METHODOLOGY : requirements and guide to Nvivo

In this section, you will find a description of the methodological requirements for joining the research team as well as a step by step guideline for using NVivo.

Methodoligal requirements

Introduction
Joining the research team leads to many advantages. Several people are already collaborating in different capacities, such as facilitators, observers, researchers, authors and co-authors. These people facilitate the research through their logistical or financial assistance, participate in the events organized by the research team, learn from these exchanges, conduct research on specific subjects useful for the overall project or write or co-write a leadergraphy. We describe in this document the advantages and requirements for joining the research team as an author or co-author of a leadergraphy. This can be done either as a graduate student pursuing a formal diploma (Master or Doctorate) or as an independent researcher. The current list of authors, co-authors, facilitators, observers and researchers is posted on the Web site.

I. Advantages of joining the research team
Team members have different motivations and enjoy numerous benefits. We list below those most frequently cited:

• Publishing a book on an integral leader one has studied for many years
• Benefiting from the team's scientific research expertise and book contracts
• Learning rigorous methodologies and testing scientific hypotheses
• Being part of a diverse, online group on the practice of leadership
• Increasing one's understanding about leadership and ethics
• Achieving a significant accomplishment by publishing a book
• Belonging to an international research team
• Being supported by a team while writing one's thesis or dissertation
• Interacting with other researchers, students and faculties
• Learning and creating knowledge about integral leadership
• Contributing to the integral development of society
• Researching and publishing scientific articles as part of a team
• Accessing key scientific studies in leadership and human development
• Deepening one's understanding of human potential
• Attending group activities organized by the research team
• Contributing one's in-depth knowledge of an integral leader
• Making an integral leader better known
• Assisting one's own integral development through writing
• Etc.

The authors as well as other researchers who are not writing a leadergraphy are also invited to write scientific reports on specific subjects needed for the overall project. In this document we indicate these research needs in several boxes called Research Needs. These scientific reports can be written by graduate students as part of their regular academic studies in many domains (leadership, management, consciousness development, adult learning, organizational development, global studies, etc.), or by independent researchers who pursue different interests.

II. Requirements for joining the research team
As this project is a scientific research project, there exist several requirements for becoming an author or a co-author of a leadergraphy. We present these requirements in five categories:

• The soundness of the proposed integral leader
• The knowledge acquired on leadership and integral development
• The ability in research skills
• The craft of writing
• The researcher's time commitment

II.1. The soundness of the proposed integral leader
As a first step, the director of the collection, Thierry C. Pauchant, and its project coordinator, Caroline Coulombe, need to agree that the proposed leader is to be included in the team's project and published in the Book Series.
At present it is very difficult to establish an international list of integral leaders as no in-depth research has been conducted on the subject. Very often, each person or community suggests their preferred leaders, based on their own considerations. This obviously poses problems. For example, is JFK to be considered an integral leader? Often, it is only after a leader has been studied for some time that one can decide if this leader can be considered "integral". At the present time, we are lacking a list of criteria that could establish rigorously this degree of integrality. The research pursued by the research-team will certainly help to delineate these criteria.
According to present theories in human development (See the document Commented Outline on this notion), we can form the hypothesis that integral leaders are leaders who are perceived to have developed their consciousness beyond a specific stage of development, called the "vision-logic stage" by Ken Wilber. Other authors have proposed other labels for defining this stage: "self-transcendence" (Abraham Maslow); "integrity" (Erick Erikson); "universal" (Lawrence Kohlberg); "holistic" (Don Beck); "autonomous" (Jane Loevinger); "Spiritual universal" (James Fowler); "ironist" (Bill Torbert); "level 5 order of consciousness" (Bob Keagan); "individualized" (Carl Jung); "positive self-regard (Carl Rogers); "transcendent consciousness" (Jenny Wade); "post-autonomous ego development" (Suzanne Cook-Greuter); etc. But this hypothesis itself poses problems as there does not exist at the present time an instrument which can measure this stage in a reliable fashion. (On this subject, see the article by Pauchant et al., Integrating Spirituality at Work: An Interview with Ken Wilber, available in the Resource File, on this web site).

Considering these problems, we have chosen the first leaders to be included in the research through three criteria:

• The first criterion assesses if the leader has had an impact on a large community during his or her life time. We certainly recognize that the influence of a person can be felt years or even centuries after his life or that a father or mother can be seen as a leader in a family. However, we prefer to presently focus the research on leaders who have had a demonstrated impact on large communities.
  
  
• The second criterion assesses if the leader is admired by a diverse population, i.e. diverse in terms of age, sex, social class, race, culture, religion, etc., and this over a long period of time. The use of this criterion rejects to consider integral the leaders who have only achieved a large impact on society, as defined by the first criteria. For example, Adolph Hitler has certainly affected the 20th century but he is only admired by a very specific subset of the population. This diversity of the population assures that the actions of the leaders have been judged positive and ethical for the entire society. Further, we have so far chosen the majority of our leaders with a sufficient historical time lag after their death as judgments on the legacy of a leader often fluctuates through time. As an example, while Mao Tse Tung was greatly admired in the 70s and 80s, this is no longer the case today. In the corporate world, this idealization of fashionable leaders is very common. 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".
  
