spiritual leadership: fulfilling whole‐self needs at work

[ 11 ]

Leadership & OrganizationDevelopment Journal17/5 [1996] 11–17

© MCB University Press [ISSN 0143-7739]

Spiritual leadership: fulfilling whole-self needs atwork

Gilbert W. FairholmAssociate Professor of Public Administration, Department of Political Scienceand Public Administration, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond,Virginia, USA

The work community isbecoming the most signifi-cant community for manypeople. We are coming toexpect our work – where wespend most of our time – tosatisfy our needs for whole-ness and to help providespiritual support for ourdeeply held values and ouraspirations for personal aswell as economic growth.Reports on original researchwhich supports a growingliterature attesting to thecentrality of work in meetingboth economic and spiritualneeds. Spirit refers to thevital, energizing force orprinciple in the person, thecore of self. Respondentmanagers understand spirit inits secular connotation asdefining self meaning andmotivation for action. Beginsa definition of a model ofleadership based on this kindof spiritual relationship, onefounded on morality, steward-ship, and community. Alsolists some critical issues thatthis emerging leadershipmodel faces.

Introduction

Work has become the centrepiece of our lives.Whether we like it or not, work has becomethe fountainhead of values in our society, thesite of our most useful social contributions.Work is the place where most of us find oursense of full meaning. The organization (com-munity) within which we work is becomingour most significant community. For some,work is replacing family, friendship circles,church and social groups. Yet in 1994 only onein four workers were extremely satisfied withtheir work compared to 40 per cent in 1973.According to Renesch (1995) more than 40million people in the US are seeking a more“intrinsically valued” lifestyle and the num-bers are growing. While work is critical toeconomic wellbeing, these numbers suggestthat it is not meeting our needs as humanbeings.

It is hard today for many of us to separateour work from the rest of our being. We spendtoo much of our time at work or in work-related social and leisure activities for us toexpect to continue trying to compartmental-ize our lives into separate work, family, reli-gious and social domains. As one result, thepressure many of us feel to recognize andrespond to the sacred in us must find outlet inthe secular workplace. If personal or socialtransformation is to take place, it will mostlikely take place at work. For, after all, life isabout spirit and we humans carry only onespirit that must manifest itself in both lifeand livelihood.

Research by Jacobson (1994) and confirmedby the author, strongly suggests that matureleaders and other workers in our organiza-tions are seeking more than merely economicrewards on the job. They are redefining workto include satisfaction of their inner needs forspiritual identity and satisfaction. Jacobson’ssurvey of national leaders, and the author’ssurvey of mid-level managers using similarquestions, confirm a growing need for work-place cultures, leadership and work processesthat celebrate the whole individual withneeds, desires, values and a “wanting” spiritself. Respondents in the author’s study

unanimously agreed that spirituality is apart of their work lives (see Table I).

The recent wave of literature advocating anew age of spiritual awareness attests to thisincreasingly widespread need. We have obvi-ously reached a point where non-intuitive,leaner, rational management has made amess of many American companies. WhatCappelli (1995) calls the deregulation ofemployment – the abandonment of the tradi-tional psychological contract connectingworkers to a life-long career with the com-pany – has effectively destroyed the securityand tranquillity of the workplace. Peopleneed something else to repair the damage.For a growing cadre of people – all of theauthor’s respondents – spirituality is theanswer.

Understanding spirit at workThere is a part of us that is not just physical, apart that we are comfortable in calling spirit,which people less spiritually inclined maycall human nature. It is the vital, energizingforce or principle in the person. It affects ouridentity, our values; our memories; our senseof humour. It integrates guiding principles ofwholeness, relationships, inner wisdom andinner authority.

People are hungry for this kind of mean-ing in their lives. They are trying to inte-grate their spiritual selves with their profes-sional or work lives (Kantrowitz, 1994).Almost 85 per cent of the survey respon-dents (Table I) found a “significant connec-tion” between their leader’s disposition tospirituality and his or her impact on theirwork. For these people, spirituality con-notes the essence of who we are, our innerselves, separate from the purely physical,but including the physical. It describesthose essential human values universal andacross time, that teach us that humanitybelongs within the greater scheme of thingsand how harmony can be realized in life andwork (Heerman, 1995).

