Jesuit leadership strategies are part of the implicit basis of the Magister Institute’s leadership repertoire. According to Lowney (2003), since the time of Ignatius of Loyola, the Jesuits have developed and honed a style of leadership based on four strategies. These governing principles and interpersonal philosophy were part of the essence of the Jesuit way of life and Ignatian spirituality and were expected of each one of the Jesuits in their relations with the world at large, and were also to be used for the education and management of the Jesuits themselves. Self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism are the four charged words best describing this Jesuit leadership managerial style. The Jesuits are trained continuously to know and understand themselves, to check on their weaknesses and strengths in their daily meditative practices, and, again, more intensively during special prolonged introspective time periods yearly. The Jesuits also undergo a deep self evaluation twice in their lifetimes (Lowney, …show more content…
Chosen and trained to become innovators, self-confident amidst change, and looking ahead in the direction of a new and better world, they are encouraged continually in their training to make their own decisions and come up with new and challenging ideas (Drucker, 1999; Roberts, 1993). Conformity, according to Lowney (2003), is not a part of the Jesuit educational manual. With self-knowledge and creative adapting to the future, the Jesuits teach their own to relate genuinely and affectionately to others, especially to one another. The Jesuit esprit-de-coeur, camaraderie, and love for one another is proverbial (Lowney). Heroism, the last of the leadership strategies of the Jesuit training manual, is characterized by wholeheartedly following Christ, the great king and leader, in one key passage of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. This total commitment to a cause in an intense and continuous manner is what constitutes the heroic Jesuit leadership, always demanding magis or more of themselves, and always spreading their wings to embrace more and more, since Ignatius of Loyola put no limits to the intensity of commitment, the spread of the love and the apostolic zeal of each Jesuit (Iparraguirre, 1963; Lowney, 2003; McDonough & Bianchi,