  
• The third criterion assesses if the leader has been publicly recognized as having achieved a self-decentred consciousness. This characteristic can be assessed, for example, by conducting a content analysis of the obituaries of leaders or major presentations made about them. Integral leaders are described by words and expressions such as "saint", "elevated soul", "spiritual", "enlightened", "kindred spirit", possessing a "sacred wisdom", being "spiritually virtuous", "divinely inspired", being "selfless", etc. While these expressions do not provide objective proof about any spiritual maturity, they do, however, set these leaders apart from others. For example, such expressions have not been used regarding others leaders who are nevertheless considered "great", such as JFK, Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle or Margaret Thatcher.

It is important to insist that ALL these three criteria be present in deciding whether a leader could be considered "integral", which always implies a notion of degree, of having reached a minimal plateau of development. Thus we will not include in our database mystics who have spent their life in reclusive confinement, as they do not answer the first criteria; the combination of criteria two and three allow us also to reject Adolph Hitler, for example, as an integral leader. While Hitler has been viewed to be "divinely inspired" by some people (and himself), only those who accept Nazi ideals can sustain this claim today. Finally, the third criteria attempts to differentiate integral leaders from otherwise great leaders, as seen above. This does not make integral leaders "better" than others in any sense, but rather different, operating from a decentred sense of self.

Using these three criteria, we have chosen the first seven leaders to be included in this research: 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 described above, we relied on two surveys: the first one was conducted by Time Magazine and established which 100 leaders have had the most impact in the 20th Century, positively or negatively; the second survey was conducted by the Gallup Organization on the most admired leaders (See the Resource File on this Web site for these surveys). We have assessed the third criteria by conducting a content analysis of the expressions used in key texts presenting these leaders (such as obituaries, Nobel Prize nomination, etc.), written by different people in different cultures. In addition, the research team is presently conducting research on leaders such as Albert Schweitzer, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Chogyam Trungpa, Jean Vanier, Anita Roddick, Albert Einstein, and other. (See the current list of the Chosen Leaders).

The basic hypothesis of this research project is thus that leaders who are perceived to have entered an integral development process, i.e. those who are said to have reached a specific plateau of development as alluded to above, are different on several aspects when compared with leaders who have not entered this development. The overall purpose of the research project is then to test this hypothesis and to document these differences, if any.

While waiting for the creation of a rigorous list of criteria and of a reliable instrument, a list of such leaders could also be established by a large international survey conducted by an organization such as UNESCO or the Parliament of World Religion. Another strategy would be to rely on the surveys conducted by different religious communities and other research groups on individuals who have been recognized through history as particularly "mature", "developed", "ethical", "enlightened" or "spiritual". A compilation of these surveys would attempt to find the common men and women in all the proposed lists. We indicate below three examples of the many sources existing on this subject.

In Spiritual Innovators (2002), Ira Rifkin, a religious journalist, and a committee lists 75 spiritual innovators from the 20th century: The list includes Chogyam Trungpa, Mary Baker Eddy, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Desmond Tutu, Mabdul Baha, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romeo, the Dalai-Lama, Billy Graham, Pope John XXIII, Ram Dass, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekanada, Carl Jung, Hans Kung, Abraham Maslow, Reinhold Niebuhr, Joseph Soloveitchik, Paul Tillich, Evelyn Underhill, Ken Wilber, Thomas Berry, Marin Buber, Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, Abraham Issac Kook, C.S. Lewis, Huston Smith, D.T. Suzuki, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Maha Ghosananda, Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas, Mother Teresa, Walter Rauschenbush, Albert Schweitzer, Robert Holbrook Smith, Thich Nhat Hanh, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Black Elk, Bede Griffiths, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Jay Krishnamurti, Meher Baba, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Paramahansa Yogananda, Andrew Weil, Ajahn Chah, Thomas Keating, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Ramana Maharshi, Seung Sahn, and Shunryu Suzuki.

