader, integrating but qualifying and transcending the leading system implemented in her country and time period, including the horticultural, agrarian, the industrial or the informational systems, and others; and in Quadrant D, we could exemplify how the leader has tried to develop and apply a spiritual, panenhenic, panentheistic or Siddhatic ethics (and not only the previous levels of law and order, social contract and universal ethics), for herself and others. Of course, in all these cases, the context which has influenced the leader’s activities as well as the modification of this context to the leader’s actions will be documented.

While diverse developmental theories will guide our inquiry (those included in Table I are only examples of many), we will stay open to inductive findings and resist imposing predefined constructs. As explained previously, we will adopt a soft-stage approach. Further, it appears rather impossible to impose preordained lists of constructs for each quadrant, as these lists are themselves tentative. For example, Wilber has proposed a list of more than 20 different lines of development pertinent to Quadrant A, including psychosexual, emotion, cognition, interpersonal behavior, morality, spirituality, spatiotemporal, object-relations, self-identity, self-needs, worldviews, aesthetic, intimacy, creativity, altruism, faith, etc. (Wilber, 2001, p. 191). As this research is aimed at better understanding the content and process of integral leadership, we will primarily derive these constructs from empirical evidence of the study of leaders-in-context, the previous theories only guiding or confirming (if it the case) our results.

Second, we will also consider the correspondences proposed between the stages of the different models (see Table I) as guides for the research and as working hypotheses. Many of these correspondences, across stages and across quadrants, have been proposed from a theoretical point of view. In the proposed research, we will have the rare opportunity to derive them from empirical evidence, studying individuals who have demonstrated a mature mastery of many stages of development, including some of the rarest, in a leadership context.

We believe that these two strategies, adopting a soft-stage approach and following an inductive process while being informed by previous theory, will contribute to the soundness of this research’s results.

IV. The Research Team

As the proposed research will potentially include up to one hundred studies of integral leaders-in-context, allowing for both qualitative and quantitative comparisons among them, it will probably take more than 10 years to be completed. It will also require the involvement and training of many researchers around the world, potentially more than one hundred. Such heavy logistics has already been implemented with success in the field of leadership studies. For example, Robert House and his colleagues have facilitated the collaboration of more than 170 researchers around the world for more than 10 years as part of the “Globe Project” (House et al., 2004). This quantitative research project has, so far, pooled more than 17,000 middle-managers in 62 countries and has become the most elaborate multi-cultural research in the field of leadership undertaken to date.

For this research project, particular attention will be given to attracting researchers who are diverse in nature, including gender, age, language, country, culture, religion, political allegiance, scientific background, etc. This project can be particularly attractive for graduate students who have to produce a master’s or a doctoral thesis; it can also attract current scholars, executives, consultants or other individuals who are concerned about the leadership quality of organizations and who can, as well, demonstrate a proficiency in the requirements of this scientific research project. These requirements do not only include scientific knowledge and rigor or research and writing skills: Taking an integral perspective, they also involve a working knowledge of the concrete characteristics of leadership and an aspiration to contribute to its development in an integral way; the capacity to work collaboratively with others on an exploratory, emergent and complex subject; a lived-experience of the culture(s) of the studied leader by the researcher; and an experiential knowledge and regular involvement with spiritual disciplines similar to those practiced by the studied leader.

Assisting and coordinating the work of these researchers around the world will require the creation of a coordination team as well as of a sophisticated website. This site, presently created in an embryonic form, will provide a wealth of updated information on the different theories, models, tools and methodologies used in this research project, diverse on-line training, such as for example the use of the NVivo software, as well as a chat-room on issues encountered by the researchers and on emergent findings. A number of conferences, seminars, workshops and diverse live encounters could also be offered to these researchers, using exploratory and developmental practices such as the dialogue process, action research or cooperative inquiry, encouraging a research community (Reason and Bradbury, 2001).

Concluding Remarks

We have argued in this article that the increased complexity of our world requires a more integral type of leadership and that the content, process and development of this leadership are still largely a matter of scientific research. We have then proposed a model and a design which attempt to frame the research, while still leaving a large place to inductive and emergent findings. While the proposed research exhibits several innovative characteristics, its thrust springs from the humanistic tradition. This proposal can be seen as a continuation of the research originated by Abraham Maslow in 1969. Maslow was the first scientist to propose what he called, a “self-transcendent” theory of management and leadership (Maslow, 1969). He also called his attempts the “Theory Z” of management, as it integrated and went beyond Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y, wishing to develop a theory from a larger spectrum of adult development and human health. As Maslow’s research has been rightly criticized (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) the proposed research project attempts to better ground this Theory Z in empirical findings.

However, the proposed research does not proceed from a metaphysical claim. To study leaders (in their contexts) who have integrated the physical, psychosocial and spiritual realities in their life, does not imply that a spiritual entity does exist or that others should follow blindly these leaders’ steps. These considerations are a matter of faith and involve personal decisions that we do not wish to make for other people. Our goal in this research is to document in a rigorous and empirical way how leaders who are considered to have achieved a post-conventional development have lead the successful organizations they have created or which they have worked for. Our goal is also to document the process from which these leaders have grown, not for them to become models in a behaviorist way, but as witnesses to more subtle levels of consciousness and actions. As argued in this paper, we believe that both goals have the potential to contribute in a positive way to the theory, practice and development of a type of leadership that we badly need in our complex and suffering world.

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