Workplace Spirituality

A major change is also taking place in the personal and professional lives of leaders as many of them more deeply integrate their spirituality and their work. Most would agree that this integration is leading to very positive changes in their relationships and their effectiveness.  There is also evidence that workplace spirituality programs not only lead to beneficial personal outcomes such as increased joy, peace, serenity, job satisfaction, and commitment, but that they also deliver improved productivity and reduce absenteeism and turnover.  Employees who work for organizations they consider to be spiritual are less fearful, more ethical, and more committed.  And, there is mounting evidence that a more humane workplace is more productive, flexible and creative.  Most importantly for organizational effectiveness, however, is the emerging research that that workplace spirituality could be the ultimate competitive advantage.

How does IISL define “Spirituality” in the context of Spiritual Leadership

Spirituality at work is not about religion or conversion, or about accepting a specific belief system. Spirituality at work is about leaders and followers who understand themselves as spiritual beings who have a sense of calling that provides meaning and purpose for their lives. It is also about membership where people experience a sense of belonging, connectedness to one another and their workplace community. It begins with the acknowledgement that people have both an inner and an outer life and that the nourishment of the inner life can produce a more meaningful and productive outer life that can have beneficial consequences for the organization.

A Call for Workplace Spirituality

A person’s spirit is the vital principle or animating force traditionally believed to be the intangible, life-affirming force within all human beings.  It is a state of intimate relationship with the inner self of higher values and morality as well as recognition of the truth of the inner nature of others.

Today many individuals, as part of their spiritual journey, are struggling with what their spirituality means for their work. There is an emerging and accelerating call for spirituality in the workplace. Companies as diverse as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, BioGenenex, Aetna International, Big Six accounting’s Deloitte and Touche, and Law firms like New York’s Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Haroller are extolling lessons usually doled out in churches temples and mosques.

It is well established in other disciplines in the social and physical sciences that, almost universally, people have the intrinsic drive and motivation to learn and find meaning in their work, and to be a member of a group in which they feel valued for their contribution to the group’s performance.  People now find themselves spending the vast majority of their waking hours at work.  The office is where more and more people eat, exercise, date, drop their kids, and even nap.  Today people lack continuity and connection in so many other settings that many naturally look to their organizations as a communal center.  Recent polls have found that American managers and leaders want a deeper sense of meaning and fulfillment on the job – even more than they want money and time off.

Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, in their breakthrough book, Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance, define workplace spirituality as “a framework of organizational values evidenced in the culture that promotes employees’ experience of transcendence through the work process, facilitating their sense of being connected in a way that provides feelings of compassion and joy.”

This sense of transcendence -- of having a calling through one’s work or being called (vocationally) -- and a need for social connection or membership are seen as necessary for workplace spirituality. Workplace spirituality must therefore be based on a culture of care and compassion. Also, to be of benefit to leaders and their organizations, workplace spirituality must demonstrate its utility by impacting productivity, turnover, financial performance.

Religion versus Spirituality

Spirituality reflects the presence of a relationship with a Higher or Power that affects the way in which one operates in the world.  Spirituality is broader than any single formal or organized religion with its prescribed tenets, dogma, and doctrines.  Instead, spirituality (e.g. prayer, yoga, meditation) is the source for one’s search for spiritual well-being -- for meaning in life and a sense of interconnectedness with other others.  The spiritual quest is one that emphasizes a dynamic process in which one purposefully seeks to discover his or her potential, ultimate purpose, and personal relationship with a Higher Power or Being that may or may not be called God.

The renowned Dalai Lama is very clear in making the distinction between spirituality and religion in his search for an ethical system adequate to withstand the moral dilemmas of the new millennium.

“Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is the acceptance of some form of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual prayer, and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit-such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony-which bring happiness to both self and others.”

Spiritual concerns are thus separate from the concerns of any religious group and are not synonymous with those of religion.  There is even the potential, if spirituality is viewed through the lens of religion, for it to be divisive in that it may exclude those who do not share in the denominational tradition or conflict with a society’s social, legal, and ethical foundations of business and public administration. Giacalone & Jurkiewicz  state that “adherence to a religious workplace orientation can lead to arrogance that a particular company, faith, or even nation is somehow ‘better’ or worthier than another.”

The Dalai Lama notes that while ritual and prayer, along with the questions of heaven and salvation, are directly connected to religion, the inner qualities of spirituality, spiritual survival, and the quest for God and ultimately joy, peace and serenity and commitment to organizations that include and reinforce these qualities, need not be.  Also, there is no reason why individuals could not or should not develop these inner qualities independent of any religious or metaphysical belief system.  “This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can perhaps do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities”.

The common bridge between spirituality and religion is altruistic love– regard or devotion to the interests of others.  In this respect, the basic spiritual teachings of the world’s great religions are remarkably similar. In religion this is manifested through the Golden Rule (sometimes called the “Rule of Reciprocity”)-- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you – which is common to all major religions.