In Le Livre des Sagesses (The Book of Wisdoms) (2002), a thick 2,000 page book published by the French religious publisher Bayard, a very large international committee has chosen the men and women throughout history who, for the committee, better expressed the human experience with the absolute. This includes, among many others, Gilgamesh, Abraham, Akhenaton, Heraclitus, Homer, Lao Tsu, Confusius, the Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathushtra, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Marc Aurele, Yohanan Ben Zakkai, Plotinus, Patanjali, Muhammad, Shankara, Milarepa, Bernard de Clairvaux, Hildegarde von Bingen, Zhu Xi, Ibn Arabi, Francis of Assisis, Dogen, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Eckhart, Gregoire Palamas, Martin Luther, Ignace of Loyola, Paracelse, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Issac Luria, Jacobe Bohme, Pacal, Mulla Sadra, Georges Fox, Baruch Spinoza, Jeanne Guyon, The Bab, Charles de Foucauld, William Harris, Rav Kook, Mohandas Gandhi, Terese de Lisieux, Sri Auribindo, Ramana Maharshi, Ma Anandamoyi, Rene Guenon, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Simone Weil, Henri Le Saux, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Rangdjoung Ripai Dordje, and the Dalai Lama.

Lastly in The Future of Peace (2002), Scott Hunt, a young peace activist, presents several great contemporary peacemakers in the world. This includes Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, Thich Quang Do, Oscar Arias, Maha Ghosananda and Jane Goodale.

It will be important to complement these lists with leaders in private and public organizations, thus studying leaders in many different domains (business, government, not-for-profit, social activism, religion, arts, science, etc.). For the private and public sectors, The Academy of Management's members of the Management and Spirituality and Religion Interest Group could be polled for that purpose.
However, for the time being, the best a potential author of a leadergraphy can do is to attempt to build the case that his or her proposed leader can be considered integral by invoking many different sources. In addition to the three criteria presented above, the following questions can help in choosing such a person:

• Why can this person be considered a leader?
• Who are the people who claim that this person has developed a more mature consciousness which can be called "integral"? Can a convincing case be made?
• What criticisms have been directed at this person and by whom? How have these criticisms been answered and by whom?
• Was this person actively involved in the world or did she live remotely, on the margins of society?
• Did this person lead an organization, even informally, and what has her involvement been with the world of work, organizations, communities, government or economics?
• Is the data available on this person rich enough to understand her epiphanies, her different levels of development and their relationship with the notions used in the research?
• Is an autobiography available? How has it been received?
• Are private papers and other personal sources of information available?
• Do independent biographies exist on this person? What have the reviews been like?
• Can this person be interviewed? His or her associates?
• Do you have a deep enough understanding of the times in which this person lived? Her culture? Her religion? Her spiritual practices?
• Are you too emotionally involved with this person to allow you to be critical?
• What are the potential implications for your future life (professional, personal, etc.) to co-author a book on that person?

II. 2. The knowledge acquired on leadership and integral development
II.2.1. Leadership

As this study's overall goal is to make a contribution in leadership (theory, practice, education and training), a good grounding in past and current leadership research is necessary. This is important for both an awareness of the themes that need to be addressed in the leadergraphies as well as the ability to compare the leadership practices of integral leaders with other leaders, again keeping in mind that this differentiation is a question of degree. These other leaders include what we call the great leaders (Kennedy, Thatcher, Churchill, De Gaule, etc.), the managers (Gates, Welsh, Iaccoca, etc.) and the totalitarians (Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Hussein, etc.).

A basic knowledge of the past and current leadership literature will ultimately allow us to make comparisons between the integral leaders more readily as well as with other types of leaders. This knowledge can be developed either through scholarly studies, taking a formal seminar on the subject, or through one's professorial involvement in leadership, coaching, executive development, etc. You will find in the Resource File a listing of the top 100 leadership books sold today on Amazon as examples of leaders and leadership theories to draw from in the leadergraphies.

As there is a large amount of scientific and popular literature available on leadership, it is difficult to pin-point the essential readings to be mastered. James Kouzes and Barry Posner's book The Leadership Challenge, seems to be one of the best books presenting past and current theories in leadership, with a balance between theory and practice and an impressive research grounding, including excellent statistical metrics. Also, the list proposed below includes some of the most well known authors who can be used for grounding the notion of integral leadership in scholarly theory and research. Knowledge of these authors can facilitate the understanding of the characteristics of integral leadership and their differences when compared to more traditional leadership. Further, pointing to these authors in the leadergraphies in a non-academic way can contribute the scholarly quality of the research project.

Barnard, Chester I. (1982). The Functions of the Executive, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (Orig. 1938).

Bennis, Warren (1989). On Becoming a Leader, Readings, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Bennis, Warrren and Robert J. Thomas (2002). Geeks and Geezers, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Cameron, Kim S., Jane E. Dutton and Robert E. Quinn (Eds.). (2003). Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundation of a new Discipline, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Coles, Robert (2000). Lives of Moral Leadership, New York: Random House.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2003). Good Business, New York: Vicking.

De Pree, Max (1997). Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community, San Francisco., CA.: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Gardner, Howard (1995). Leading Minds, New York: Basic Books.

Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Greenleaf, Robert K. (1977). Servant Leadership, New York: Paulist Press.

Handy, Charles (1997). The Hungry Spirit, New York: Arrow.

Hesselbein, Frances (2002). Hesselbein on Leadership, San Francisco, CA.: Jossey Bass.

