Arts and Entertainment

Lance Secretan discusses the importance of ‘having a dream’

September 24, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

British-Canadian author, philosopher and the world’s top authority on inspirational leadership, Dr. Lance Secretan wants Canada to have a dream. And he thinks that Canadians are ready to be inspired.

As a speaker and a visionary, Secretan has changed how companies are inspired to operate their businesses from the strictly pragmatic to the inspired, and CEOs of Fortune 100 companies have watched in wonder at the huge improvements in production and employees’ enthusiasm for their jobs.

Secretan, living in Alliston, has been invited to speak as a keynote speaker at business conferences and events attended by executives from some of the largest corporations around the world, and his message is life-changing.

In a recent interview with the Citizen, Secretan talked about his amazing life and the philosophy he has brought to so many individuals and business leaders.

Now, in these times, Secretan sees how Canada can benefit from his theories.

Secretan has spent his lifetime looking at how businesses are run, catching the flaws and the psychological — even if unintentional — abuse to workers and how to repair that harm with a whole new approach to business practices.

It began with his development of Manpower, of which he was CEO at the age of 27.

“I had been watching what my boss had been doing, and then I did the opposite,” Secretan said.

He began to explain the beginnings of how managers treated their staff and, with a turn-it-on-its-head plan, said whatever they have been doing was not working. So it was time to do the opposite. Throw out the fear approach, the motivational, the two- handed offer of perks for success and demotion or worse for failure.

He stepped back in his life’s history in answer to a question about his parents and formative years.

Born in the U.K., Lance Secretan was a child actor from the age of eight.

At the height of his decade-long career, he was named the number one child actor in the English-speaking world.

“My mother was an extraordinary woman,” he said. “A super intellectual. She was a vegetarian and a concert pianist.”

His father was a prominent scientist, inventor and engineer who headed the BBC’s monitoring service during WWII.

Secretan earned a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California (magna cum laude), and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

As a professor, he taught business at McMaster and York Universities.

In due course, his academic career gave way to his true calling: to change the heart of how leaders and their managers run their businesses and how their employees do – or do not – love the work. In 1980, he established his Secretan Centre.

During his lectures in conferences, Secretan often asked who would quit their jobs if they had a free choice.

Opening the door to a better result, Secretan delivers, in one hand, five principles: Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness: an acronym spelling CASTLE, and he calls it the CASTLE Principles.

Here he dares to talk about them to the business world, to talk about love in the cold world of profits and goals.

On the other hand, he offers the science of how positive relationships lead to better health. In the workplace, they lead to more productive, better businesses.

He includes the obvious need for compassionate leadership – was it obvious? Perhaps after he taught it: individuals, entire organizations, cities and states have experienced remarkable transformations through Secretan’s unique mentoring.

He is the author of 21 books about leadership, emphasizing the connection between high performance and the heart, the mind, the soul, inspiration and leadership. In 2016, he wrote a memoir, A Love Story, and in 2018 he published The Bellwether Effect, which was hailed as being among the most original, authentic and effective contributions to leadership. In 2023, Secretan released a new book, Reawakening the Human Spirit.

The interview turned irrepressibly to being aware of the negative political weather to the south under the impulses of the current American president.

Yet, Secretan sees a dream of a future for an internationally influential Canada.

“There’s going to be a book on this,” he predicted. Turning to this moment in history, he said, “I want people to wake up.”

As an example, he mentioned Singapore’s enormous influence in the world, saying, “We can do that.”

He pointed to the “very exciting projects coming up – the Ring of Fire, new highways. We have puzzled about money and corruption, but we need an incentive to move forward.”

Reflecting, Secretan said, “My world is creating inspiration for other people. We always have to reach for the higher ground.”

Dr. Secretan is the recipient of the International Caring Award, whose previous winners include Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. He is the current chair of the Pay it Forward Foundation, and former chair of the Advisory Board of the Special Olympics World Winter Games.

He is also an expert skier, kayaker and mountain biker.

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