Research Focus

The Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based leadership focuses on three core elements:

1. Values:
   The Centre believes that values must underpin a new approach to business rather than financial concerns alone. This requires the evolution of a philosophy of resilient business, encompassing awareness and empathy that translates into new or improved products and services providing consumers with what they really need, as opposed to tirelessly convincing them of what they should want. The centre challenges business to ask itself the question: If your business went bankrupt or your organisation closed down tomorrow, what would be missing from society? If the answer is nothing then they probably are not adding the value that they could and should be.
 
2. Personal development and leadership:
   Values-Based leadership is not a new concept, but it needs to become far more mainstream than it is at present. The challenge in achieving this is to forgo the easy-to-fall-back-on, deep-rooted assumptions ingrained in management education. The requirement of new behaviour and a different way of being is always a challenge. As difficult as this may be, it must become the cornerstone of the change so urgently needed in business.
 
3. Business model innovation for sustainable performance:
   The motivation of any entrepreneur is to deliver something novel to the market that clients need and want: in fact, that delivers something that adds value. The Centre argues that in a more holistic paradigm, the role of the manager and leader should be to focus on innovation as a driver for continuous change. Research here asks what do organisations need to do in order to be always as close as possible to their clients, and delivering value to them? Managers and leaders have to be alert to continuous monitoring improvement, new ideas, new business models, new insights.  It is kind of a "being": being resilient, alert, aware, empathetic, and translating that without prejudice into new products and services, or improved products and services.