Kegan, Robert (1994). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner (2002). The Leadership Challenge, San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass.

O'Toole, James (1996). Leading Change, New York: Ballantine Books.

Owen, H. (1999). The Spirit of Leadership. San Francisco, CA.: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

MacGregor Burns, James (1978). Leadership, New York: Harper TouchBooks.

MacGregor Burns, James (2003). Transforming Leadership, New York: Atlantic Monthly.

Maslow, Abraham H. (1971). The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York: The Vicking Press.

Mitroff, Ian I. and Elisabeth.A. Denton (1999). A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A Hard Look at Spirituality, Religion, and Values in the Workplace. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Parker Follett, Mary (1995). Prophet of Management (Ed. By Pauline Graham), Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Quinn, Robert E. (2000). Change the World, San Francisco., CA.: Jossey-Bass.

Torbert, William R. (1991). The Power of Balance, Newbury Park: Sage.

Vaill, Peter (1998). Spirited Leading and Learning, San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass.

Wilber, Ken (2000). A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, Boston, Mass.: Shambhala.

Wheatley, Margaret J. (1992). Leadership and the New Science, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.

Zoar, Danah (1997). Rewiring the Corporate Brain, San Francisco, CA.: Berrett-Koehler.

In the Resource File you will also find several scientific articles which provide formal reviews of the scientific studies conducted in the general field of leadership (a gold mine for graduate students!) as well as an article written by Thierry Pauchant, describing the leadergraphy research project in the context of the leadership scientific literature: Integral Leadership: A Research Proposal.

II.2.2. Integral development
The second general area to be mastered for this study is the area of adult development. This includes the disparate fields of developmental psychology, consciousness studies, spiritual development, humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, integral psychology, transformational education, humanistic management, etc. In the Resource File you will find several scientific articles which provide reviews of this literature. Also, Ken Wilber is one of the key authors to have synthesized this literature, as seen below.

Several authors have already presented their views on the relationship between human higher development and thoughts and actions. In addition to the leadership scholars mentioned above, this includes:

Beck, D. and C. Cowan (1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, New York: Blackwell Publishers.

Erikson, E. (1993). Childhood and Society, New York: W.W. Norton.

Fisher, D., D. Rooke and B. Torbert (2001). Personal and Organizational Transformations Through Action Inquiry. Boston, Mass.: Edge - Work Press.

Fowler, J.W. (1981). Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. New York: Harper and Row.

Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligence for the 21st Century, New York: Basic Books.

Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the Evolution of Society, Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press.

Hilgard, E.R. (1980). Consciousness in Contemporary Psychology, American Review of Psychology, 31, 1-26.

Kegan, R. (1994). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Kohlberg, L. and R. A. Ryncarz (1990), Beyond justice reasoning : moral development and consideration of a seventh stage, in C.N. Alexander and E.G. Langer (Eds.), Higher Stages of Human Development: Perspectives on Adult Growth., New York Oxford University Press, p. 191-205.

Loevinger, J. (1998). Technical Foundation for Measuring Ego Development, Washington, Washington University Press.

Maslow, A. (1969). Theory Z, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1, 2, p. 31-47.

Miller, M.E. and S. Cook-Greuter (1994). Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

Pauchant T.C. (Dir.). (2002). Ethics and Spirituality at Work: Breakthroughs and Pitfalls of the Search for Meaning at Work. New York: Quorum Books.

Ray, P. and S.R. Anderson (2000). The Cultural Creative. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Wade, J. (1996). Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness. New York : State University of New York Press.

Zora, D. and I. Marshall (2000). Spiritual Intelligence, New York: Bloomsburry.

As we are formally using Ken Wilber's model in this research, a study of two of his books is crucial.

	In A Brief History of Everything (1996), Wilber discusses his model in a dialogue fashion, and provides long descriptions of the content of each stage.
	In Integral Psychology (2000), he presents the different schools of thought and authors who have worked on the process of consciousness development.

Other worthwhile books by Wilber, includes Sex, Ecology and Spirituality (1995), one of his greatest work (but 800 pages thick), and A Theory of Everything, where he applies his model to many fields, including business (2000). The book Ken Wilber in Dialogue (1998), edited by D. Rothberg and S. Kelly, is also very valuable as Wilber's work is critically assessed by several authors. In the Resource File, you will find several key articles and chapters by Ken Wilber as well as two chapters and an article by Pauchant, discussing Wilber's work. In addition, you will find in this Resource File, several articles on particular notions and issues which are important in writing the leadergraphies. This includes, for example, the current knowledge on relationships existing among the different developmental lines, the nature and effects of the epiphanies, and other subjects. Through time, this Resource File will be enriched by the resources suggested by members of the research team and its own scholarly production.

