Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership : Integrating the Best Leadership Theory and Practice

This handbook integrates the best leadership and followership theories and practices between the Global North-West (countries of Western individualistic cultures in Europe, North America, Australia and Oceana) and the Global South-East (countries of Eastern collectivistic cultures in Asia, Africa, South America, and South-East Asian and Oceana). There is a need to bring the Global North-West and the Global South-East together to address global challenges such as the climate change, global hunger and poverty, domestic and international terrorism, social justice, gender inequality, and domestic and global abuse of human and natural resources. This innovative volume proposes that the democratic leadership of the Global North-West and the human-centered followership of the Global South-East can transform the world if leadership and followership values, education, and practices are integrated. It utilizes findings from positive psychology, social psychology, organizational behavior, and world religions and contemplative wisdom traditions to highlight the case for global leadership and followership.

Satinder K. Dhiman Ph.D., Ed.D., MBA, M.Com. (Gold-Medalist) Scholar | Author | Associate Dean | Chair & Director, MBA | Accreditation Evaluator | Wellbeing Consultant | Professor

Professor of Management at Woodbury University, Burbank, California, Dr. Dhiman serves as the Associate Dean, Chair, and Director of the MBA Program. With an interdisciplinary research agenda encompassing organization behavior, workplace spirituality, workplace well-being and fulfillment, sustainability, servant leadership, mindfulness, social entrepreneurship, education, organization development, and Eastern and Western philosophy in leadership, Professor Dhiman holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Tilburg University, Netherlands, an EdD in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, an MBA from West Coast University, Los Angeles, and a Master’s degree in Commerce from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, having earned the Gold Medal.  He has also completed advanced Executive Leadership Programs at Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. 

His academic leadership experience includes having served as the Chair for a special MBA Program for the Mercedes-Benz executives, China, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Guadalajara campus, Mexico; as E-Commerce curriculum lead advisor, Universidad Francisco Gavidia, El Salvador, coordinator for the MBA Student Los Angeles Fieldtrip Program for Berlin University for Professional Studies (DUW), accreditation mentor to Sustainability Management School (SUMAS), Gland, Switzerland. During Dec. 12-15, 2019, he was invited by Monash University, Australia, to lead a track in Spirituality in Management in the 16th International Conference in Business Management. He has served as the President (2016-2018), (2022-present), and as a distinguished Patron (2019-2021) for the International Chamber for Service Industry (ICSI).

Recognized as a strategic thinker for his pioneering contributions to the field of transformational leadership, workplace spirituality, workplace well-being, sustainability, and fulfillment in personal and professional arena, Professor Dhiman is a sought after Keynote speaker at regional, national, and international conferences such as the prestigious TEDx Conference @ College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. Since then, he has led several major national and international conferences as co-organizer and/or as track chair.

Recipient of several national and international academic and professional honors and awards in teaching, scholarship, and service, Professor Dhiman was awarded the Woodbury University Ambassador of the Year Award in 2015 and 2017 and MBA Professor of the Year Award in 2015; Scholarly and Creative Writing Award, 2019; Most Valuable MBA Professor Award, 2018; Most Inspirational and Most Charismatic MBA Teacher Award 2012, 2013/2014/2018; the Steve Allen Excellence in Education Award in 2006, and the prestigious ACBSP International Teacher of the Year Award in 2004. Most recently, he chaired a symposium at the Academy of Management that received the “2019 Best Symposium Proposal and Showcase Symposium” Award by the MSR Division.

