As Director magazine celebrates its 60th anniversary with the Good Director campaign, and with all the increasing rhetoric in the media about greed, bonus envy, self-interest and the questionable moral behaviour of business leaders, I began to reflect on what kind of director I would like to see running businesses in the future.

I have found that those who tend to have some sense of spirituality or religion or some "moral compass" to guide them tend to be more effective in their relationships with others at work. They seem to manage people better, to understand their work-life balance dilemmas, can empathise with their personal and work problems, are good listeners and tend to be on "receive" rather than "transmit", can understand why people might be resistant to change (and can help them  overcome their concerns). Basically, they are more open and authentic as individuals, and as a consequence get the most out of their people.

Other business school academics and management consultants have also seen this phenomenon in practice, and as a consequence, a whole new field of study is emerging called authentic leadership. Professor Bruce Avolio, one of the leading thinkers in this field from the US, defines authentic leaders as, "those individuals who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others values/moral perspective, knowledge and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient and high on moral character".

On the back of the research on authentic leadership and managerial effectiveness, the (American) Academy of Management has created a special interest group entitled Management Spirituality and Religion, and a scholarly journal has been launched with the same title.

Is this a typical American consultancy fad or is it a reflective response to the moral and ethical dilemmas that the US business community has not managed to deal with? I believe it is the latter. And that it is possible, if not imperative, for a director to achieve bottom line business success and be a "business angel".

Good quality and committed people will be scarce in the employment markets of the future, and if we want to attract and retain them, a new type of business leader is required. Graduates leaving university are telling me that they don't want to work for employers who treat them as "disposable assets", or force them to work long hours without regard to their personal circumstance, or who manage them by the insidious process of the threat of job loss or constant fault-finding. They want to feel valued, and working for an employer who occupies, as much as possible, the moral and humane high ground, in terms of their attitudes, actions and value systems.

What is really uplifting about the next generation is their concern about their quality of life as well as their career aspirations. They seem to understand what Abraham Lincoln, the US President during the Civil War, once wrote: "It is not the years in your life which are important, but the life in your years".

I know a number of these corporate "angels" in relatively senior jobs in the UK-a few of them are even ordained clergy. They are there at all levels of organisational life and they come with a different set of values, personal skills and perspectives that enriches their organisations and the people they directly work with.

They seem to possess an inner strength, an openness to new ideas and a greater sense of who they are that prevents them from feeling threatened by others (and therefore less resistant to change). They are the sort of people that Mark Twain referred to when he wrote: "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can somehow become great".

This is the kind of director I want for the future.

Cary Cooper is the professor of organizational psychology and health and pro vice-chancellor at Lancaster University's management school. He's also an author and the chair of UK government think-tank the Sunningdale Institute www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/news/5696/