II.2.3. Other knowledge

While you will need to master some of the literature mentioned above (but who can really "master" a field of knowledge?), other expertise needs to be developed while conducting research in integral leadership and writing or co-writing a leadergraphy. This includes:

• A practical knowledge of research methodologies, including the methodology of personal history and historical research, including the use of the NVivo software (see below).
• A working knowledge of the period, country(ies) and culture(s) in which the studied leader lived, perhaps in addition to the information contained in his or her autobiographies and biographies.
• An understanding of the ecological, social, economic and political realities of his times.
• The practices and the religious and spiritual traditions that have influenced the leader. Huston Smith The World's Religion is a classic text for an introduction in this domain.
• Etc.

As a research team, we will attempt to assist each other in acquiring this knowledge or, at minimum, develop an understanding of its major themes. For example, we will produce synthetic papers on the most important notions relative to the research or we will record videos on key subjects such as Ken Wilber's work. As the research project progresses, researchers who have produced synthetic papers or literature reviews on these subjects will be encouraged to post them in the Resource File thereby making them available to all members.

In order to better understand some of the inner experience of integral leaders, it would also be interesting to review the phenomenological accounts of mystics through the ages. The testimonies of St. Theresa of Avila or Oribindo, for instance, are two examples among many.

Further, several suggestions have been advanced for evaluating the number of people at different stages of development. For example, Wilber, Kegan or Beck have suggested that around 15% of the world population is at the "vision logic" stage. Other researchers have proposed that 1 to 2% of the people have developed beyond this stage, i.e. entered what we call the integral development stages. This percentage has been proposed, for example, by Abraham Maslow, in reference to self-transcendence; Jane Loevinger from answers to her instrument on integrity; Bob Kegan, measuring cognitive development; as well as Carl Rogers, Bill Torbert, Carl Jung, Victor Frankl, Don Beck, and some others. These statistics are however only guesses as no rigorous measurements are available.

It is also essential to practice a spiritual discipline of your choice but preferably related to the one(s) practiced by the leader you are working on. This seems paramount for better understanding, beyond a mere intellectual grasp, the subtleties of the integral leader's views and actions. The research team at HEC Montreal regularly organizes workshops on these different practices and traditions. Such workshops are also available at the Fielding Graduate University.

The book Essential Spirituality, by Roger Walsh, is one of the best which describes in simple and practical terms the different practices of seven traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Taoism. This book is highly recommended for better appreciating the spiritual practices used by integral leaders in order to cultivate, as suggested by Roger Walsh, kindness, love, joy, peace, vision, wisdom and generosity.

II. 3. The ability in research skills
II.3.1. Research methodologies

We recommend that you study the two following books for conducting this research. The first one presents the methodologies of historical research: M. Howell and W. Prevenier (2001). From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University press. The second presents the methodologies of life history research. A.L. Cole and G. Knowles (2001). Lives in Context: The Art of Life History Research. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

Historical research is concerned with understanding the broad context (Quadrants III and IV in Wilber's model) while life history with understanding the life of individual persons (Quadrants I and II). The two, however, overlap; the first one being is more macro and the second more micro in nature. The meso perspective, such as understanding the behavior of people in an organization or an institution, is best addressed through case study research. (see below).

Other important methodological resources for this research project include:

G. B. Davis and C.A. Parker (1997). Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach. Hauppauge, NY. A very good resource for writing history.

N. K. Denzin (1989). Interpretive Biography: Qualitative Research Method Series 17, New Bury Park: Sage Publications. A very short book (80 pages) which defines biographies as describing turning-point moments in individual lives and suggests that all biographies are also autobiographies of their authors.

Robert K. Yin (1994). Case Study Research: Design and Methods (2nd. ED). Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol 5. New Bury Park: Sage Publications. A very practical book on case methodology especially useful if you study one or several organizations in your leadergraphy.

J. M. Post (Ed.) (2003). The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders. Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press. A very interesting book on methodologies used for evaluating the personality of leaders and attempting to predict their behaviors. The first of such study was conducted by the CIA on Adolph Hitler in 1941.

Henry Mintzberg. Several papers by Mintzberg on the Case method are included in the Resource File.

While we cannot summarize here all the notions discussed in these publications, we wish to emphasize several points that are paramount for conducting this research on integral leadership.

• A biography or a leadergraphy cannot be made "objective" and we should not attempt to try to convince the reader that they are. We find it better that instead of striving for "objectivity", we strive for "authenticity" in our publications. A biography is as much an autobiography of its author(s), but some methodologies are to be followed for enhancing its rigor. This is the reason why we insist, for example, that a noted biographer of the studied leader assess the leadergraphy before publication or that we invite somebody from the leader's culture as a co-author. This is the reason as well why we advise researchers to discuss their own background and learning process in their leadergraphy and especially in the legacy section of the book. Often, we research who we are or wish to be.
  
