How to Be a CEO: Reading Dorothy Day’s Diaries in a Jesuit School of Management

One step in renewing business curricula aligned with the “Inspirational Paradigm for Jesuit Business Education” involves returning to the foundation of Jesuit education in the humanities and finding resources in the liberal arts that animate the Inspirational Paradigm. This paper offers an example of that technique by reflecting on the wisdom found in the diaries of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker. I have repackaged it for my MBA students by modifying a concept from a New York Times column that imparts advice in the form of brief anecdotes and aphorisms offered by corporate leaders. “How to Be a CEO” asks managers to share the life advice they wish they had given
or received along their career trajectories. What follows is a list of twelve principles retrieved from her diaries as advice CEOs could offer and receive. Dorothy Day’s wisdom applies to not just how students will manage their careers, but how they will manage their lives.