Alper Utku

I was talking with a friend, Stuart Turnbull, who is particularly interested in love in organizations, and we realized that the word ‘courage’ has its root in ‘heart’. ‘Cour’ = ‘coeur’ (’heart’ in French). That explains why Courage seems to sit at the core of Open Heart Leadership, as it is about acting from the heart.

I have been working with Alper Utku, who runs the Middle East Management Centre, and who is developing a definition for the form of leadership we need today. Alper calls it Open Heart Leadership. We've put together his draft manifesto to define this form of leadership - I just help him put it into English and we co-create a little bit to sharpen definitions, but the thinking and practice is Alper's.