Conceptualising managerial and leadership wisdom - how many wise managers and leaders do you know?

The term ‘wisdom’ is used frequently in terms of managerial and leadership functioning and development. However, when asked ‘How many wise managers and leaders do you know?’ most people struggle to firstly name people and secondly, to explain what ‘wise or wisdom’ means because they tend to consider wisdom from a particular paradigm – philosophical, spiritual, cultural, psychological or ethical. This conceptual paper raises different perceptions of the meaning of ‘wisdom’ before broadly critiquing literature that deals with wisdom in terms of philosophical, spiritual, cultural, psychological and ethical constructs. This leads to summations that wisdom is largely contextual –someone might be considered wise in one context but not in another – and that a knowledgeable person is not necessarily a wise person. However, wisdom appears to comprise elements of knowledge, integrity and compassion. The paper then discusses wisdom as an ethical construct in management and leadership and concludes with a conceptual discussion of the vexed question ‘can wisdom be developed?

Learning from the Wisdom of The Prophets: Spiritual Intelligence of Hūd and Muḥammad in Ibn Arabi’s View

The wisdom of the prophets in Ibn ‘Arabi’s Fuṣūṣ al-Hikam is deeply concerned with discovering how the prophets who are taken up in each chapter exemplify different facets of the deeper spiritual process of the divine-human relation. This article examines two particular fass and wisdom of Hūd and Muhammad. The wisdom of Hud represents knowledge through the feet” (ilm al-rijl), the knowledge that can only come through actually traveling through all the tests and lessons of the earthly human existence or sulūk, while the wisdom of Muhammad defines the role of love and its multiple layers. Both are seen to be a spiritual intelligence of the prophets. Spiritual Intelligence empowers people to deal with and resolve life-world issues while demonstrating virtuous behavior such as humility, compassion, gratitude, and wisdom. For Ibn ‘Arabī, spiritual intelligence is about discovering intrinsic distinctions between truth and illusion, and spiritual discernment is all about. Finally, through his particular work, Ibn ‘Arabī highlights and assumes a recurrent progression from habitual conditioning that humans usually encounter to a greater depth and breadth of consciousness

What Is Wisdom? Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Syntheses

This article explores the nature of wisdom using an integrative cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary approach by drawing on contemporary research as well as the philosophical and contemplative disciplines of both East and West. To do this the article first analyzes definitional issues. These issues include difficulties of definition in general, and of wisdom in particular, the common elements and limitations of current definitions, as well as possible varieties or subtypes of wisdom. It then uses integrative definitions of wisdom and its major subtypes as a framework to investigate the characteristics, capacities, and components of wisdom; the varieties of self-knowledge that foster and constitute it; the perceptual, cognitive, and developmental processes essential to it; and the existential issues—for example, meaning, mystery, suffering, and death—that wisdom ponders and responds to. The article then examines wisdom's intimate link with other virtues, especially ethics and benevolence, and questions the claim that emotional regulation is an inherent element of wisdom, arguing instead that emotional regulation and wisdom are distinct, yet mutually facilitating virtues. Finally, the article provides evidence for the “self-demanding” nature of wisdom which implies that to understand it fully we may need to cultivate it ourselves

Power, Responsibility & Wisdom: Exploring the Issues at the Core of Ethical Decision-Making and Leadership

Decision-making ostensibly requires the exercise of Power. But that use of Power must be counterbalanced with Responsibility in order to make good decisions. Infusing Wisdom into the decision-making process necessarily incorporates an ethical component and involves both the identification and evaluation of relationships. Wise decision-making, therefore, requires the application of Wisdom which transcends simple, short-lived factual proficiency. It is this careful weighing of Wisdom, Power, Knowledge, and Responsibility which must guide our business leaders and be taught to our business students

Teaching for wisdom in modern early education

Teaching for wisdom (especially at the early educational stages) requires personal competence by the teacher, interesting teaching aids and modern, motivating techniques that stimulate and develop the child’s potential abilities and competences related to general and practical intelligence and creativity. In early education, an especially needed type of children’s/students’ activity is that which leads to the direct experiencing of the surrounding cultural, natural, technical and social reality. Such activity is undertaken by individuals through internal emotional involvement, which leads to experiencing values in an in-depth way, supporting development and gaining all kinds of practical experience, which in turn fosters maturity towards wisdom. The environment where Teaching for wisdom should be deliberately organized is school (preschool). Factual knowledge and the methodical competences of teachers can support the organization of educational situations that allow children/students to experience values and wisdom, develop their potential cognitive abilities, gain experience in the interpretation and evaluation of wise/unwise behavior, and develop the habits of wise behavior. These situations should be a source of getting students ready to use wisdom in life and to shape their value systems. The proposal of a detailed competence scope for the notion of wisdom is presented in the this article

Transforming Knowledge into Wisdom: a Grounded Theory Approach

Introduction: The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze the process of transforming knowledge into wisdom. We aimed to understand the meaning of knowledge and wisdom, the ways how to transform knowledge into wisdom, obstacles and strategies to facilitate and accelerate access to wisdom and its useful role on the life and the role of books, libraries and librarians in transformation of knowledge into wisdom. Research Method: This is a qualitative study with grounded theory based on Strauss & Corbin model (1998). To collect data we used deep interview with 22 participants that were selected through specific criteria including 17 men (77.28%) and 5 women (22.72%) in purposeful theoretical method. The data were analyzed with three coding stages of Strauss & Corbin model (1998), open, axial and selective coding. Results: After analyzing data, about 300 open codes (concepts), and then 103 main categories were formed. Some core categories with their related sub-categories were gained that were ended in the main and last category titled: “the process of transforming knowledge into wisdom” based on the participants views. Conclusion: Internalizing of knowledge results in individuals and social behaviours or transforming knowledge into wisdom is based on understanding and discovery of facilitating and speeding up sterategies of the process of transforming knowledge into wisdom to be able to observe wisdom behaviours in the society

Is a Contemporary Conservative Political Philosophy Based on the Aristotelian Concept of Phronesis Possible?

This essay – although aware of the contradiction in terms of the concept of conservative theory – tries to pick out some key notions within the conservative political mindset, and offers an analysis of them by relating them to one another. Beside Aristotelian phronesis or practical wisdom, it focuses on kairos, or the right moment for action. It points out that due to the time constraint inherent in the realm of political action, agents need to acquire a kind of tacit, practical knowledge of how to deal with pressing issues, and phronesis is a term which covers this sort of practical ability. The paper then tries to show that individual action is closely connected to communal interests, differentiates between formal and informal forms of communal knowledge and ends up by referring to Oakeshott’s, MacIntyre’s and Tocqueville’s ideas of communal wisdom and practice

How to Cultivate Individual Wisdom for Learning

The twenty-first century is the century of prosperity and continuous learning. Learning is acquiring, modifying, or reinforcing existing or new knowledge, and involves synthesizing experience, spirit, and passion which leads to individual wisdom. This article studied the evolution of information, knowledge, and wisdom. Although wisdom is considered to be the highest form of knowledge, it is still a sophisticated concept with no consensus definition. The article describes what individual wisdom is, how to develop individual wisdom for active learning, and how to diffuse individual wisdom into organizational wisdom. In addition, this article lists the ways for individual wisdom cultivation, including how to manage individual wisdom for best practices in an organization, and last, but not least, how to contribute organizational values, or return profit to the community for reimbursement which entrepreneurs can utilize as natural resources and public utilities for his own businesses