Without taking anything away from reli-gious doctrines, the new focus on workplacespirituality is one way to apply spiritualbeliefs and satisfy the need to feel the spiritthrough work. In other words, we can

[ 12 ]

Gilbert W. FairholmSpiritual leadership: fulfillingwhole-self needs at work


nourish the spirit in widely diverse ways.Spirituality made manifest is the essence ofleadership.

A characteristic of current leadershiptexts is that they confuse dedication, mis-sion or vision, with spirituality. Spiritualitygoes beyond these ideas and provides theunderpinning necessary to make them workin our personal and professional lives. Spiri-tuality implies a relationship with some-thing intangible beyond the self. It is asource guide for personal values and mean-ing, a way of understanding self and theworld and is a means of personal and groupintegration. It is in this latter context thatspirituality has place in our work lives.Table II shows the most frequentlymentioned definitional characteristics ofspirituality identified by respondents to the

author’s survey. The increasing interest inthe integration of spirituality with secularleadership and organizational developmentholds promise of further application of theseseminal ideas in leadership.

The values foundation of spiritualleadershipSpiritual leadership asks us to reject pastmodels of human leadership that focused onvalues of self-interest. These earlier modelsare energized by implicit values focusing onpower, wealth and prestige. Rather, the tran-scendent values of spiritual leaders includea rejection of these self-interest values. Cor-porate and government managers in thesurvey suggest that spiritual leaders focuson ultimate ethical values like integrity,independence and justice (see Table III).These values draw heavily on principlesfrom Judeo-Christian teachings (Erteszek,1983). They reflect core American values(Fairholm, 1991). They reinforce our tradi-tional beliefs in the dignity of all people.They define corporate leaders as thetrustees/stewards of life and resources.They reflect ideas of what is good for individ-uals and for groups – convictions about whatwill promote the faith, or protect the coun-try, or build companies, or transform ourschools. Spiritual leaders clarify followers’moral identities and strengthen and deepentheir commitments. Spiritual leaders makeconnections between others’ interior worlds

Table IICharacteristics of spirituality

Most frequently mentioned characteristics of spirituality listed by the author’s survey respondents NumberAn inner conviction of a higher, more

intelligent, force 7The essence of self that separates humans

from creatures 6What humans rely on for comfort, strength,

happiness 5The part of us searching for meaning, values,

life purposes 4A personal belief system 3An emotional level, a feeling 3The acting out in thought and deed of the

experience of the transcendent in human life 1A personal relationship with God 1

Table IIILeader values

Number

Values mentioned first by author’s respondentsin listing spiritual leadership values

Integrity/honesty 7The sanctity of human life 2Fairness/equality 2A combination of discipline and freedom 1Faith (in God and man) 1Love 1Personal independence 1Respect 1Security for family 1Service 1Treat others as you want to be treated 1

Most frequently identified values (in rank order)Integrity/honesty 11Freedom/independence 5Fairness/equality/justice 4Family 4Love/caring/charity 4

Table ISpirituality in the workplace

Group member reliance on spirituality in doing workA lot 100%Not much 0None 0

Connection between the leader’s spirituality and abilityto affect the organizationSignificant 85%Depends 10.5No response 5None 0Should there be a greater integration of spirituality intothe workplace?Yes 63%Depends 31.5No response 5%No 0

[ 13 ]



of moral reflection and the outer worlds ofwork and social relationships.

Application of spiritual leadershipat work

A legitimate question may now be asked:How might we apply spirit in our lives? Com-ments by those surveyed (incorporated inthe following material) suggest some ideasand issues spiritual leaders need to consider.For example, nourishing the spirit at workrequires leaders to consider and respond toyet another dimension of human life beyondthose commonly identified with leader-fol-lower relationships. A working definition ofspiritual leadership therefore must includeideas like teaching our followers correctprinciples and the application of techniquesthat enable self-governance. It is creatingcircumstances in which followers can func-tion freely with the leader, and within theirwork subject only to broad accountability. Itis redefining leadership in terms of serviceand stewardship.

