Introduction to the André Delbecq Special Issue

The collection of articles in this special issue is dedicated to the life and legacy of the late André Delbecq. André was the founding pioneer of the Management, Spirituality, and Management (MSR) Academy of Management interest group. His contributions continue to inspire thought, research, and action related to the promise and practice of spirituality in organizational life. For those who did not (have the fortuitous opportunity to) know André – this collection of papers provides insight to the fact that André brought the “truths” of his personal life and relationships to those of his professional life, and vice versa. The special issue provides a unique contribution in documenting André’s legacy as the pioneering founder of the MSR scholarly domain. Consequently, the articles contained within the special issue consist of both traditional scholarly contributions (e.g., Fry; Neal; Peters & Williams; Williams & Peters; Chappell, Delbecq, and McCready) and more personal, reflexive pieces (e.g., Van de Ven; Aldag; Weiss; Merchant; Long and Fusco; Peregoy). The papers all shed light on André, both as an individual and professional; touching on how his interest in the “whole person” arose out of his own, personal, search to better understand the meaning his own professional activities and successes can have for both himself and for others touched by them. As will be seen here: many, indeed, were profoundly touched by both.

Louis (Jody) Fry provides a synthesis of André’s scholarly contributions to the MSR field in The Numinosity of soul: André Delbecq’s legacy for MSR. Fry begins with a succinct description of the spiritual and religious roots of André’s career and the initial motivation for his work in MSR. He reviews André’s corpus of work in the MSR arena by organizing it into three related themes: successful strategies for MSR teaching and scholarship, MSR in organizations, and leadership formation. Fry weaves into the review many of the core ideas that informed André’s work: calling, contemplative practice, manifesting change through leadership and research, subsidiarity, community, compassion, discernment, humility, and love. The article delivers on its promise to provide “a sense of André as the pioneering founder of MSR” (p.?) and serves as a foundation for the special issue by context for the other contributions.

In André Delbecq: spiritual mentor and friend Judi Neal draws on interviews with seven people who were deeply impacted by André to distil key themes about his spirituality, his presence, and how he showed up as a friend and mentor. Neal’s up close and personal exploration provides insight into André’s behavioral choices throughout his career, from how one student experienced him as a young scholar to his modeling of spiritually mature leadership in the latter stages of his life. For those who crossed paths with André, the article will resonate and perhaps place their experience within a greater whole of André. For those who are meeting André through this special issue, Neal’s article provides insight into the impact of one’s beingness and on our legacy, beyond the scholarly contributions listed on a vitae.

Drawing on their interviews with André in 2015 and 2016, Peter Williams and Stuart Allen produced two video contributions with accompanying articles for this special issue. In the first, Teaching management, spirituality and religion: André Debecq as a pioneer, Allen and Williams explore André’s reluctance to address the spiritual dimension of executive leadership development. They connect André’s history of engaged scholarship, described elsewhere in this special issue, to his decision to embrace teaching about the spiritual life of leaders and distil key elements of his teaching philosophy. In the second piece, Designed for inclusion: André Delbecq’s approach in multi-faith environments, Williams and Allen identify key characteristics of André’s ability to create welcoming environments for respectful plurality: welcoming others overtly, listening purposefully, and noticing power dynamics. They explore each of these in turn, tracing them to André’s formation as a scholar.

Stacie Chappell, André Delbecq and William McCready examine a methodology for leadership development in Spiritual leadership formation: an exemplar protocol. The article represents a collaboration that André initiated in his final years and so enables the unique inclusion of his voice in this special issue. The author’s research examines how André’s message can be taken out of the university setting into organizations. Consequently, “[i]t is a natural bookend to the seminal article … in which André shared his first attempt at such work” (p. ?). Chappell, Delbecq, and McCready discuss key themes in the literature on spiritual leadership development, explore the protocol in enough detail to support others leveraging its design, and conclude with a discussion of implications for future practice and research on spiritual leadership development.

