Spiritual Leadership Theory

Thus, spiritual leadership generates hope/faith in the organization’s vision that keeps followers looking forward to the future. Spiritual leadership requires that an organization’s culture be based on values of altruistic love.  This must be demonstrated through leaders’ attitudes and behavior and produces a sense of membership – that part of spiritual well-being that gives one a sense of being understood and appreciated. 

Spiritual Leadership provides a consensus on the values, attitudes, and behaviors necessary for spiritual well-being, and, ultimately, positive human health, psychological well-being, life satisfaction, organizational commitment and productivity, sustainability and financial performance – the triple bottom line.
           
The purpose of spiritual leadership is to tap into the fundamental needs of both leader and follower for spiritual well-being through calling and membership, to create vision and value congruence across the individual, empowered team, and organization levels and, ultimately, to foster higher levels of organizational commitment and productivity.  Operationally, spiritual leadership comprises the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically motivate one’s self and others so they have a sense of spiritual well-being through calling and membership (See Figure 1and and Table 1 below). This requires:

• Creating a vision wherein leaders and group members experience a sense of calling in that their life has meaning, purpose, and makes a difference;
  
  
• Establishing a social/organizational culture based on altruistic love whereby people have a sense of membership, feel understood and appreciated, and have genuine care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others.

Spiritual Leadership provides a consensus on the values, attitudes, and behaviors necessary for spiritual well-being, and, ultimately, positive human health, psychological well-being, life satisfaction, organizational commitment and productivity, sustainability and financial performance – the triple bottom line.

Figure 1: The Spiritual Leadership Model

Table 1: The Qualities of Spiritual Leadership

Vision. Vision was a rarely used term in the leadership literature until the 1980’s. Beginning at that time that business leaders were forced to pay far greater attention to the future direction of their companies due to intense global competition, shortened development cycles for technology, and strategies becoming more rapidly outdated by competition.  Vision refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future.  Tomasso Corporation’s vision of “Joyful and Passionate People Serving Enthusiastic Customers is an example. Another is the vision, “We Make Happy Campers,” developed by a Tarleton graduate student who managed the outdoor recreation center at Ft. Hood, Texas, which rents outdoor camping equipment to soldiers and their families. In motivating change, these visions serve three important functions by clarifying the general direction of change, simplifying hundreds or thousands of more detailed decisions, and helping to quickly and efficiently coordinate the actions of group members. Moreover, a compelling vision energizes workers, gives meaning to work, and garners commitment, and establishes a standard of excellence. In mobilizing people a vision must have broad appeal, define the organizations destination and journey, reflect high ideals, and encourage hope and faith.

Altruistic Love. For spiritual leadership, altruistic love is defined as a sense of wholeness, harmony, and well-being produced through care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others. There are great emotional and psychological benefits from separating love, or care and concern for others, from need, which is the essence of giving and receiving unconditionally. Both medicine and the field of positive psychology have begun to study and confirm that love has the power to overcome the negative influence of destructive emotions such as fear and anger. Underlying this definition are the values of integrity, patience, kindness, forgiveness, humility, selflessness, trust, loyalty, and truthfulness (See Table 1). As a key component of unit and organizational culture, altruistic love defines the set of key values, assumptions, understandings and ways of thinking considered to be morally right that are shared by group members and taught to new members. Spiritual leaders embody and abide in these values through their everyday attitudes and behavior.

More and more companies are embracing organizational cultures based on altruistic love. Tomasso Corporations values of solidarity and brother described earlier accept the spiritual obligation to love and care for everyone. Telus Mobility in Ontario, Canada is a wireless provider that integrates spiritual principles, values, and consciousness seamlessly into its communications, corporate change management, leadership development, training, and wellness processes. Centura Health, which employs over 12000 people, emphasizes core values based on compassion, respect, integrity, spirituality, and stewardship that focus on purpose, passion, and loving relationships.

Hope/Faith. Hope is a desire with expectation of fulfillment. Faith adds certainty to hope.  It is a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence.  It is based on values, attitudes, and behaviors that demonstrate absolute certainty and trust that what is desired and expected will come to pass. People with hope/faith have a vision of where they are going, and how to get there; they are willing to face opposition and endure hardships and suffering, in order to achieve their goals. Hope/Faith is thus the source for the conviction that the organization’s vision will be fulfilled and is demonstrated through action or work.  Often the metaphor of a race is used to describe faith working or in action.  There are two essential components to every race: the vision and expectation of reward or victory and the joy of the journey of preparing for and running the race itself.  Both components are necessary and essential elements of any vision that can generate hope and faith. 

In summary, intrinsic motivation, defined as interest and enjoyment of an activity for its own sake and is associated with active engagement in tasks that people find interesting and that, in turn, promote growth and satisfy higher order needs.  Intrinsic motivation is based in an effort-performance-reward process resulting from an individual’s basic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness and is associated with better learning, performance, and well being. Spiritual leadership through vision, hope/faith, and altruistic love is, fundamentally, an intrinsic motivation process. In spiritual leadership altruistic love (reward) through care and concern for both self and others emerges between group members in pursuit of a common vision (performance). Altruistic love also creates the belief and trust necessary for hope/faith and is the source of self-motivation for doing the work and from which active faith (effort) in a vision is fueled. Hope/faith adds belief, conviction, trust, and action for the work effort to achieve the vision.

