Spiritual Leadership

Leadership with a spiritual focus is becoming sought after by organization who realize the value of spirituality in the workplace. Various models of spiritual leadership have been developed over the past 10 years. Some of these models integrate other contemporary models of leadership. For example Fry (2003) developed a model of spiritual leadership integrating aspects from authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and servant leadership. In his model spirituality provides a higher level of capability to enable transformation and realize improved performance. Spiritual leadership, is based on having the values, attributes and behaviors, to motivate not only others but also oneself. Spiritual leaders through their presence have the capabilities to inspire followers and stakeholders to build a culture where there is a sense of meaning, community, belonging, and social responsibility.

A series of articles of spirituality and the workplace has been compiled by Giacalone, R. A., and Jurkiewicz, C. L. (2005. One of these articles "The Human Side of Spirituality", by Riane Eislier & Alfonso Montuori , discusses how spirituality lies in the desire of many people to infuse their "lives with meaning" (p.46). People want to have a sense of purpose personally and in their jobs. They want to feel there is some meaning in what they do. It is this desire for purpose and a sense of meaning that results in leaders and their people adding value to the stakeholders and contributing to society and the great good.