Leonard Doohan, 67, retired from Gonzaga University in 2002 after a long career teaching theology and heading the university’s graduate school. He’s written 15 books, leads workshops internationally and, in 2000 and 2001, organized Inland Northwest ethics seminars that featured leaders such as Gen. Colin Powell. Doohan’s latest book is “Spiritual Leadership: The Quest for Integrity.” He and his wife, Helen, divide their time between Spokane and the Umbria region of Italy.

Here are some of Doohan’s reflections on leadership, as told to editorial board member Rebecca Nappi.

Most great leaders have had a personal experience that shatters them, a confrontation with the inner self in which they’ve discovered their destiny. They’re never the same. That kind of transformative experience is what I’m looking for in a leader.

I had a student once who was an officer at Fairchild Air Force Base. He was sent on a business trip to Washington, D.C. He went to see the Holocaust Museum. He said, “I can never be the same again.” That was a transformative experience. Another student was Native American. He couldn’t talk about anything without referring to his uncle who was one of the great Indian leaders of the Northwest. To have grown up with this man was an ongoing transformational experience. These experiences can come from a variety of sources. What is the result? You learn to be a leader in a new way. You accept it as a personal vocation. You live and work for community growth.

Many organizations are over-managed and under-led. Many people in top positions don’t have a leadership bone in their body.

A lot of leaders simply get in other people’s ways. They don’t know how to lead and consequently fill their time doing bits of things that someone else ought to do. It’s like Dilbert running around in the cartoon.

Colin Powell was very nice. He was well-prepared. We had several hundred people in the audience. One of the TV stations came into the hall and started taking photographs of him, even though we asked them not to. Powell became absolutely furious. It was interesting how he could switch into the domination mode of the military.

How can voters recognize transformational values in a leader? Look at organizations they’ve worked for and their decision-making there. If they didn’t have transformational values then, why would you presume they’d do it at a higher level?

Leaders are people of perspective. Perspective comes from the Latin word that means “to look at from a distance.” Work is just one part of life. When people are absorbed in their work to the detriment of their family life, this is not leadership. In certain businesses, no one wants to go home first because it makes it look as if you don’t have as much commitment as those who stay late. Yet those who stay late might not actually be doing anything. We have to have balance in life. If you don’t, your leadership will unravel in about six months.