Take the Lead

Teresa J. Rothausen, PhD, serves as academic executive director for the Center for Leadership Formation (CLF) and professor of leadership at Albers School of Business and Economics.

With nearly three decades of experience as a member of professional and academic business organizations, Dr. Rothausen has brought a new perspective and appreciation for all Seattle University has to offer since joining Seattle University in 2020.

“I think it is safe to say that it is rare, if not unique, to find a social impact-oriented leadership program within a business school,” she says. “I truly believe it is a program that other business schools need to emulate. Too often, the power of business is used to forward the interests of the already rich and powerful, but it has the potential to instead powerfully transform society toward the goods that are truly good and services that truly serve.”

Dr. Rothausen has been working to “ensure our powerful programs remain healthy and robust, while also leading a process to explore new ways to deliver our powerful experiences of transformation.”

She’s looking for support from the SU community and its corporate partners in Seattle “to help us innovate new ways of delivering aspects of the important work happening in CLF to form leaders with a reignited joy in their work … oriented toward forming business leaders who take seriously the civic responsibility of business to the common good.”

As a faculty member, “… the most rewarding thing for me is to witness the increasing sense of freedom and hope arising in leaders as they learn more deeply about themselves and their possibilities for leadership impact in the world ...,” says Rothausen.

“Meaning-Based Job-Related Well-being: Exploring a Meaningful Work Conceptualization of Job Satisfaction,” an article she wrote along with a colleague, was recognized as one of 12 “most notable” contributions by the editorial board of the Journal of Business and Psychology in 2019. Considering that body of research during these times of crises, Rothausen notes that new opportunities can emerge.

“…As leaders, we are able to give to others in a way that is even more meaningful because it’s needed more than ever. In our executive classrooms, we see leaders considering their legacy in a post-pandemic, George Floyd and war-torn world. What work, even within your current job, is most meaningful and life affirming for you and contributes to answering the big questions of our times? What contributes most to the common good and how can you get more of that in your role?”