Toward a theory of spiritual leadership PART 1

Toward a theory of spiritual leadership
Louis W. Fry*
Tarleton State University-Central Texas, 1901 South Clear Creek Road, Killeen, TX 76549, USA

Abstract
A causal theory of spiritual leadership is developed within an intrinsic motivation model that incorporates vision, hope/faith, and altruistic love, theories of workplace spirituality, and spiritual survival. The purpose of spiritual leadership is to create vision and value congruence across the strategic, empowered team, and individual levels and, ultimately, to foster higher levels of organizational commitment and productivity.
I first examine leadership as motivation to change and review motivation-based leadership theories.
Second, I note the accelerating call for spirituality in the workplace, describe the universal human need for spiritual survival through calling and membership, and distinguish between religion and spirituality. Next, I introduce a generic definition of God as a higher power with a continuum upon which humanistic, theistic, and pantheistic definitions of God can be placed. I also review religiousand ethics-and-values-based leadership theories and conclude that, to motivate followers, leaders must get in touch with their core values and communicate them to followers through vision and personal actions to create a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership.
I then argue that spiritual leadership theory is not only inclusive of other major extant motivationbased theories of leadership, but that it is also more conceptually distinct, parsimonious, and less conceptually confounded. And, by incorporating calling and membership as two key follower needs for spiritual survival, spiritual leadership theory is inclusive of the religious- and ethics and valuesbased approaches to leadership. Finally, the process of organizational development and transformation through spiritual leadership is discussed. Suggestions for future research are offered.

1. Introduction
With the dawn of a new century, there is an emerging and exponentially accelerating force for global societal and organizational change. From this realization has come a call for more holistic leadership that integrates the four fundamental arenas that define the essence ofhuman existence—the body (physical), mind (logical/rational thought), heart (emotions, feelings), and spirit (Moxley, 2000).
One of the major driving forces behind this phenomenon is the Internet, which is bringing about forces for change at seemingly light-year speed. Responding to these forces will require a major organizational transformation to a learning organizational paradigm that is radically different from the traditional centralized, standardized, and formalized bureaucratic organizational form based on fear that has been the dominant organizational paradigm since the beginning of the industrial revolution (Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen, & Westney, 1999; Moxley, 2000).
A learning organization is one in which expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured and collective aspiration is set free. People in learning organizations are empowered to achieve a clearly articulated organizational vision. They are continually learning to learn together to expand their capacity to create desired results (Senge, 1990). Quality products and services that exceed expectations characterize learning organizations. This new networked or learning organizational paradigm is radically different from what has gone before: It is love-led, customer/client-obsessed, intrinsically motivated, empowered team-based, flat (in structure), flexible (in capabilities), diverse (in personnel make-up) and networked (working with many other organizations in a symbiotic relationship) in alliances with suppliers, customers/clients, and even competitors, innovative, and global (Ancona et al., 1999).
The employees of learning organizations are characterized as being open and generous, capable of thinking in group teams, and risk-takers with the ability to motivate others (Ancona et al., 1999). Furthermore, they must be able to abandon old alliances and establish new ones, view honest mistakes as necessary to learning, and ‘‘celebrate the noble effort’’ and exhibit a ‘‘do what it takes’’ attitude versus the more traditional ‘‘not my job’’ attitude endemic to bureaucracy. Here, people are empowered with committed leaders at the strategic, empowered team, and personal levels that act as coaches in a ‘‘learning organization’’ constantly striving to listen, experiment, improve, innovate, and create new leaders (Ancona et al., 1999; Bass, 2000; McGill & Slocum, 1992). For the learning organization, developing, leading, motivating, organizing, and retaining people to be committed to the organization’s vision, goals, culture, and values are the major challenge.
A major proposition of this review is that spiritual leadership is necessary for the transformation to and continued success of a learning organization. Spiritual leadership taps into the fundamental needs of both leader and follower for spiritual survival so they become more organizationally committed and productive. I will argue that previous leadership theories have focused in varying degrees on one or more aspects of the physical, mental, or emotional elements of human interaction in organizations and neglected the spiritual
component. I define spiritual leadership as comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically motivate one’s self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership
This entails
1. creating a vision wherein organization members experience a sense of calling in that their
life has meaning and makes a difference;
2. establishing a social/organizational culture based on altruistic love whereby leaders and
followers have genuine care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others, thereby
producing a sense of membership and feel understood and appreciated.
