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This book offers a clear process for managers, professionals, and future leaders to help discover their personal meaning in life and apply it to their work. The author uses research outcomes and theories to refute the contemporary philosophy that stresses following an individual's passion alone when choosing a particular job or career. Instead, she recommends employing a personal meaning-oriented approach to life and work, and then becoming passionate about one's work organically.
The book also highlights the positive outcomes to organizations and societies when individuals engage with finding meaning in work, focusing on physical and emotional health and satisfaction. The author provides numerous examples of leaders who have aligned their personal meaning and organizational mission, also known as "meaning-mission fit," and the relationship of this alignment to their emotional well-being. Together, the research, theory, and evidence in this book equip leaders and managers with an inspiring model to find their own meaning-mission fit, as well as create opportunities for the employees to do the same.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. What is Meaning-Mission Fit?- Chapter 3. The Experience of Meaning-Mission Fit.- Chapter 4. The Benefits of Meaning-Mission Fit.- Chapter 5. The Experience of Mis-Fit.- Chapter 6. The Process of Attaining Meaning-Mission Fit.- Chapter 7. The Meaning Enactment Process.- Chapter 8. Conclusion.
About the author
Michelle French-Holloway is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Business Administration at Mount Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles. She teaches courses in management, leadership, and organizational behavior. Dr. French-Holloway's professional experience includes over twenty years in strategic marketing consulting for clients in the entertainment and technology industries and in the non-profit space, public relations and sales in the fashion industry, and fund development in the non-profit sector. Her research interests include leadership, meaning and calling in work, and effectiveness in faith-based organizations. Recently, Dr. French-Holloway published the chapter Teaching Creativity and Spiritual Meaning Using Insights from Neurobiology in
The Handbook of Personal and Organizational Transformation. She is a Past Chair of the Management, Spirituality and Religion Interest Group of the Academy of Management and Immediate Past President of the Management Faculty of Color Association. She is a frequent speaker for conferences such as the International Association of Management, Spirituality and Religion Conference; the International Critical Management Conference; and the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference. She recently served as a Research Fellow with the Center for Church Management at the Villanova School of Business. Dr. French-Holloway lives in Southern California with her husband Mark and their growing aquatic turtle.