Professor Dhiman’s scholarly accomplishments include over 70 professional conference presentations, over 150 invitations to be a keynote speaker, over 100 online webinars, participation in plenary sessions, conference track chair sessions, leading symposiums and webinars, and scores of distinguished guest lectures and creative workshops―nationally and internationally. He has published over 65 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.  As author, translator, editor, co-author, co-editor of over 40 management, leadership, spirituality, sustainability and accounting-related books and research monographs, his most recent books include: Leadership after COVID-19: Working Together toward a Sustainable Future (2022―Springer, with Marques).  New Horizons in Management, Leadership and Sustainability (2021― Springer, with Samaratunge); Bhagavad Gītā and Leadership: A Catalyst for Organizational Transformation (2019―Palgrave Macmillan); Managing by the Bhagavad Gītā: Timeless Lessons for Today’s Managers (2018―Springer; with Amar); Holistic Leadership (Palgrave 2017), Gandhi and Leadership (Palgrave 2015), Seven Habits of Highly Fulfilled People (2012); and co-editing and co-authoring, with Marques, Spirituality and Sustainability (Springer 2016), Leadership Today (Springer, 2016), Engaged Leadership (Springer, 2018),  New Horizons in Positive Leadership and Change (Springer, 2020), and Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility (Springer, 2020).  He has also translated several Indian spiritual classics into English, including the Sahaja Gītā.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of seven multi-author Major Reference Works: Springer Handbook of Engaged Sustainability (2018―Springer International, Switzerland) and Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment (2018―Palgrave Macmillan, USA); Routledge Companion to Mindfulness at Work (2020);  Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Wellbeing (2021―Palgrave Macmillan); Routledge Companion to Leadership and Change (2022―Routledge, UK); The Palgrave Handbook of Servant Leadership (2023―Palgrave Macmillan, USA; with Roberts); The Springer Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership (2023―Springer International, Switzerland; with Marques, Schmieder-Ramirez, and Malakyan).

Additionally, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment; Routledge Frontiers in Sustainable Business; the General Editor of a series entitled Routledge Frontiers in Sustainable Business Practice (the Series); and co-editor of Springer Series in Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership.

Some of his forthcoming titles include Leading without Power: A Model of Highly Fulfilled Leaders (2022―Palgrave Macmillan); Conscious Consumption: Healthy, Humane and Sustainable Living (2022―Routledge, UK); Wise Leadership for Turbulent Times (2022―Routledge, UK); and Creative Leadershift: Discover. Innovate. Enact. (2022―Routledge, with Chandra Handa). He has published research with his colleagues in Journal of Values-Based Leadership, Organization Development Journal, Journal of Management Development, Journal of Social Change, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, and Performance Improvement.

Professor Dhiman has served as Accreditation Consultant, Evaluator, and Site Visit Team Leader for the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) for more than 25 universities in America, Canada, Europe, and Asia. He is the Founder-Director of Forever Fulfilled, a Los Angeles-based Well-being Consultancy that focuses on workplace wellness, workplace spirituality, and self-leadership.

Joan F. Marques Ph.D., Ed.D., MBA, Scholar | Author | Edupreneur | Public Speaker | Dean | Professor

Joan Marques has reinvented herself from a successful media and social entrepreneur in Suriname, South America, to an innovative “edupreneur” (educational entrepreneur) in California, USA. Her entrepreneurial career spans over four decades, and includes the creation and successful management of companies in Public Relations and Advertising, Import and Export, Real Estate, Media Productions, and a Non-Profit, focused on women’s advancement. In the US, she has been a co-founder of the Business Renaissance Institute, and the Academy of Spirituality and Professional Excellence (ASPEX). 

Based on her impressive career and ongoing influence, Dr. Marques was awarded the highest state decoration of her home country, Suriname: Commander (Commandeur) in the Honorary Order of the Yellow Star, in 2015. That same year, she was also awarded the Dr. Nelle Becker-Slaton Pathfinder Award from the Association of Pan-African Doctoral Scholars in Los Angeles, for her exemplary and groundbreaking professional performance. In 2019, she was awarded the Kankantrie Lifetime Achievement Award for her accomplishments in Education from the Suriname American Network Inc. in Miami, FL. In 2016, she was granted the Faculty Scholarly-Creative Award as well as the Faculty Ambassador Award, both awarded by Woodbury University’s Faculty Association.