  
• Historical research has followed several fashions, including the production of self-serving documents whose purpose was to enhance the popular image of a prince, an institution, a nation or an ethnic group. Today, the common view is more that history is the stories we tell about our prior selves or that others tell about us. Currently, history is no longer considered to be "just out there", awaiting the researcher's discovery, like a forgotten artifact.
  
  
• However, historians who argue today that "history has no existence before it is written" are careful about the sources they use, such as artifacts or testimonies. These artifacts and testimonies offer clues about what happened, how it happened and why it occurred. Part of the task of an historian is to uncover the original purpose or function of an artifact, and to assess the veracity of the currently available testimony.
  
  
• The current consensus is also that understanding the historical context of people is essential for understand their lives. Unfortunately, most current biographies on leaders do not respect much of this view. Again, a leadergraphy is not about leaders, but about the content and process of leadership. We should also remind ourselves that the present rise of readership for biographies could be itself springing from the rise of the belief in individualism in our societies. Further, when these biographies are on famous leaders, they can fuel the belief in human omnipotence. This is a paradox, as integral leaders pursue neither individualism nor a wish for omnipotence.
  
  
• The relationship or intimacy we establish with a leader holds as much importance as fact gathering. As in true relationships, this implies that well planned occasions be complemented with serendipitous moments. The ability to "seize the moment" is important in research, capturing an insight that will not obligatorily surface when sitting in front of one's computer. Keeping a personal journal or changing the location of working environment helps too, such as visiting the leader's country or interviewing people who knew him or her.
  
  
• A formal literature review (on leadership, human development, etc.) does not need to be made BEFORE working on the leadergraphy, as it is often advised in more traditional research. However, the content of this literature often helps the emergence of insights and the grounding of conclusions. The process of research is as much inductive as deductive, often in a dialectical or spiraling fashion.
  
  
• Discovering the epiphanies in the leader's life is paramount as "epiphanies become organizing points around which lives can be retold. They are like flashing neon signs blazing into the night… They become the story lines that hook the reader" (Cole and Knowles in Lives in Context, p. 120). The role of epiphanies is central in a research project that attempts to document some of the consequences of the development of a mature consciousness.

II.3.2. NVivo

The use of the NVivo software for participating in this research project is necessary for two reasons: First, its electronic coding and retrieval capabilities greatly assist the classification and the retrieval of data, as compared to a manual system; and second, the data coded in NVivo is the only doable research strategy we can use for comparing data across 100 cases of integral leadership.

Information on NVivo, with a free demonstration, is available at http://www.qsr.com.au/ . The cost of the software is about US$ 450.00.

As qualitative research software, NVivo can archive a wide range of source material: formatted text, word documents, interviews, sound, photographs, drawings, videos websites and more. The basic principles of the software are mastered in about one day while proficiency increases with usage. It is recommended to take an NVivo workshop to get started but the tutorial available in the software is quite efficient.

Researchers can use two reading strategies when working with NVivo. The first strategy consists of reading books or articles in a traditional manner, choosing the material to be archived and then inputting it in NVivo with an appropriate code for retrieval. The second strategy consists of scanning entire documents, such biographies, and reading them directly on one's computer screen. Any chosen part of the text can be then readily inputted and coded in NVivo for future retrieval.

NVivo can be used in three modes for conducting a research.

• First, it will retrieve and compile all the data inputted with the same code. For example, all data inputted with the code "Q1" (Quadrant 1 of Wilber's model) can be retrieved and used for writing the part of the leadergraphy concerning this quadrant by inputting directly the NVivo files into a word processor.
  
  
• Second, NVivo can be asked to search for parts of text that display a word or a combination of words. When the researcher has inputted and scanned a lot of material into his or her database, the software can be asked to find all the parts associated with key words, such as "decision-making" or "vision", for example. This nice feature can greatly help the researcher not so much by performing the research for him or herself, but by prompting for potential insights.
  
  
• Lastly, NVivo can also be used for creating graphical models linked with the inputted data, thus simulating relationships among different concepts. Again, this can prompt the researcher for potential insights.
  

Often researchers using qualitative methods are skeptical about the use of research software. They often see them as taking the place of the researcher and imposing cold and linear conclusions in the search of an illusive objectivity. We disagree with this view. Please refer to the document Using NVivo for more information about this software, including the generic codes we are using for this research project.

While we require the use of NVivo for graduate students working on the project, as they have access to different assistance for learning this software, we do not hold the same requirement for independent researchers who join the project. Often these researchers do not have access to assistance. In some cases, we will thus accept that independent researchers work on a leadergraphy without using NVivo but rely instead on a manual retrieval system. However, these researchers will have to work closely with the research project director and will be assigned a graduate student who is part of the research team. This will assure that the leadergraphy could be inputted into NVivo for later comparison with others and that the necessary information has been collected on the generic issues we are tracking for the study.

