Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 12:12am
Anita Roddick: Soulful executive
Column: Executive Soul
"If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito," one of Anita Roddick's favorite sayings, inspired her work every day. While Anita Roddick may have started out as a mosquito stinging big business while it slept, she died this week as a force to be reckoned with. She left a rich legacy of bringing spiritual values into everyday work life, at The Body Shop she founded as well as throughout the world through executives and employees she influenced.
In all that she did, Anita Roddick focused on something more than the bottom line. From her first Body Shop, a tiny store in Brighton, England, that she set up in 1976 for her family's survival, to her business which she sold for millions in 2006 (and then immediately plowed the millions into a charitable foundation), Roddick focused on her vision and values. She also inspired others to soulful leadership by doing such things as speaking widely and conceiving of a book on faith-based activism, which appeared as "Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits" in 2003, written by Brooke Shelby Biggs.
Roddick kept mission at the fore of The Body Shop. She and her husband, Gordon (who joined her in running the company soon after she started it), articulated their mission clearly:
To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.
To creatively balance the financial and human needs of our stakeholders: employees, customers, franchisees, suppliers and shareholders.
To courageously ensure that our business is ecologically sustainable, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future.
To meaningfully contribute to local, national and international communities in which we trade, by adopting a code of conduct which ensures care, honesty, fairness and respect.
They also committed themselves to developing their products without animal testing.
One of Anita Roddick's initiatives at The Body Shop was to focus on self-esteem for women. Despising the way the cosmetics industry played on women's insecurities, she focused on building self-esteem. In her advertising and product development, Roddick took a different approach. She helped women focus on valuing and caring for both their bodies and their souls. In addition, as part of the self-esteem initiative, she championed stopping violence against women, using her shops to raise awareness of the issue and to link women to resources that could help them stop the cycle of violence.
Through these and many other initiatives, Anita Roddick demonstrated to the world that capitalism could have a soul. Through the phenomenal growth of The Body Shop, she put forth a vision of what business could be. Because of Anita Roddick, the world of business has been stung repeatedly by a mosquito, and has been awakened to greater possibilities.
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Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," works with leaders in business, healthcare, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. © Copyright 2007 by Margaret Benefiel.
In all that she did, Anita Roddick focused on something more than the bottom line. From her first Body Shop, a tiny store in Brighton, England, that she set up in 1976 for her family's survival, to her business which she sold for millions in 2006 (and then immediately plowed the millions into a charitable foundation), Roddick focused on her vision and values. She also inspired others to soulful leadership by doing such things as speaking widely and conceiving of a book on faith-based activism, which appeared as "Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits" in 2003, written by Brooke Shelby Biggs.
Roddick kept mission at the fore of The Body Shop. She and her husband, Gordon (who joined her in running the company soon after she started it), articulated their mission clearly:
To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.
To creatively balance the financial and human needs of our stakeholders: employees, customers, franchisees, suppliers and shareholders.
To courageously ensure that our business is ecologically sustainable, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future.
To meaningfully contribute to local, national and international communities in which we trade, by adopting a code of conduct which ensures care, honesty, fairness and respect.
They also committed themselves to developing their products without animal testing.
One of Anita Roddick's initiatives at The Body Shop was to focus on self-esteem for women. Despising the way the cosmetics industry played on women's insecurities, she focused on building self-esteem. In her advertising and product development, Roddick took a different approach. She helped women focus on valuing and caring for both their bodies and their souls. In addition, as part of the self-esteem initiative, she championed stopping violence against women, using her shops to raise awareness of the issue and to link women to resources that could help them stop the cycle of violence.
Through these and many other initiatives, Anita Roddick demonstrated to the world that capitalism could have a soul. Through the phenomenal growth of The Body Shop, she put forth a vision of what business could be. Because of Anita Roddick, the world of business has been stung repeatedly by a mosquito, and has been awakened to greater possibilities.
— — —
Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," works with leaders in business, healthcare, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. © Copyright 2007 by Margaret Benefiel.