From the growing research on spirit in theworkplace we can abstract a skeletal model ofspiritual leadership that embodies thosevalues and practices proven effective in vari-ous kinds of organization. The model is holis-tic, with the individual parts providing syner-gistic support for the whole. These modelcharacteristics include:• a carefully designed corporate philosophy

or vision embedded in a corporate culture;

• a value of personal and other forms ofdevelopment (growth) to become one’s bestself;

• commitment to serving others;• a sense of interactive, mutual trust;• an authentic concern for people and organi-

zational goals;• an environment that encourages openness,

fairness, individuality and creativity;• commitment to group unity, teamwork and

sharing;• integrity in all interpersonal relationships;• simplicity and flexibility of structure and

systems;• a process that emphasizes continuing eval-

uation of progress.

There is peculiar power in this new leader-ship model defining a holistic, communityconception of the organization both as aneconomic enterprise and as a human system.This holistic approach includes services thataddress the personal as well as the profes-sional lives of workers (Kouzes and Posner,

1993). The question is how to achieve andmaintain a renewing balance between workand family and between personal and profes-sional areas of life.

We can delineate three specific spiritleader components. Together they help complete this evolving spiritual leadershipmodel. Individually, they represent founda-tion stones on which leaders can build their unique leadership ethic. These founda-tion stones are morality, stewardship andcommunity.

Moral leadershipSpiritual leaders are moral leaders. Moralleaders prefer not to compromise, accommo-date, or collaborate in areas where their corevalues are at stake. Rather, they may prefer tochallenge opposing ideas, rather than accom-modate them. Thus, the spiritual leader maysometimes be outspoken and deliberatelyconfrontational to alternative value systems.Spiritual leaders affirm the superior value ofthe spiritual over other leadership models.While traditional functions and roles may besimilar, spiritual leaders apply them inovertly moral ways.

Leadership entails principles of action,motivated by spirituality. Sixty-three percent of those responding to the author’s sur-vey found spirituality a core basis for theirvalues, beliefs and ethics (Table I). Thissource of individual ethics is also recognizedin the recent leadership literature dealingwith values-based transformational leader-ship (see, for example, Burns, 1978; Covey,1991; Depree, 1989; Fairholm, 1991; 1994;Greenleaf, 1977; Lee and Zemke, 1993; Vaill,1989). Their application in work situationscompels a spiritual orientation that centreson moral conduct. It is a case of doing goodwhile doing well.

The infrastructure of spiritual leadership isan idea of moral leadership focused on ser-vice. It is uncompromisingly committed tothe higher principle of selfless concern forothers. Spiritual leadership rejects coercionto secure desired goals. It is non-interfering ofhuman freedom and choices, although thesechoices may entail some painful decisionsand shifts in priorities.

Elements of moral spiritual leadershipinclude the following:

Building shared valuesSpiritual leaders inspire a sense of sharedcommunity values. Common values providethe basis of the sanctions’ systems that definethe morality of community members anddetermine its measures of success.

[ 14 ]



Vision settingSpiritual leaders exhibit a sustained abilityto build consensus and lead democraticallywithin the framework of a common vision.

Sharing meaningSpiritual leaders create meaning for others.They engage the heart (Kouzes and Posner,1987). Spiritual leadership is about findingshared meaning, not about coercion or force.It is about persuasion, about right or wrong.

EnablingLeaders need followers to lead, but they needcapable, energized followers who can and willdo their share of the group’s work includingsometimes even taking over the leader’s role.Enabled people flourish in an environment ofinteractive trust, shared vision and commonvalues. Moral leaders train, educate andcoach followers, provide motivation, involvethem in appropriate networks and then freethem from situational constraints that mayhamper their growth/transformationtowards full effectiveness.

Influence and powerThe measure of leadership is not structural,but attitudinal (DePree, 1989). Followers con-fer leadership. Until followers choose toaccept the leader’s power, the leader cannotlead. This acceptance comes out of the rela-tionship, not from a formal structure orsystem. Spiritual leaders have no desire tomanipulate others. They help followers feelpowerful and able to accomplish work ontheir own.

