A World in Need of Globally Responsible Leadership - Call for Action

    BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, December 10, 2008 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Globally Responsible Leaders Initiative (GRLI) was co-founded and is supported by the United Nations Global Compact and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). The GRLI's mission is to act as a catalyst to develop a next generation of globally responsible leaders. In doing so it challenges the issues of the company for the 21st Century, the mission of business schools/learning institutions and the process for cultural change in organisations.

Bill Gates in Time magazine in August this year said:

"Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people ... But it has left out billions more..." "... we need a more creative capitalism: an attempt to stretch the market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off."

There is a need for this creative capitalism, but also a need for a more responsible capitalism and a leadership able to make that responsibility happen. A Call for Action is made to business leaders & academics by the GRLI with three main areas of focus:

Re-visiting the raison d'etre of the firm
Integrating leadership and ethics
Making corporate statesmanship a reality

"The (... current free market ...) model becomes increasingly ambiguous and paradoxical. At the same time as producing more wealth than ever and ensuring unprecedented growth, it pollutes, excludes, and often encourages domination and social injustice. It promotes a desperate race that no longer has any visible purpose, or raison d'etre beyond the race itself."

Concretely, GRLI believes that business schools should focus on educating the whole person as entrepreneurs, leaders, and corporate statesmen. Leadership is the art of motivating, communicating, empowering and convincing people to accept a new vision of sustainable development and the necessary change that this implies.

Realising the urgency with which a failing system needs to be adapted to human needs in a globalized economy, we will:

(1) enhance the change factors that will help us to implement a more sustainable development model.

(2) embed the appropriate values and behaviours in our strategies and management practices.

(3) aim to develop pedagogies and curricula which enable the development of a globally responsible leadership.

(4) exchange innovations, good practices and cases in business and education, and share them with our partners and the wider public through the development of learning platforms for critical and constructive dialogue.

The GRLI call for action aims at re-enforcing the strengths of our entrepreneurial system while correcting its defects and the financial excesses of the system. We strive to achieve this through enhancing responsibility at all levels.

A new way of educating managers and a next generation of globally responsible leaders will play a major role in making this come true.

Anyone wishing to express their support for the GRLI manifesto can do so on line at www.grli.org.

Contacts:

Anders Aspling
GRLI Secretary-General
+32-476-959969; [email protected]

Pierre Tapie
Chairman of the GRLI Board; Dean & President, ESSEC Business School (France and Singapore)
+33-1-344331 01/02; [email protected]

Henri-Claude de Bettignies
Distinguished Professor of Global Responsible Leadership, China-Europe International Business School - CEIBS (China); the Aviva Chair Professor of Leadership and Responsibility INSEAD (France)
+ 86-21-28905651; [email protected]

Philippe de Woot
Member of the GRLI Board and special adviser; Prof. Emeritus Universit Catholique de Louvain (Belgium);
+32-2-7676279; [email protected]

Mark Drewell
Outgoing Chairman of the GRLI Board; Investment Director and Co-founder, 3 Laws Capital South Africa; +27-21-7834709; [email protected]

John Alexander
Former President and Senior Adviser, Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)
+1-336-643-4892, [email protected]

For general enquiries:

Martine Torfs
Manager, GRLI Centre
+32-2-6290810; [email protected]
www.grli.org


The Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI)

The mission of the GRLI is to be a catalyst to develop a next generation of globally responsible leaders.

GRLI delivers results on three levels:

1. Wide impact; through its advocacy, collective communication, and engagement and shared learning with other organisations globally and locally.

2. Value added to its partners; through concrete initiatives and projects for and within the partner organisations, with best practices being benchmarked.

3. Personal growth for the representatives of the partner organization; through a unique global community of action and learning producing thought leadership, acting as a laboratory for innovation, delivering writings and publications both in research and education related to Globally Responsible Leadership and Corporate Global Responsibility.

As a consequence, GLRI also is a strong support for individual and personal growth for the participating representatives of the partner organisations.

GRLI is a foundation of public interest based in Belgium with the purpose of developing a new generation of globally responsible leaders through the development and support of worldwide projects and initiatives.

The board representation is broad and global.

Pierre Tapie, Chairman of the GRLI Board, Dean and President, ESSEC (France & Singapore)
Carol Adams, Professor of Accounting and Sustainable Development Strategy Deputy Dean Faculty of Law and Management, LaTrobe University (Australia)
Rosemary Bissett, Group Manager, Sustainable Business Practices, National Australia Bank (Australia)
Walter Brito, General Manager PETROBRAS University, Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Brazil)
Fernando d'Alessio, Director General, CENTRUM PUCP (Peru)
Philippe de Woot, Special Adviser to the GRLI (Belgium)
Mark Drewell, Outgoing Chairman, Investment Director and Co-founder 3 Laws Capital South Africa; member of the GRLI Board (South Africa)
Jean-Louis Duqu roix, Director External Communications, Caisse d'Epargne Aquitaine Poitou-Charentes (France)
Nick Ellerby, Co-Director, The Oasis School for Human Relations (UK)
Dennis Hanno, Dean Undergraduate Education, Babson College (USA)
Swar Kranti, Faculty - HR, Welingkar Institute for Management Development and Research (India)
Bjorn Larsson, CEO, The ForeSight Group (Sweden)
Linda Livingstone, Dean, Pepperdine University Business School (USA)
Pascal Lizin, Director, External & Public Affairs, GSK Biologicals (Belgium)
Laura Quinn, Senior Associate, Center for Creative Leadership - CCL (USA)
Michael Powell, Pro Vice Chancellor, Griffith University Business School (Australia)
Manuel Escudero, Special Adviser, UN Global Compact (GRLI Founding Partner)
Liliana Petrella, Director Development Initiatives Unit EFMD (GRLI Founding Partner)
Anders Aspling, GRLI Secretary-General

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