You Have a Job to Do. It Won’t Be Easy in Our AI-Enabled VUCA World.
Balancing the demands of diverse groups of stakeholders is more complex than ever. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is already shifting the workplace landscape because it enables “the simulation or approximation of human intelligence in machines.” AI empowers computers to self-learn,...
Purposefully Leading in AI & Cybersecurity
As AI and Cybersecurity advance, understanding the various contexts of your company is critical even before moving ahead with any plan. Knowing context, with all its subtleties and nuances, will give you the right perspective to help shape your corporate approach to this quickly emerging...
Leadership and Character
At the Bonar Institute, we believe that the work of a purposeful leader, in part, is to: create a compelling vision be inclusive be accountable for yourself and for others be a good listener Of course, the underpinning of these must be good intentions, values, skills, and self-management. However,...
Purposefully Led Responsible AI Achieves Long-Term Prosperity
John Barker | September 14, 2023 The Bonar Institute for Purposeful Leadership promotes this proposition: “Purposeful leadership is an ethical choice that principled leaders make to achieve something greater than themselves and the companies they lead.” Responsible AI, sometimes referred to...
How Can Psychometric Assessments Support the Development of Purposeful Leaders?
In a rapidly changing and complex world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), effective leadership is more crucial than ever. It is becoming increasingly clear that the type of leaders needed to meet new challenges like AI, climate change, or new regulatory...
Strategic Intent and Purposeful Leadership
The business environment is rapidly changing, driven by increasingly fast-paced learning and technological demands. Digitalization has brought both opportunities and threats through new business models, collaboration, and automation of routine tasks. As a result, leaders are faced with the...
Surviving or Thriving? Prospering Through Purpose
We originally published this on August 27, 2017. It remains relevant today. Today's volatile and complex global economy creates significant corporate risks that executives must effectively manage and resolve. The most prominent risks are financial and cyber threats. Others, though, such as...
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: How Egalitarianism is Better for Human Connection
Equitable transfers of acceptance, understanding (regardless of agreement), and validation are scarce and largely neglected as essential. What is the nemesis of full acceptance and inclusion? Is it ego? Is it fear? Is it discomfort? Some, or in part, driven by lack of conformity? Adam...
Managing Chaordic Organizations Mindfully with Purposeful Leadership
“An organization’s success has enormously more to do with clarity of shared purpose, common principles and strength of belief in them, than with assets, expertise, operating ability, or management competence,” says Dee Hock, the founder of the VISA credit card for Bank of America. To Hock, this...
What’s your (impactful) story?
The merit of value stories cannot be understated. Impactful value stories have a powerful influence on people’s decisions and behaviours. As an old friend put it: “Facts tell, but stories sell!” How? Although demonstrating the competitive benefits of a product or service is indeed...
Remember You Are Mortal
Ancient Rome celebrated military success with civil and religious ceremonies called “Triumphs.” During these celebrations, the conquering general, wearing special red garments, paraded through the city. Behind him were carried the spoils of the conquest, captives from the war, and the...
Bonar Institute: Carpe Diem, Carpe Futurum
The pace and scope of change are unprecedented in human history.The nature of business, of work, is changing radically. Established in Ottawa, Canada, the Bonar Institute for Purposeful Leadership Inc. is a dynamic and innovative advisory firm that enables executives to excel in managing...
Purposeful Directors, Purposeful Board
Governance is too often focused on compliance, but good governance results from a board's ability to make the best decisions possible on behalf of the organization and its stakeholders, given the best information available. Boards do not run the company, but they set the tone and should be helping...
The Bonar Institute for Purposeful Leadership Inc. Signs Letter of Intent to Partner with White Label Advisors Inc.
The Bonar Institute is delighted to announce that James de Gaspé Bonar, Ph.D., CEC, PCC, CEO of The Bonar Institute for Purposeful Leadership Inc, and Christine Wzorek, SPHR, CEO of White Label Advisors Inc., have signed a Letter of Intent to create a formal partnership between the two companies...
The Purpose and Role of Advisory Boards & Why the Bonar Institute Has Created One
The purpose of an advisory board is to help a business gain new insights and receive excellent advice from experts, typically from different fields. An advisory board is not a decision-making body. Rather, its role is to serve as a forum for exploring new corporate opportunities by stimulating...
Road to Clarity
Let me invite you to take a short break in your busy day to embark on your personal road to Clarity. Most people will carve out time for a coaching session with their heads full of various problems, concerns, and gigantic “to-do” lists. Yet they lack the clarity needed to focus on what matters. If...
Anticipant Leaders & Anticipant Organizations Are Better Positioned for Innovation
Two recent Bonar Institute Webinars explored themes in purposeful leadership. Major General (Retired David Fraser, a Bonar Institute colleague, discussed in a June, 2022 webinar, Leadership in Uncertain Times – Developing Resilience, the need for anticipant leadership to proactively transform...
Stress gets in the way of Good Leadership
Awareness of stress and how it manifests in the mind and body is crucial for organizational leaders. Ignoring it can lead to diminishing returns both mentally and physically. Stressed, leaders can lose mental focus and become ill-tempered leading to tension in the organization. It can spiral out...
New Program: Elevate your leaders and gain the competitive advantage with Foundational Purposeful Leadership Development
It’s one thing to supervise a group of people. It’s another to lead a high-performing team. Are your leaders in the first category, the second category, or somewhere in between? As baseball legend Babe Ruth put it, “You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they...
Leading Human Beings, Not Human Doings
So much focus in business goes to action, specifically swift and decisive action. Think about common business phraseology such as “going the extra mile”, “hitting the ground running”, “playing hardball”, “going above and beyond”, or “stepping up to the plate”. Each carries a sense of intensity...