The European SPES, the (ILSE), and the Damien Center organized the Annual European SPES Conference entitled “The Will to Serve: Inspiring Models of Servant Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship” in May 24–26, 2018 in Leuven, Belgium.
Inspiring social and economic leaders such as Father Damien (1840–1889), the spiritual patron for leprosy and outcasts, are able to transform a conflictual human settlement into a collaborative and caring human community. Can we induce from their “way of doing things” a model of civic entrepreneurship and leadership that can inspire people in profit, non-profit, and public organizations? To what extent is the “will to serve” compatible with the will to maximize profit or the will to gain economic, political, or religious power? Do different spiritual traditions create different models and examples of servant leadership?
The product of the conference is the book on “Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve: Spiritual Foundations and Business Applications” published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019.