Dr. Marques is a frequent speaker and presenter at academic and professional venues. In 2016, she gave a TEDx-Talk at College of the Canyons in California, titled “An Ancient Path Towards a Better Future,” in which she analyzed the Noble Eightfold Path, one of the foundational Buddhist practices, within the realm of contemporary business performance. In recent years she has conducted presentations and workshops on multiple forums, such as at the Management, Spirituality and Religion research colloquia at the Academy of Management Annual Meetings in2018 and 2019 on Phenomenology as a Qualitative Research Method; a keynote address titled “Ethical Leadership: How Morals Influence Your Communication” at the Center for Communication and Public Relations, in Paramaribo, Suriname, and an interactive workshop with thought leaders and development coaches at the Knowledge and Expertise Center Suriname,  titled “On Leadership, Ethics and Social Responsibility”. In 2019 and 2020 she also represented her home country Suriname on the annual CALIFEST literary festival in Los Angeles, where she conducted workshops on successful publishing. In 2016, she presented at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College, on female leadership during the annual Women and Leadership Alliance (WLA) conference, resulting in the collective work, “Women’s Leadership Journeys: Stories, Research and Novel Perspectives” (Routledge, 2019) in which she contributed the chapter, “Courage: Mapping the Leadership Journey”. Dr. Marques further conducts regular presentations at the Academy of Management, and at business venues in Los Angeles as well as for professional audiences in Miami and Suriname.

Joan’s research interests pertain to Awakened Leadership, Buddhist Psychology in Management, and Workplace Spirituality. Her works have been widely published and cited in both academic and popular venues. She has written more than 150 scholarly articles, which were published in prestigious scholarly journals such as The Journal of Business Ethics, Business and Society, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, The International Journal of Management Education, Journal of Communication Management, Journal of Management Development, Organization Development Journal, and Human Resource Development Quarterly. Dr. Marques has (co)authored and (co)edited more than 35 books, among which, Innovative Leadership in Times of Compelling Changes (Springer, 2022); Exploring Gender atWork (Palgrave, 2021),  New Horizons in Positive Leadership and Change (Springer, 2020), and Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility (Springer, 2020). “The Routledge Companion to Happiness at Work” (2020); “The Routledge Companion to Inclusive Leadership” (2020), “Lead with Heart in Mind” (Springer, 2019), “The Routledge Companion to Management and Workplace Spirituality”, “Engaged Leadership: Transforming through Future-Oriented Design” (with Satinder Dhiman – Springer, 2018); “Ethical Leadership, Progress with a Moral Compass” (Routledge, 2017); “Leadership, Finding Balance Between Acceptance and Ambition” (Routledge, 2016); “Leadership Today: Practices for Personal and Professional Performance” (with Satinder Dhiman - Springer, 2016); “Business and Buddhism” (Routledge, 2015); and “Leadership and Mindful Behavior: Action, Wakefulness, and Business” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).

Joan currently serves as Dean at Woodbury University’s School of Business,in Burbank, California, where she works on infusing and nurturing the concept of “Business with a Conscience” into internal and external stakeholders. She is also a Full Professor of Management and teaches business courses related to Leadership, Ethics, Creativity, Social Entrepreneurship, and Organizational Behavior in graduate and undergraduate programs.

Joan holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences (focus: Buddhist Psychology in Management) from Tilburg University’s Oldendorff Graduate School; and an Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership (focus: Workplace Spirituality) from Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology. She also holds an M.B.A. from Woodbury University and a B.Sc. in Business Economics from MOC, Suriname. Additionally, she has completed post-doctoral work at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business.

Dr. Marques is a member of the executive committee of the Management, Spirituality and Religion interest group of the Academy of Management, where she currently serves on the Leadership Track.

June Schmieder-Ramirez Author, Interim Associate Dean, Chair, Ph.D. in Global Leadership 

Ph.D. Stanford University 

M.A. Stanford University, Psychology 

MBA St. Mary’s College Moraga 

Life Teaching Credential State of California 

Life Administrative Credential State of California

Dr. Schmieder-Ramirez is the interim associate dean for the Education Division of Pepperdine University. Her research centers on focusing on underfunded universities and pairing these universities to collaborating models serving industry, and government as well as other academic entities.