In conclusion, we offer several pieces of advice to assist in the research process:

• View the movies and news videos available on the leader and his or her times.
• Without taking many notes, start reading several biographies on your leader and choose the ones most interesting and rigorous. This choice can be derived from your own critical reading and from reviews published in the New York Times Book Review, the London Times Book Review, reviews published in academic journals, etc.
• Study these chosen biographies very carefully. In particular, attempt to delineate the epiphanies experienced by the leader and to date his or her changes in levels of consciousness.
• Start identifying, coding and inputting data into the database using the suggested codes. In particular, start classifying the data into the different quadrants (Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4, see the document Commented Outline).
• Study the autobiographies, if available, as well as the most interesting books or other texts and speeches produced by the leader and scan the most important ones.
• Conduct several interviews, if necessary.
• Take copious field notes when visiting the locations or countries in which the leader lived.
• Collect all the interesting articles, chapters and remarks by leadership scholars available on the studied leader.
  
  

  Research Need: We need to scan all the leadership books listed above, written by leadership scholars, and extract from them all their commentaries on leaders. This information, inputted in NVivo, could then be shared among researchers. Please contact Pierre-Alain Giffard if you are interested in this research endeavor.

  
  
• During the research process, keep a personal journal as it is essential to note your original reactions to stories, quotes, pictures, movies, notions, practices, etc., as well as your own development through the project.
• Keep practicing your spiritual practices and experiment with the ones practiced by the leader you study.
• Carry a small booklet or a tape recorder on your person to for "seize the moment" when insights surface.
• Exchange often with other researchers of the research team, on the web site forum or during meetings, on your developing hypotheses, findings, questions, difficulties, insights, etc.
• Post on the web site interesting and helpful resources for enhancing the research.
• Maintain regular communications with the project director of this research as well as your academic committee if working toward a diploma.
• Write first the 20 page life story, establishing the developmental stages of the leader, and then proceed with the quadrant analysis and other sections of the book.
• After having inputted in NVivo material for the different sections of the book and scanning the books, chapters, articles or other documents thought essential, run several simulations through NVivo, testing different word associations.
• Send your completed manuscript to your co-author (if any) for feedback.
• Send your completed manuscript to Pierre-Alain Giffard and Thierry Pauchant for feedback and/or co-writing.
• Send the edited manuscript to a noted biographer of your leader for feedback.

II. 4. The craft of writing

Telling a good story is crucial. Good stories are listened to, remembered and assist people in their growth. But to write is difficult; to write well is very difficult; and the only ways one can learn how to write, is to write and to read other authors. Workshops are also offered on creative writing and you may want to participate in one. Please read the last section of the document Commented Outline for precise information about the styles to be used and to be avoided in the leadergraphies.

Biography or life history is a very difficult art. In recent decades, their commercial success has been fueled by popular trends grounded, for instance, in the cult of individualism or the wish for omnipotence. But paradoxically, turning a human being, a leader or a subject into an object of study has the end effect of depersonalizing that person! In our leadergraphies, we have to avoid these tendencies towards individualism, idealization and depersonalization. Further, traditional biographies which start with the birth of a person and end with his or her death have an artificial quality, as if a life could really be "explained" and proceed in a linear fashion.

We should also remember that the production of a leadergraphy is only but ONE of the potential media for rendering our findings. Other forms include: short case analyses; storytelling; the publishing of scientific articles; children books; artful representations; "Olympic Café Dialogues" ; documentary films; fictional novels; multimedia presentations; or other means. We could then modulate our styles for these different productions and you are welcome to involve yourself in one or propose other potential avenues.

Some thought should also be given to the structure of a Master's thesis or a Ph.D. dissertation when they incorporate one or several leadergraphies. One of the simple ways is to present the leadergraphy as the heart of the graduate work, adding parts before and after it with formal academic format, style and references (such as a formal literature review, a methodological section, a theoretical conclusion, etc.). The leadergraphy could then be detached from this larger work after the academic acceptance of the thesis or the dissertation, and published as a book without much rewriting. The academic committee of the researcher will have to agree on this procedure beforehand. Today, it is accepted that novels, for example, be written for a Ph.D. dissertation. Boundary Bay, a novel on the lives of university professors, was published in 1999 as a novel, after having been defended successfully as a doctoral dissertation in Canada. Perhaps one of the earliest example of such mixing of styles has been The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda, published in 1968 as a bestselling novel and defended as a doctoral thesis in social anthropology at UCLA.

Other graduate students could also use the study of an integral leader in their dissertation as only one of its elements, using other data such as others leaders, questionnaire data, case analyses, etc.. In this case, the thesis or the dissertation will be much different than the leadergraphy and some re-writing will be necessary.

Lastly, we should not be surprised that the writing of a leadergraphy will transform its author(s). The difficult discipline of writing is often an identity-forming experience and could be a spiritual experience as well, especially when working on integrally developed human beings. Many spiritual traditions have used biographies of enlightened persons, as well as creative writing, as part of their spiritual apprenticeship.