Intuition Intuition is knowledge gained without ratio-nal thought (Fairholm, 1991; Rowan, 1986).The spiritual leader’s influence comes out ofan in-depth familiarity with the organiza-tion’s culture, customs, values and tradi-tions. Such leaders develop an integratedframework based on core values – a vision –and operate out of this framework withoutstopping and thinking. Spiritual leadership,or moral leadership, must tap shared valuesof the group. It is this intuition tapingingrained ideas and values also held bygroup members that gives spiritual leaderstheir moral legitimacy.

Risk takingSpiritual leadership is active and actioninvolves risk. Leaders need to challenge exist-ing work and team processes (Kouzes andPosner, 1987). They do not simply accept cur-rent work systems or existing structuralrelationships. Rather, spiritual leaders arepioneers. They try to produce real change

that meets people’s enduring needs regard-less of the risk.

ServiceSpiritual leadership is servanthood. Thespiritual leader is a servant committed to theprinciples of spiritual relationships definedabove. This kind of moral leadership is thereverse of much written in past leadershipliterature. Rather than attempt to dominatefollowers, spiritual leaders go to work forthem, providing all that is necessary for fol-lower success.

TransformationSpiritual leaders transform themselves, others and their organization. They enhancepeople’s moral selves, help confirm others’beliefs in their own inherent self-worth. And,in the process, they help create a new scale ofmeaning within which followers can see theirlives in terms of the larger community. Thespiritual leader’s role is to change the lives offollowers and of institutions in ways thatenhance both. Spiritual leaders convert(change) followers to leaders.

Stewardship As we bring spirituality to the work place, anew idea emerges of the role of the individualin the organization, an idea, classically calledstewardship. The idea of stewardship can becontrasted with ownership. Ownership isshifting to stewardship (McMillen, 1994).Ownership connotes possession, control andproprietorship. Stewardship connotes hold-ing work resources in trust for a temporaryperiod. In a stewardship organization, poweris inherent in each steward to help accom-plish his or her unit’s ends; not just the stew-ard’s own ends. Stewardship is a collectiveidea. It is by sharing equally all power that webecome one, become united.

Stewardship is based on self-directed freemoral choice. The steward has the power ofself-governance. Every steward has the samerights and is subject to identical limitationsin the exercise of self-direction. This sharingof power preserves harmony and good will.The leader is a steward also and subject tothe same limitations and advantages asother stewards. These ensure that everysteward has a single voice in council withother stewards and a single vote. Steward-ship preserves oneness by procedures thatenhance common consent. In this way eachsteward is protected against unjust or domi-nating leaders.

Both ends and means are vital to steward-ship. How we work is as important as whatwe do. Stewardship is a conception of

[ 15 ]



organizational governance that connotesinitiative and responsibility without thebaggage of control behaviours, direction andothers (i.e. the leader) “knowing what is best”for followers. Instead, stewards have self-directing authority over their respectiveareas within the stewardship unit. The onlylimitation is that the steward’s claim on hisor her unit’s resources must be just – allclaims are equally subject to the overall limi-tations of the stewardship unit’s resources.

Steward leadership is operating-in-service-torather than in-control-of those around us. It isless prescriptive. It has more to do with beingaccountable than it does with being responsi-ble for what the group creates or with defin-ing, prescribing and telling others what to do.Steward leadership is not a single guidingprinciple but one-third of a triumvirate thatincludes also empowerment and partnershipas well as stewardship. The principle of stew-ardship brings accountability while partner-ship balances responsibility. It is a sharing ofthe governance system in which each mem-ber holds control and responsibility in trustfor the group as a unit. It is a relationshipsystem based on mutual accountability.

A steward role asks both leader and led torisk losing class distinctions and privilege inthe pursuit of living out a set of values andcreating an organization where memberspersonally reclaim the institution as theirown. Stewardship operates at the whole-person – spiritual – level of existence andinterrelationship. It includes ideas of teamwork and individual free choice.

CommunityA sense of service to community plays acrucial role in the development of spiritualleadership potential. Leaders create co-oper-ative, action-oriented communities that, inturn, provide the environment and culturewithin which leaders can operate from asense of spirituality. These corporate spiri-tual communities are characterized by awillingness and ability to focus on groupmembers’ development, to stretch them.Community members are typically engagedin continuous learning or development. Theytake risks to attain desired personal andgroup goals.

