What kind of leadership can help us avoid the traps of the Great Recession? How do we train such leaders? How can we reclaim the high ground of sustainability and business success, as well as fulfillment in personal life? How can we -- not just the people "in charge" -- reclaim the ethical, social and spiritual values essential to inspiring one another in business, political and personal relationships?

Much of the blame for Wall Street's rippling effects on the world economy has been directed at U.S. business school education. As a recent New York Times article stated: MBA students "graduate with a focus on maximizing shareholder value and only a limited understanding of ethical and social considerations essential to business leadership."

But here at the Johnson School, the 12-year-old Park Leadership Fellows Program, supported by the Triad Foundation, seeks to reverse these claims and show how MBA education can "revalue" graduate business education in leadership.

Park fellows participate in intensive workshops and self-reflection exercises to learn to manage themselves, develop effective relationships, build productive teams and lead organizations through change. The principle focus is on the individual and developing what we call a "purpose-driven" leader.

Take Wall Street as an example: It's purpose is to serve its customers and the American economy by providing well-functioning capital markets, but it lost much of its liquidity as firms overinvested in risky assets to make their executives rich. Leaders had lost their sense of purpose. Last year, Steve Friedman '59, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, said at the Johnson School that the truly great leaders on Wall Street are driven to make money but are also motivated to serve something greater than themselves.

Early in the Park Program, fellows develop personal mission statements based on a series of reflective exercises. Almost without fail, those statements lead them to want to make a positive impact on the world. One of them reads, "I will work for the success and betterment of myself, my family, my community, my nation and my world. I will wake up every day wondering how I can do this. I will work hard to learn as much as I can, because with knowledge and understanding comes influence and strength. I will stay true to my beliefs. … If I have achieved this, I have achieved success." Imagine if some Wall Street executives had a similar purpose.

The program's job is to reinforce and help fellows find that purpose throughout their time at Cornell and afterward.

Of course, it's impossible to learn leadership in a classroom, and no amount of self-reflection can teach a businessperson values-based leadership. That's why the Park Program requires fellows to do a project that benefits the Ithaca community, Cornell or both.

For example, one of last year's projects was Big Red Microcapital (BRM), the Johnson School's answer to subprime lending. It provides micro-loans and technical assistance to small-scale entrepreneurs in Tompkins County. Today, through a partnership with Alternatives Federal Credit Union, BRM is making waves in the community. Though incubated as a Park Program project, it is now owned and operated by the community.

To quote a 2008 graduate: "We feel a sense of responsibility to the program, because next year's class must continue to build on what we've left behind. We are all motivated through and by the program, not just to pad our resumes, but to do something that will create a legacy at the Johnson School and the community. We work hard for the program and for ourselves and we want to take that into the world."

Clint Sidle is director of the Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows Program at the Johnson School. His new book, "This Hungry Spirit: Your Need for Basic Goodness" (http://larsonpublications.com), provides many of the program's frameworks and exercises.