II. 5. Time commitment

As a last requirement, researchers involved in this research project need to make a commitment in terms of time. Completing a leadergraphy can take one to two years, depending on many factors. Often, one can start to become oriented into the life of a leader after a six month period and many days (and nights, sometimes!) of reading and searching. Some leadergraphies also require us to conduct interviews and to visit several locations, which lengthens the project. A person who wishes to join the research team should then make sure that she has the time and the energy to complete the research. Although the project director of the research will be encouraging, he will respect the individual responsibility of each researcher and will not enforce deadlines. Therefore, researchers have to be self-motivated.

If one is writing a leadergraphy as part of his or her graduate work, it is likely that deadlines will be enforced by the student, the program itself and the student's committee. As the content of a thesis or dissertation can be different from the content of a leadergraphy, some work, such as conducting interviews, could be conducted for the leadergraphy after completion of the pursued diploma.

Further, this research project is not only about writing and publishing a leadergraphy. The larger research program involves the rigorous comparison of 100 leaders for establishing the patterns of integral leadership. This involves, as discussed previously, the building of a database, using NVivo. The researcher must therefore make the commitment to learn the software and build the database in a fashion compatible with the other researchers. One of the roles of the project director is to assure this compatibility.

Your commitment to the research group will also continue after the publication of the leadergraphy. You could be solicited, for example, for a newspaper, radio or TV interview on the book or a conference. From time to time, you will also be asked to give your opinion on the leader you have been working on. As the research team will conduct research of the patterns existing among 100 integral leaders, across time and space, you will be considered the "expert in residence" on the research team for giving your informed opinion on how your leader should be interpreted, perhaps even several years from now as we are giving ourselves 10 years to complete the project. You could also be invited to workshops or conferences to contribute your expertise on integral leadership.

Lastly, we also ask researchers involved in a formal academic program to commit to the co-writing of one scholarly article on their leader, in addition to the leadergraphy. This 20 page scholarly written article, with academic style, format and references, will be sent for publication to a scientific journal with a formal review committee, such as Leadership Quarterly. Other articles or publications, such as the documentation of the developmental process of the leader, which could be sent to a developmental psychology journal, are also encouraged. We are open to your suggestions for other potential publications.

Thus, participating in this research project involves much more than publishing a "quick book". For this research project we are looking for individuals who wish to produce a rigorous and well-written work, contribute to the research effort of an international team, and who can commit their time and efforts on a long term basis.

We hope you will join this team and that, together, we will contribute to the development of leadership theory, practice, education and training.

We strongly believe that the integral development of leaders can make a positive difference in our world.

An "Olympic Café Dialogue", is an imagery interview of a deceased integral leader on a subject of current importance, using a collage of actual quotes by that leader. One could imagine, for example, that Albert Schweitzer could make commentaries on our current health care system in Canada or the U.S.

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NVivo: Step by Step
(under construction)

Introduction

The following pages re present a proposed step-by-step approach to get researchers up and running with their leadergraphy projects. Using the NVivo qualitative analysis software will facilitate the storage, coding, retrieval, comparison, and linking of the data that you accumulate on your leader. Your data can be biographies, audio-taped interviews, videos, notes, documents found on the Web and others.

Use this step-by-step guide for a quick picture of how to use NVivo. You can improve your knowledge of the software through NVivo guide books and the tutorial inside the software, extracts of which appear in these pages. To join helpful email discussion forums for qualitative researchers check the link http://www.qsrinternational.com.

1. First step: How to create your leadergraphy project

Open NVivo The Launch Pad appears on your screen Click "Create a Project" Click "Next" Name your project Add a description if you wish Click "Finish" Click "Close Project" Click "Yes"

2. Second step: How to open your leadergraphy project

Open NVivo The Launch Pad appears on your screen Click "Open a Project" Select your project from the list Click "OK" The Project Pad appears on your screen

3. Third step: How to import your documents in the project

Once your leadergraphy project is opened, the third step is to import documents.

• Open your leadergraphy project (see second step)
• The Project Pad appears on your screen
• Click "Create a Document"
• Select "Locate and import readable external text file (s).
• Click Next
• Select the RTF (Rich Text Format) or TEXT file that you wish to import
• Click " Open"
• Click " Next"
• Click "Finish"

NVivo will not import .doc files .

To convert .doc files to .rtf files, use your Word application.

• Open your document in Word
• In "File", select "Save as"
• Select "Rich Text Format" under your file name
• Click "Save"
• Close your document

4. Fourth step: How to open your documents

Once your documents are imported, the fourth step is to open it.

Open your leadergraphy project (see second step). The Project Pad appears on your screen Click "Explore documents" The Document Explorer appears on your screen In the right column, click on the document you want to work with

• Click "Browse" in the Toolbar
• The Document Browser appears on your screen with your document

(to be continued)

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