HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1621381
This article is part of the Research TopicCatalyzing Public Health Leadership Research, Practice, Education, and TrainingView all 16 articles
Public Health Leadership: A Framework Inspired by Timeless Lessons from 500 Years of the Jesuit Tradition
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
- 2Lone Mountain Global LLP, Auburndale, United States
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The complex and dynamic nature of public health challenges calls for public health leaders who are able to respond with agility, insight, and integrity. In addition to technical expertise and skills, effective public health leadership requires ethical decision-making, collaborative partnerships, and a commitment to justice. Traditional leadership models often fall short in capturing the population-based aspects of public health and integrating a spiritual approach. This conceptual paper examines Jesuit principles and practices and how they can be applied to public health practice and leadership. The proposed framework outlines ten leadership principles: inclusive leadership, service to others, care for the whole person (cura personalis), striving for the greater good (magis), self-awareness, discernment in decision-making, cross-sectoral and community partnerships, global citizenship, lifelong learning and growth, and adaptability and innovation. This Jesuit-inspired framework offers a spiritual and values-based approach to cultivating compassionate, resilient, and effective public health leaders. It can be applied in academic and workplace settings to strengthen leadership training and guide strategic decision-making. By adopting and adapting Jesuit principles, public health leadership can be conceptualized as an inclusive, mission-driven practice committed to health equity and social justice.
Keywords: Jesuit tradition, Public health leadership, Health Equity (MeSH), Global citizenship, spiritual leadership, Cross-sectoral partnerships, Community Engagement, inclusive leadership
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chyu, Grinshteyn, Vian and Godfrey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Laura Chyu, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
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