The Reflective Executive

Book excerpt: This profoundly practical book is for businesswomen and businessmen who wish to integrate spiritual values with day-to-day decision-making, tight scheduling, and high-pressured management of multimillion-dollar responsibilities. Emilie Griffin--a veteran in the marketing field and the author of several acclaimed books on spirituality--draws on time-honored scriptural resources and management principles to unpack the spiritual meaning of executive life. Her central premise is that the spiritual imagination must be refreshed to see God's presence in the work itself--even the details. Her approach is wide-ranging, drawing on the poetic mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Teilhard de Chardin and the practical wisdom of such business thinkers as Peter Drucker and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. The Reflective Executive eschews dualism and provides spiritual insights on such themes as effectiveness, time, contribution, decision-making, setting goals and priorities, weighing failure and success, building on strength, and envisioning God as lord of the marketplace. The book also includes practical exercises and themes for reflection.