Her interdisciplinary research agenda includes intercultural competency, faith-based studies, strengthening students for lives and belonging, and mindfulness. Professor Schmieder holds a PhD from Stanford University with a M.A. psychology minor. She also holds an MBA fromSt. Mary's College.

Dr. Schmieder-Ramirez shares her research with other universities was recently invited to speak at King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia.  She has published in peer-reviewed journals including Academy of Management Journal, Scholar and Educator, and Journal of Global Leadership.

She is the President of the non-profit International Center for Global Leadership which holds its annual conference every June and has built a technology center in Placencia Belize for the benefit in the country as well as in the United States. She is the editor of the Journal of Global Leadership and Change.

Dr. Schmieder-Ramirez was given the Howard A. White Teaching Excellence Award in 2015. Other publications include coedited or written as one author: The SPELIT Power Matrix: Untangling the Organizational Environment with the SPELIT Tool, the three-textbook series: School Law: A California Perspective, School Personnel: A California Perspective, and School Finance: A California Perspective.

Petros G. Malakyan Ph.D., MA-Theo., MA-ICS, Scholar | Author | Professor | Global Leadership Development | Corporate Trainer | Mentor

Petros G. Malakyan, is Professor of Organizational Leadership in the School of Informatics, Humanities and Social Sciences at Robert Morris University (RMU) in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Professor Malakyan has served as Department Head of Communication and Organizational Leadership, Acting Director of the Ph.D. Information Systems and Communications program, and Department Head of Organizational Leadership at RMU from 2016 to 2021.

Originally from Armenia, Petros immigrated to the United States with his family in 1990. From 1992 to 1998 he engaged in graduate and postgraduate studies in the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California and earned two masters degrees in intercultural studies and theology and a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies with Leadership concentration.

Prior to coming to Robert Morris University, Malakyan served as Professor and Chair of Undergraduate Leadership Studies at Indiana Wesleyan University (2010-2015), Associate Professor and Program Director of Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership Program at Azusa Pacific University (2008-2010); Leadership Coach, Mentor, and Educator at National Leadership Institute in Yerevan, Armenia (2002-2008), and Docent at Yerevan State University in Yerevan, Armenia (1999-2004).

Malakyan has created and taught more than a dozen leadership courses (blended, online, and traditional face-to-face) in Armenia, England, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine, and the United States (California, Hawaii, Indiana, and Pennsylvania). His expertise and research interests are in the areas of integrative and interdisciplinary studies of leadership and organizational theories; leadership development; spirituality ofleadership; intercultural leadership; anthropology of leadership; leadership and followership; leader-follower identities; international higher education; curriculum design and development; and program assessment.

Malakyan has published articles in scholarly journals such as Journal of Leadership Studies, Journal of Organizational Psychology, International Journal of Doctoral Studies, Journal of Leadership, Accountability, and Ethics, International Journal of Social Science Research, and book chapters with global publishers such as IntechOpen, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, and Routledge. Some of his publications include: “Followership in Leadership Studies” (Journal of Leadership Studies, 2014); “Envisioning future of leadership and organizations” (Journal of Leadership Studies, 2019); “Authentic Self: Personal Identity Conceptualizations for Leaders and Followers” (Journal of Organizational Psychology, 2019); “International Curriculum and Conceptual Approaches to Doctoral Programs in Leadership Studies” (International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 2019); “Digital Leader-Followership for the Digital Age” (IntechOpen, 2019); “Diverse Personalities, Egos, Roles, and Relations: Toward Workplace Wellbeing” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); “Overcoming the Blind Spot of Positive Leadership” (Springer, 2020); and the upcoming chapter “Mindful Leadership-Followership, Co-flow, and Co-creativity” (Routledge, 2020).

Malakyan’s recent research interests are in the areas of doctoral education, global leadership–followership, digital leadership, cybersecurity leadership, and leader-follower dynamics in organizations across cultures.