Abstract
This chapter analyzes two facets of mindfulness for servant leadership of B-Corporations, which is an emerging form of social enterprise. One facet concerns inner states and motivations for leading business for non-instrumental reasons. This facet encompasses an ethics-in-practice dimension alongside of merely theoretical approaches, a dimension well suited for leadership of B-Corps, whose governance structure places ethics and sustainability at the center of the non-instrumental quest for the creation of social value and respect for human rights by business enterprises. The motivation for care of the mindful servant leader matches the investors’ expectations of social impact for the firm. The other facet concerns leadership decisions and actions fulfilling the mission of B-Corporations in creating social value alongside of economic value for a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Concerning this second facet, mindfulness is vitally involved in that servant leaders pay attention to the whole business and its explicit social benefit, not just this or that element of the firm’s operations. The chapter advances two arguments. The first argument—tied to the first facet—posits that the virtue of mindfulness contributes a key element of non-instrumental motivation for leadership generally missing from extant leadership approaches. The second argument—tied to the second facet—addresses the decision-making side of mindfulness. It asserts that the virtue of mindfulness is especially poised to equip servant leadership for the B-Corporation movement for two vital challenges: (1) balancing demands from multiple stakeholders; and (2) assimilating multiple criteria and values—both financial and non-financial.
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Notes
- 1.
The categories of “certified B-Corporations” and “benefit corporations” are often confused. While they have shared features, there are differences between the two classifications. Both types of business entities are committed to higher standards of accountability through enlarging the fiduciary duty of their directors to take into account stakeholder interests. Some firms adopt the legal framework of a benefit corporation to satisfy legal requirements of B-Corp certification. However, the bulk of benefit corporations are not certified B-Corporations. It is mandatory that certified B-Corporations complete B Impact Assessment, attaining a minimum verified score of 80/200 available points to satisfy the certification performance requirement. Benefit corporations are not, however, required to attain any specified minimum verified level of overall social and environmental performance. In this chapter, unless otherwise qualified, the term “B Corp” is used to cover both “certified B Corporations” and “benefit corporations.”
- 2.
Nothing in this chapter is meant to exclude non-B-Corp social enterprises per se. The chapter focuses specifically on B-Corp leadership since for such enterprises the pursuit of social impact cannot be, as it often is for some other types of businesses, merely discretionary. As such, the cultivation and preservation of ethical motivation of leaders of B-Corps follows as a matter of the organization’s due diligence. Moreover, consider by analogy other leadership roles that are established by law. While it may be “nice” if a person on the street has a sense of justice and fairness, for judges that are appointed or elected to the bench by law, it is of the highest importance that such persons have an inclination and inner motivation to pursue justice and fairness.
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Jackson, K. (2019). Mindful Servant Leadership for B-Corps. In: Bouckaert, L., van den Heuvel, S. (eds) Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29936-1_11
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