I first examine leadership as motivation to change and review motivation-based path–goal, charismatic, transactional, and transformational leadership theories. I then note the accelerating call for spirituality in the workplace, describe the universal human need for spiritual survival through calling and membership, make a clear distinction between religion and spirituality, and, drawing from the works of Horton (1950) and Smith
(1992), introduce a generic definition of God as a higher power and a continuum upon which atheistic, humanistic, theistic, and pantheistic definitions of God can be placed. I
also review religious- and ethics and values-based leadership theories that emphasize that leaders must get in touch with their core values and communicate them to followers
through vision, values, and personal actions. In doing so, leaders must be attuned to
satisfying followers’ needs for spiritual survival through the universal spiritual values of
humility, charity, and veracity.
Next, a causal theory of spiritual leadership is offered within an intrinsic motivation model that incorporates vision, hope/faith, and altruistic love, theories of workplace spirituality and spiritual survival, and the organizational outcomes of commitment and productivity. I then demonstrate that spiritual leadership theory is not only inclusive of other major extant theories of motivation, but that it is also more conceptually distinct and less conceptually confounded. In addition, spiritual leadership theory explicitly incorporates
specific and theoretically relevant leader and follower higher order needs and cultural and organizational effectiveness dimensions into a causal model framework—something no other leadership theory has done to date. At the same time, by incorporating calling and membership as two key dimensions of spiritual survival, spiritual leadership theory also is inclusive of the religious- and ethics and values-based approaches to leadership. The process of organizational transformation and development through spiritual leadership and
the learning organizational paradigm is discussed. Suggestions for future research are offered.
2. Leadership and motivation
Although leadership has been a topic of interest for thousands of years, scientific research in this area was only begun in the 20th century. Early research, building upon the great man theory of leadership (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002), found that the situation also plays a vital role in determining leader effectiveness and that; to be effective, leaders must behave differently in different situations (Stogdill, 1974). The focus then shifted to discovering which behaviors and circumstances must be joined to produce effective group and organizational outcomes. Early research at Michigan and Ohio State universities discovered that leaders must attend to both task-oriented and social/emotional issues through directive and supportive behaviors.
By the late 1960s, full-blown ‘‘contingency theories’’ were developed. Contingency leadership theory posits that for a leader to be effective there must be an appropriate fit between the leader’s behavior and the conditions of the situation. One of the more advanced contingency theories is the path–goal theory of leadership that formally links leadership and motivation theory (effort!performance!reward). Path–goal theory adds participative and achievement-oriented leader behaviors to directive and supportive behaviors to address the effort–reward linkage, performance–reward linkage, establish stretch performance goals, and
clarifies of followers’ need for rewards (House & Mitchell, 1974). Finally, substitutes for leadership theory (Kerr & Jermier, 1977) identifies aspects of the situation that act to neutralize or substitute for leader behavior. ‘‘The idea that leaders could analyze their situation and tailor their behavior to it was compelling and is the foundation for much leadership training today’’ (Daft, 2001).
Beginning in the 1980s, there began to be a shift in focus from behavioral contingency leadership theories of individuals in groups (House, 1996) to strategic leadership that emphasized vision, motivation, and control through values in clan or adaptability cultures. The uncertainty inherent in rapidly changing external conditions and environments caused researchers to begin to question the effectiveness of the traditional centralized, standardized, and formalized bureaucratic organizational paradigm. In addition, the decimation of traditionally U.S.-dominated industries, such as automobile and steel, by the Japanese led to intense scrutiny of Japanese ideas, such as team leadership and total quality management, as alternatives to bureaucracy (Ouchi, 1981; Peters & Waterman, 1982; Vroman & Luschinger, 1994).
Particularly effective for flexibility in rapidly changing organizational environments are the clan and adaptive cultures. The clan culture substitute’s control through values and beliefs for traditional bureaucratic control mechanisms like standardization, formalization, and centralization. Clan control primarily has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to meet the expectations of a rapidly changing environment (Ouchi, 1981). It emphasizes the values of cooperation, consideration, agreement, fairness, and social equality. The adaptability culture has strategic leaders that support values promoting autonomy, individual initiative and responsibility, creativity, risk-taking, learning, and entrepreneurship that allow the organization to interpret and translate signals from the environment into new goals and strategies. Both the clan and adaptability cultures place an emphasis on flexibility in meeting the demands of an uncertain and ever-changingenvironment.