Inner Life. The source of spiritual leadership is an inner life or spiritual practice that, as a fundamental source of inspiration and insight, positively influences development of (1) hope/faith in a transcendent vision of service to key stakeholders and (2) the values of altruistic love. Employees have spiritual needs (i.e., an inner life) just as they have physical, mental, and emotional needs, and none of these needs are left at the door when one arrives at work. And, at the root of the connection between spirituality and leadership is the recognition that we all have an inner voice that is the ultimate source of wisdom in our most difficult business and personal decisions.

Research has found that work unit performance is positively related to workplace spirituality. Work unit spirituality and spiritual leadership is dependent upon the leader’s ability to enable the worker’s sense of meaningful work (meaning/calling) and community (membership). In addition, workplace spirituality is related to the leader’s ability to personally incorporate and as well as enable/support the unit workers’ inner life or spiritual practice.

Inner life, which is a central activity in all major spiritual and religious traditions, is a process of understanding and tapping into one’s own divine power and how to draw on that power to live a more satisfying and full outer life.  It speaks to the feeling individuals have about the fundamental meaning of who they are, what they are doing, and the contributions they are making. Inner life as a source spiritual leadership (see Figure 1) includes individual practices (e.g., meditation, prayer, yoga, journaling, and walking in nature) and organizational contexts (e.g., rooms for inner silence and reflection) to help individuals and groups draw strength from a Higher Power and be more self-aware and conscious from moment-to-moment.

Companies are starting to recognize the importance of supporting employees’ inner life. One of the key management activities that Tomasso Corporation, a company dedicated to the spiritual well-being of its workers, is a room for inner silence. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.’s (ANZ) human resource practices includes training in a “high Performance” mind techniques and “quiet room” for spiritual practice. Missouri’s Ascension Health, which employs more than 100,000 people, is committed to a workplace that deepens personal spirituality. It has adopted a seven-step ethical discernment process that fosters self-reflection. Organizational cultures, like Tomasso Corporation and ANZ that support their members’ inner life or spiritual practice have employees that are more likely to have, or want to develop, the other-centered values of altruistic love and transcendent vision and the hope/faith to achieve the vision inherent in spiritual leadership.

Calling. Calling refers to the experience of transcendence or how one makes a difference through service to others and, in doing so, finds meaning and purpose in life.  Many people seek not only competence and mastery to realize their full potential through their work but also a sense that work has some social meaning or value.  The term calling has long been used as one of the defining characteristics of a professional.  Professionals in general have expertise in a specialized body of knowledge, ethics centered on selfless service to clients/customers, an obligation to maintain quality standards within the profession, a commitment or calling to their vocational field, a dedication to their work, and a strong commitment to their careers. They believe their chosen profession is valuable, even essential to society, and they are proud to be a member of it.  The challenge for organizational leaders, which is addressed through the spiritual leadership model, is how to develop this same sense of calling in its workers through task involvement and goal identification.

Membership. Membership encompasses a sense of belonging and community; The cultural and social structures we are immersed in and through which we seek, what William James, the founder of modern psychology called man’s most fundamental need – to be understood and appreciated.  Having a sense of being understood and appreciated is largely a matter of interrelationships and connection through social interaction and thus membership.  At work, people value their affiliations and being interconnected to feel part of a larger community. As we devote ourselves to social groups, membership extends the meaning of our personality by enmeshing it in a network of social connections that goes out as far as the group has influence and power, and backwards and forwards in relations to its history.  Ultimately, we grow greater, longer lived, more meaningful in proportion as we identify ourselves with the larger social life that surrounds us.

More and more, companies are recognizing that a focus on calling and membership is essential for employee well-being.  Medtronic’s  Medallion Ceremony that honors employees with a medal depicting the companies spiritual logo, “A patient rising from the operating table fully healed” helps foster a sense of community while reinforcing its calling to prolonging life through its medical products and services.  Memorial Herrman Healthcare System celebrates their membership in community through a moving “Blessing of the Hands” ceremony for all caregivers. Spoken by a chaplain, CEO, or unit manager the blessing includes these simple but beautiful words, May the God that created you bless the care you give others. Offered more than 5000 times, the optional ceremony helps nurses, therapists, housekeepers, physicians and other renew their calling. Tomasso Corporation’s Prize of the Heart is awarded yearly in a company-wide ceremony to one person who in the workplace who has demonstrated a joy for life in helping others through compassion and human dignity. Other Tomasso activities that focus on solidarity in service and community include its meetings between three employees and a high ranking manager, testimonial meetings, gesture, and community meals.

Spiritual leadership positively influences spiritual well-being as group members model the values of altruistic love to one another as they jointly develop a common vision. This provides the foundation for generating hope/faith and a willingness to “do what it takes” in pursuit of a vision of transcendent service to key stakeholders, which produces a sense of calling -- that part of spiritual well-being that gives one a sense that one’s life has meaning, purpose and makes a difference. Concurrently, as leaders and followers engage in this process and gain a sense of mutual care and concern through the experience of altruistic love, workers gain a sense of membership, belonging and community so they feel understood and appreciated.