Abstract
The nearly 500-year-old Jesuit order faces a real-world problem in their significant decline in membership over the recent decades, challenging their capacity to directly lead their apostolates and educate and serve their current and life-long students and followers. The Jesuits must turn to Jesuit inspired lay women and men, not only to lead their schools and affiliated organizations and programs, but to cultivate and inspire Jesuit influenced leaders across organizations and programs around the world. The central research question of this qualitative descriptive study was, “What are participant perceptions of Jesuit influences on their executive leadership?” The purpose was to describe Jesuit influences on the leadership of executives in the US with experience of varied Jesuit organizations, programs, and initiatives. Purposive, homogenous sampling and a thematic approach were utilized in the recruitment, selection and analysis of interview data from 20 participants, non-Jesuit women and men executive leaders. Five themes emerged from the data analysis. The themes include: Impactful leadership and institutions; Ignatian spirituality; magis and mission; for and with others; and voices of women. The results of this study, and the three proposed solutions and implementation plans, have potential to guide current and future Jesuit influenced executive leaders.