Abstract

Humanistic leadership refers to “focusing on creating human and organisational economic value in harmony”. Of the many management cases in leadership research literature, the transformation of Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, into a humanistic leader is one worth further exploration not only because of his personal evolution as a leader, but in understanding the role of faith, family, and organisational culture to which his leadership is deeply rooted. One particularly interesting aspect about Bob Chapman is his commitment to the Christian faith from which his foundational understanding of humanistic leadership practices emerged. Bob attributes his sudden inspiration to adopt HM characteristics, not to a single individual or event, but rather to a series of “revelations from God”. Along with the personal experiences shared from Bob in his book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring For Your People Like Family, in addition to other online materials, the aim of this case study will be to investigate literature on religion and how people are inspired to become better leaders because of religious teachings. Specifically, within this paper, we will explore how Christianity influences leaders within firms. This case study provides a qualitative analysis of faith, family, firm, and leadership (Sect. 2) to understand how religion inspires leaders to apply Christian teachings in their organisations. The following section explores how faith-infused humanistic leadership can be expanded to issues surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) (Sect. 3), followed by the Conclusion (Sect. 4).