The heart of good leadership is a respect in action that assists leaders to take another look (re-spect from the Latin respectare to re-look) at their employees. An important principle to this relooking is subsidiarity. This principle is not simply a right to autonomy, but rather the recognition of a gift to be given, especially by the employee.

This CHA webinar highlights important concepts from the book Respect in Action: Applying Subsidiarity in Business by Michael Naughton, Jeanne Buckeye, Ken Goodpaster and T. Dean Maines, all of the University of St. Thomas. The book is addressed to business leaders committed to implementing sustainable organizational changes consistent with the key principles of Catholic Social Thought. It is directed to managers whose decisions and purposes influence not only the economy, but the lives of men and women around the world who work for them. Subsidiarity invites organizations to pursue the common good through practices that take the integral development of the human person at least as seriously as economic prosperity.