Andy Van de Ven offers an up-close, “eye-level” look at André’s life through the lens of a friendship that spanned decades in André L. Delbecq: an engaged scholar. Van de Ven explores the way that André embodied the scholarship of engagement (Boyer, 1996) before the label was identified. He recounts his first encounter with André as a research assistant to a team of scholars. From there, Van de Ven worked with André on a project of engaged scholarship exploring poverty alleviation. Here, Van de Ven takes us behind the scenes in a rich description of the genesis of the Nominal Group Technique (Delbecq & Van de Ven, 1971). A central theme throughout this reflexive article is André’s unswerving commitment to both personal and professional engagement, which points to the possibility – if not responsibility – of academics to make their work more meaningful by engaging with and contributing to the surrounding community. Perhaps, part of the drive that André had to “break down” the walls between academia and surrounding communities may have had its genesis in André’s own comment that as a younger person he not only did not necessarily anticipate entering the former – no less spending his life there.

Ray Aldag also provides a personal reflection on the exceptional contribution that André made, not only to the world of research but also to those with whom he came into contact in André Delbecq: searcher for complementarities. Aldag’s life intersected with André when, as a junior academic, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He begins with the anecdote of the campus tour André provided; André’s calm disposition was juxtaposed against anger-filled interactions between students and the National Guard members. In this brief article, Aldag demonstrates the impact André on those around him: as spiritual guide, mentor, and adventurer.

Joseph Weiss’ touching piece is drawn from his eulogy at André’s wake: André Delbecq, a leader’s leader and master mentor. Weiss recounts meeting André at Madison where despite his success within and beyond the institution as a distinguished professor and consultant, he maintained a humanistic approach and sincere interest in both colleagues and students. Again, André’s relational approach and the importance of this to scholarship is evident in the description of the two colleagues leaving Wisconsin, heading to different coasts, and leveraging their shared interests into important research. The multiplicity of André’s personal and professional dispositions is evident: demanding and devoted teacher and mentor, creative and collaborative colleague and sensitive friend. André’s journey emerges via the personal and professional experiences shared with the author, as does the impact on Weiss’ realization that it is not the potential image of the management professor that is of essence – but rather the potential impact.

The Long and Fusco piece integrates the personal and professional impact that André had and continues to have both on the authors – themselves – and on the hundreds of students who have experienced the “André-inspired” course they teach. The authors describe not only their own personal encounter with and benefit from André’s personal and professional embrace, but also the evolution of that course: “Vocation of the Business Leader (VBL).” Not surprisingly, the authors describe how it was through this course that they – themselves – have been able to engage with the individuals in the surrounding Silicon Valley community. That meeting has led those individuals engage with themselves – while seeking to find a unique way to understand themselves and their role in the organizations in which they, themselves operate.

Nilofer Merchant presents the personal growth she experienced under André’s tutelage, from MBA student, to co-teacher, and ultimately to student of life, in Learning is what you do for yourself: what I learned as a student and then as a co-teacher with professor André Delbecq. She explores the impact of André’s philosophy that sought to simultaneously enable agency in students while challenging them to assess and strive for meaning in their personal and professional development. As Merchant notes, André’s class led her to better understand how to bring more of herself to her professional activities and challenges, and the need to make space to for others along the same lines. Aptly summarizing the key lessons she has gleaned from André’s legacy, her essay ends with the challenge that pushed André beyond his success at Wisconsin and ultimately resulted in his contributions to the MSR field.

Related to the above, the short anecdote offered by Richard Peregoy also addresses André’s goal of enabling individuals to find their unique way that they can contribute to the world around them. Recalling the source of his own course in spirituality and management, Peregoy recalls the first time he saw André “in action”- with an extremely heterogeneous group of students including academics, practitioners, Silicon Valley executives and others from the general community. Each is engaged, while they engage with others; sharing their view on the challenges of the mutual reality they share.

We hope that the reader will enjoy the articles collected here and that they will serve not only to provide insight into André Delbecq’s unique contribution to the philosophy and practice of spirituality in management, but also help preserve the memory of the life André led and the legacy that he left.