For the lower bird, the journey to the higher bird holds yet another possibility: the ability to fly directly to the trunk near where the higher bird rests. In the case of business, we have considered three different ways in which Beingful leaders lead by example: as an Inclusive materialist, as a Humanist, and as a Steward. But these ways can also be integrated within the same person, much like the tree trunk integrates all the tree’s branches. Also, this integration often spans a long portion of one’s life, much like the tree trunk spans the tree’s life.

The key to such integration is a concept that shares the same meaning: integrity. The two are derived from the Greek words integras and integritas, which mean “making something whole and undivided again.” In the same way that a tree trunk gives greater access to the whole tree, integrity enables leaders to acquire a larger knowledge of business as a whole, which is wisdom.

Integrity and wisdom together engender trust and the ability to inspire others through the power of personal example. A Beingful leader then becomes a living sage because of his or her greater knowledge of the whole and ability to manifest it in all aspects of life. In essence, a business sage is one who shows integrity and wisdom across all the connections of business to its larger context, thereby coming closer to Being, or knowledge of the whole. Here, I describe three sages of business who have demonstrated such integrity in the past:

1. Paul Polman:

Paul Polman, the Dutch-born former CEO of Unilever, the giant consumer goods company, once wanted to become a priest. He is a leader sage who has set Unilever on a path to sustainable business that is exemplary. In doing so, he has taken risks that few CEOs are willing to take. The 2007–8 financial meltdown was a turning point in Polman’s thinking, as was his realisation of the global crises we are facing with regard to nature. To him, this is a “crisis of ethics” that compels leaders like him to reimagine capitalism and consider other ways of doing business.
One of Polman’s first acts as CEO of Unilever in 2009 was to get rid of quarterly reporting, which was the norm among European firms but was not required under the law. By doing so, he also got rid of the need to give quarterly earnings guidance to investors. While US public companies are required by law to report quarterly earnings, they are not required to provide quarterly earnings guidance to investors. As we saw earlier, this is nevertheless an entrenched business practice that drives short term decisions by corporate leaders.
In the four years since Polman took over as CEO, Unilever’s financial performance had been outstanding: its share price increased by 55 percent, its revenues grew by 25 percent, its operating costs reduced through streamlining its corporate structure, and it launched many new products and services. By contrast, Unilever’s main rival, Procter & Gamble fared considerably worse in terms of growth, overhead costs, product innovation, and corporate reputation.

2. Jochen Zeitz:

Another business leader who is a sage is Jochen Zeitz, the former CEO of Puma. For Zeitz, Beingful businesses emphasise an ethical foundation for stakeholder relationships to create a basis for mutual trust and high performance in the organization. While many companies preach such ethics, Zeitz and Puma made a conscious effort to practice them in all their relationships with their stakeholders. The starting point for Puma was the belief that a business is Beingful when employees and other partners embed ethical thinking and integrity into their interactions with one another and with the natural world. Puma defined ethical interactions as being fundamentally fair, honest, positive, and creative - qualities it called the 4Keys.
This emphasis on ethically guided practical principles led to a string of visible successes for Puma. It was the first major corporation in the world to publicly disclose the economic costs of its impacts on the environment through the P&L approach. It followed up this milestone by creating and leading a consortium of other global companies that planned to similarly disclose their economic impacts on nature. In rankings of the world’s most sustainable companies, PUMA has often been ranked as number two in the world after Unilever. Not bad for a business executive who had once considered joining a monastery!

3. Azim Premji:

Azim Premji, the former CEO of Wipro, the giant IT services company based in India, took over the company upon his father’s unexpected death in 1966. It was a transformative incident for him.
Premji’s story is remarkable because of his efforts over nearly half a century to pursue values-based excellence at Wipro, as well as his appreciation of the greater context of business. For example, BusinessWeek chose him as one of the top thirty all-time great entrepreneurs globally, while Wipro has won numerous honours as one of the most ethical and sustainable companies in the world
From a maker of vegetable oils, Wipro moved into soaps, hair care, toiletries, and hydraulic cylinders before finding its groove in the IT hardware and software services industry in the 1990s. Wipro grew rapidly in the next twenty years and is now the second largest IT services company in India employing over one hundred and forty thousand employees across almost sixty countries.

The experience of these companies suggests that the key to business success is a corporate identity led by ethical principles that puts sustainable growth at its center. In some work I did in 2011 of global corporations that were trying to be sustainable businesses, corporate identity emerged as the key means for implementing sustainable growth and for combining hardheaded and heartfelt business practices. Other studies have also shown the value of corporate identity in enabling change. This is because when corporate identity changes, how corporations view themselves and the world changes dramatically. In turn, corporate identity is heavily influenced by the personal identity or sense of self of business leaders.

Leading as a Sage