Book Review: Quantum Leadership by Frederick Chavalit Tsao & Chris Laszlo

In a previous blog post, I wrote on the challenges of leading and maintaining a healthy community biofield that inspires creativity and shared sense of purpose. It was an article with more questions than answers on how we can all embody a more compassionate and collaborative approach to leadership in today’s global environment. Fortunately, Frederick Chavalit Tsao and Chris Laszlo are also passionate about this topic, and have done extensive research on the pursuit and practice of conscious business leadership in their book Quantum Leadership; New Consciousness in Business.

Their research supports the idea that consciousness is critical if we’re to realize our potential for thriving and serving the greater good. I couldn’t agree more. This book offers ongoing inspiration and practices to become “stewards who create prosperity rather than only short-term profit.” In today’s current climate, this book serves as a valuable resource in how we can all embody our purposeful leadership potential as individuals or within businesses of all sectors.

Tsao is no stranger to leading conscious business communities. The chairman of IMC Pan Asia Alliance and Founder and CEO of Octave Institute in Singapore, he promotes a new leadership model that offers those working in for-profit enterprises a powerful guide to a more holistic, life-centered way of being. Chris Laszlo, professor of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University, offers his valuable insight as co-author.

A Few Quotes that Stood Out While Reading Quantum Leadership

• “The fundamental purpose of economic activity has to be to serve human well-being.”
  
  
• “A resource without a social purpose is not wealth. Businesses have to add wider social value as they create enterprise value, through which they contribute to serving the needs of society.”
  
  
• “To understand business, one has to start with its purpose.”
  
  
• “What I find important today is not vision especially - vision is a recurring theme in Western management approaches - but rather directionality and evolution. The “how to do it” that I promote involves meeting our daily challenges through a continual process of reenvisioning the future. It is important to avoid fixed projections of the future. I am wary of definitive answers to complex problems. I am more likely to address such problems obliquely with reference to scientific principles, perennial spiritual insights, and social trends that suggest the direction in which solutions might be found.”
  
  
• “The key task of leadership is to organize and deploy people and resources to respond to change. Management must embrace entrepreneurship and innovation. Failure to innovate is the most important reason for the decline of an organization…”
  
  
• “...consciousness, the mother of all capital.”
  
  
• “If I had to pick one fundamental characteristic for leadership, I would say it is humility. With humility, you are willing to change yourself, to learn, and to see the environment in a mindful manner. This is the basis of the self-cultivation at the heart of the evolutionary journey.”

A Practical Guide for Evolving Leaders

What I enjoyed about this book, besides the fantastic title, were the practical recommendations for mindful, personal and business practices. Tsao and Laszlo don’t leave the reader hanging with a single, personal story of success or solely depend on spiritual philosophy. They get serious about actionable steps to embody quantum leadership.

The research they’ve done is no small undertaking, and it’s great to see concepts on quantum physics, mindfulness and business practices defined and explained within an easy to follow context and philosophical structure. For anyone interested in getting serious about co-creating a more purposeful and compassionate global community, I highly recommend giving Quantum Leadership a read.