The problems that many US organizationsnow face are not produced by temporary

downturns in the economy. Rather, they areoutcomes of earlier, now obsolete, ideas andprinciples of organization and management(Mitroff et al., 1994). The time has come toengage in the production of new organiza-tional designs focusing on interactive com-munities of enabled moral leaders and fol-lowers. We need to engage such communi-ties in meaningful work. Such communitiesuse the full intelligence of workers by let-ting those closest to every problem haveresponsibility for finding solutions andacting on them. Community serves as thevessel of vision, values and mutually helpfulconnections that guide individuals andteams. The role of leadership in communityis to lead all the people. The central task ofthe leader, therefore, is to be a whole-maker,a creator of oneness – of community. Theycounter the tendency to worker anomy andalienation by invigorating workers’ liveswith a sense of purpose and a feeling ofbelonging to a community doing somethingworthwhile.

Community is from the root word meaning“with unity”. Community-focused organiza-tions operate out of shared vision, beliefsand values. Leaders build workplace commu-nity by providing this common vision. Nocommunity – society – can function wellunless most members behave most of thetime because they voluntarily heed theirmoral commitments and social responsibili-ties (Etzioni, 1993). Leaders bring unity toorganizations. They strengthen and useorganizational culture and they definenew ceremonies and rituals that bring people together to form communities. Leaders transform work organizations intocommunities.

Discussion

Humankind cannot evolve beyond its currentstate of crisis by using the same thinkingthat created the situation. Conducting busi-ness as usual (based on conventional theoryand experience) is to conduct business intodecline. Business has now absorbed orreplaced many of the occupations in whichpeople formerly engaged to attain personalneed-satisfaction. The workplace is a localeof our heart-thoughts as well as our econom-ics. We see evidence of this in the fact thatwork is dominant in our lives and our socialfabric. It would be a devastating blow to lifeitself if we found neither spirit nor inspira-tion in it.

‘…Steward leadership is not a single guiding principle butone-third of a triumvirate that includes also empowerment andpartnership as well as stewardship…’

[ 16 ]



As we move into a new era of interpersonalrelationships and need-satisfaction using theworkplace as the prime site, researcher andpractitioner alike must deal with severalkinds of issues, the resolution of which willdefine corporate – and societal life – for theforeseeable future. Both practising leadersand scholars must consider together severalissues as they complete the evolving model ofspiritual leadership. Among these are thefollowing.

A crisis of meaning: spirituality andcorporate co-existenceFor most of human history no one had tosearch for the spiritual in their lives. At thecore of every culture was a religion, withsacred times and places set aside for publicrituals. For many, these holy places are lessand less familiar today. Nevertheless, spiri-tual and religious values and those of a freedemocratic society go hand-in-hand (Lee andZemke, 1993). Obviously, workers are muchmore than a bundle of skills and knowledge,contrary to what some managers think.People also come to work armed with aspirit, a life-giving principle, that involvesalso higher moral qualities. Of coursechurch and corporate life differ, but commit-ted religionist, like committed corporateexecutives or workers, brings their passionswith them 24 hours a day. Religions haveevolved as structures or forms designed tosupport and perpetuate specific beliefs ordogmas about spiritual matters. These dog-mas are expanding to include work-life con-cerns and to relate spirit in business to ideaslike empowerment, assigning meaning andpeople-centred business practices (Autry,1992). They must be integrated with a guid-ing theory.

Professionalism and spiritSome may suppose that attention to the spir-itual side of self discourages education andprofessionalism (see, e.g. Peters, 1994). Theymay believe the two are antithetical, that itis education’s purpose to dispel the mistsand shadows of religion and free the humanmind from so much error and delusion. Inreality, however, human life is a duality ofthe spiritual and the physical. We mustinvent professional relationships suitable tothis whole-self reality. We doom such effortsto failure if they do not grow out of generallyheld spiritual or moral values.

