Dr. Peter A. Redpath (retired Full Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University, New York) is author, editor, co-editor of 22 books and many dozens of articles and book reviews. An internationally recognized scholar, since 1980 he has given over 200 invited guest lectures nationally and internationally. Among his many accomplishments, he is CEO of the Aquinas School of Leadership, LLC; former Founder and Chair of the Thomistic Studies Graduate Concentration in Christian Wisdom for Holy Apostles College and Seminary (USA); an Affiliate Scholar with the University Abat Oliba Graduate program (Barcelona, Spain). Peter is also co-founder of the Gilson Society (USA) and the International Etienne Gilson Society, the Adler-Aquinas Institute, and the Angelicum Academy and Great Books Academy homeschool programs (both founded with the help of Mortimer J. Adler); former executive editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series (VIBS) for the Dutch publisher Editions Rodopi, B.V., and special series editor for Rodopi and Brill/Rodopi. Presently, he is a member of the editorial board of Brill Publishing’s Philosophy and Religion (PAR) series, a member of the Advisory Board of the Lyceum Institute, and Officer in Charge of Medieval Christian Philosophy and Academic Liaison to the Holy See for Global Scholarly Publications. For a list of articles published on the Catholic World Report, see http://www.catholicworldreport.com/author/redpath-peter/
While, by nature, in some respect, all somewhat psychologically healthy human beings desire to become leaders at some organizational activity in this life, precisely puzzling to answer are the questions: (1) Why, by nature, do we chiefly do so? (2) What is the nature of leadership in general and great leadership especially; and (3) How does anyone become a great leader?
Most puzzling to some readers related to the work for which I am happily writing this testimonial might be the central idea of Juan Pablo Stegmann's 4-volume, magisterial tome that attempts exhaustively to answer these questions. As he states toward the start of Volume 1: "The central idea of the book is how spirituality builds greatness and leadership, how these improve personal and social reality, creating a culture of leadership, improving the political economy and management of organizations."
In our contemporary, cynical global political and business culture we often hear the sophomoric quip, "Business ethics is an oxymoron." Despite the fact that all human leadership is a psychological activity (activity of the human soul) this same global political and business culture would likely incline to mock as oxymoronic and evidently foolish the claim that spirituality builds greatness and leadership. The entire New World Order appears Hell-belt on convincing all such cultural rubes who think this way the truth of the contrary opposite--that spirituality impedes leadership and destroys culturesI
Juan Pablo Stegmann is no fool. Nor is he someone unfamiliar with businesses and how to build leaders. He has a wide international business and academic background that includes holding 3 Ph.D degrees; 3 Masters degrees; a B.S.; and three postgraduate works in economics, finance, business strategy.
He has held senior leadership positions in almost every area of national and international business organization. These include general management, investment and commercial banking, finance, and strategic and knowledge management at leading multinational firms like Citibank, Bank of America, N.M. Rothchild (UK), and Telefonica. He also worked with leading consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting, A. T. Kearney, Booz Allen, and others.
He has published several books prior to this present multi-volume work and has taught a wide spectrum of graduate and undergraduate courses in management, strategic management, integrated enterprise management, enterpreneurship, organization theory and behavior, foundations of business, international business, cross cultural communications, cultural environment global business, business consulting, business ethics, economics, international economics, financial management, strategic resources management, and quantitative methods.
I am most humbled that he considers me to be among his mentors. In this respect, I am especially delighted to note how, with some small assistance from my research, he has mastered the realization that the moral virtue of prudence (which creates in children and students the moral habit of docilitas [teachability!]) is a species of uncommon common sense that underlies all cultural and organizational development.
Evident to any psychologically human being is that, absent the moral and the practical virtue of intellectual prudence, no healthy human individual, organization, or culture can ever develop any habitual common sense--much less a level of habitual uncommon sense needed to grow and flourish longterm.
I encourage you to buy the 4-volumes linked to immediately below and tell others about them so that you and they can stand on the shoulders of a true organizational giant and learn how to apply these simple truths on a daily basis to improve all aspects of your daily life and that of the rest of us.