Corporate culture: making one of manySuccess in leading from a spiritual base isconditional on the presence, in both leader

and follower, of shared ideals, customs andmorals; in a word, on a mutually acceptedand desirable culture. Unfortunately, thetypical corporate culture is antagonistictowards many of the values that drive thespiritual leader (Pascale and Athos, 1981).The new task for leaders is to become whole-makers, creators of oneness in people and in their groups. Therefore the leader’s tasktoday is to create a unifying culture and then nurture its values and customs amongfollowers.

Leadership on focus valuesBefore there can be purposeful participation,people must share values and ideas aboutwhere they are trying to go (Senge, 1990).Creating spiritually oriented work-placesinvolves identifying and then nurturing corevalues among followers. More and more orga-nizations are developing leaders who leadfrom spiritual values. Leadership based onspirit involves putting your life and yourmoney where your values are. This may bethe only way to lead in the coming new world(Fairholm, 1991).

Leaders in this quest for spiritual signi-ficance are surfacing from all points. Ofcourse, the transformation to a new businesspolitics based on spirituality is not complete.Indeed, it is just beginning. The distinguish-ing features of this transitional period are amixing and blending of cultures and a plural-ity or parallelism of intellectual and spiritualworlds. It is clear that we must invent organi-zational structures appropriate to this newage. We doom such efforts to failure if they donot grow out of widely held spiritual corevalues.

ReferencesAutry, J.A. (1992), Love and Profit, Avon Books,

New York, NY.Burns, J.M. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row,

New York, NY.Cappelli, P. (1995), “Can this relationship be

saved”, Wharton Alumni Magazine, Spring,pp. 36-41.

Covey, S. (1991), “The seven habits of highlyeffective people”, I/S Analyzer, Vol. 29 No. 2,February, pp. 15-16.

DePree, M. (1989), Leadership Is an Art, Double-day, New York, NY.

Erteszek, J.J. (1983), “The common venture enter-prise: a Western answer to the Japanese artof management?”, New Management, Vol. 1No. 2, pp. 4-10.

Etzioni, A. (1993), The Spirit of Community,Crown, New York, NY.

[ 17 ]



Fairholm, G.W. (1991), Values Leadership: Towarda New Philosophy of Leadership, Praeger, NewYork, N.Y.

Fairholm, G.W. (1994), Leadership in a Culture ofTrust, Praeger, New York, NY.

Greenleaf, R. (1977), Servant Leadership, PaulistPress, New York, NY.

Heerman, B. (1995), “Spiritual core is essential tohigh performing teams”, The New Leaders,March/April, Sterling and Stone, San Fran-cisco, CA, p. 8.

Jacobson, S. (1995), “Spirituality and transforma-tion leadership in secular settings: a Delphistudy, unpublished dissertation”, (Now avail-able on microfilmthrough the University ofGeorgia), Goleta, Georgia, GA.

Kantrowitz, B. (1994), “In search of the sacred”,Newsweek, 28 November, pp. 53-5.

Kouzes, J. and Posner, B. (1987), The LeadershipChallenge, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Lee, C. and Zemke, R. (1993), “The search forspirit in the workplace”, Training, June, pp. 27-35.

McMillen, K. (1994), “Short article”, The NewLeader, September/October, Sterling andStone, San Francisco, CA, p. 9.

Mitroff, I.I., Mason, R.O. and Pearson, C.M. (1994),“Radical surgery: what will tomorrow’s orga-nizations look like?”, Academy of Manage-ment Executive, Vol. 8 No. 2, May, pp. 11-21.

Pascale, R.T. and Athos, A.G. (1981), The Art ofJapanese Management, Simon & Schuster,New York, NY.

Peters, T. (1994), “Questions and comments toTom”, On Achieving Excellence, Vol. 9 No. 7,July, pp. 9-11.

Renesch, J. (1995), The New Leaders, Bonus Issue,Spring, Sterling and Stone, San Francisco,CA.

Rowan, R. (1986), The Intuitive Manager, LittleBrown, Boston, MA.

Senge, P.M. (1990), The Fifth Discipline: The Artand Practice of the Learning Organization,Doubleday, New York, NY.

Vaill, P., Managing as a Performing Art, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

spiritual leadership: fulfilling whole‐self needs at work

Documents