These developments led to an emerging awareness that, up until that time, theories of leadership generally had not incorporated, and addressed the conceptual distinction between management as control and leadership as motivation (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Kotter, 1988; Maddock & Fulton, 1998). Both leadership and management are concerned with providing direction for the organization. However, management is about planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Leadership is about motivating people to change. Management is primarily focused on short-term results, creating organizational stability and control, and ensuring predictable performance—much like the operation of a home thermostat (Kotter, 1988). Although not explicitly focused at the strategic level, path–goal, charismatic (House & Howell, 1992) and transformational (Bass, 1999) theories of leadership focus on motivating followers.
For the present purpose, I will use the definition and generic process of leadership as motivation to change developed by Kouzes and Pozner (1987, p. 30)—‘‘Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.’’ From their perspective leadership entails motivating followers by creating a vision of a long-term challenging, desirable, compelling, and different future. This vision, when combined with a sense of mission of who we are and what we do, establishes the organization’s culture with its fundamental ethical system and core values. The ethical system then establishes a moral imperative for right and wrong behavior, which, when combined with organizational goals and strategies, acts as a substitute (Kerr & Jermier, 1977) for traditional fear-led bureaucratic structure (centralization, standardization, and formalization) and, when L.W. Fry / The Leadership Quarterly 14 (2003) 693–727 697
coupled with a powerful vision, provides the roadmap for the changes to the learning organizational paradigm needed for organizational effectiveness in the 21st century. Thus, it is the act of establishing a culture with values that influences others to strongly desire, mobilize, and struggle for a shared vision that defines the essence of motivating through leadership.
2.1. Extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation
Motivation includes the forces, either external or internal to a person, that arouse enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action. Motivation is primarily concerned with what energizes human behavior, what directs or channels such behavior, and how this behavior is maintained or sustained. The basic building blocks of a generalized model of the motivation process are needs or expectations, behavior, goals or performance, rewards, and some form of feedback (Galbraith, 1977; Steers & Porter, 1983). Most contemporary theorists assume that people initiate and persist at behaviors to the extent that they believe the behaviors will lead to desired outcomes or goals (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Motivation in the workplace results when leaders create an environment that brings out the best in people as they achieve and receive individual, group, and system-wide rewards. It refers to those desires that, coupled with expectation of reward contingent on performance, cause the individual to exert effort above minimum levels, be spontaneous, and exhibit exploratory/cooperative behaviors (Galbraith, 1977).
There are two basic types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Fig. 2 illustrates the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation consists of behaviors that are motivated by factors external to the individual. Extrinsic rewards are given by others and may be individual, group-based, or system-wide (Galbraith, 1977).
Examples include promotions, pay increases, bonus checks, pressure to perform, supervisory
behavior, insurance benefits, and vacation time. Extrinsic rewards originate externally and require meeting or exceeding the expectations of others. Under extrinsic motivation
individuals feel compelled to engage in task behavior for an outside source to satisfy lower
order needs to provide what they need (e.g., money) to survive. Our modern concepts of bureaucracy and extrinsic motivation are rooted in the experience of early efforts to create large military, religious, and feudal organizations, such as the Roman Army, Catholic Church, and Kingdom of England. The primary basis for motivation in these traditional centralized, standardized, and formalized bureaucratic organizations has been fear (Daft, 2001). The main benefit of bureaucracy and leading by fear is to create a control system that ensures minimum levels of effort, organizational commitment, and performance.
However, fear led bureaucracies also can prevent people from feeling good about their work and lead to avoidance behavior, including feelings of powerlessness and low confidence, low commitment, enthusiasm, and imagination (Ryan & Oestreich, 1991). Most importantly is the effect of reduced trust and communication so that important problems and issues are hidden or suppressed (Nyhan, 2000).
Intrinsic motivation is most basically 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 fun and that, in turn, promote growth and satisfy higher order needs. Intrinsic motivation has been shown to be associated with better learning, performance, and well-being (Benware & Deci, 1984; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Valas & Slovik, 1993). It is believed to result from an individual’s basic need for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
Competence is a feeling or sense of craftsmanship or artistry in task accomplishment, that one is responding well to task situations, has mastery of the task or its activities, and is confident about handling similar tasks in the future. Autonomy tends to increase intrinsic motivation to the extent that there is an internally perceived locus of causality, task accomplishment is under one’s control, and he or she feels free to exert extra effort in following their inner interests. Intrinsic motivation will also be more likely to flourish in contexts characterized by a sense of secure relatedness, especially when significant others in the task environment are experienced as warm and caring (Ryan & Grolnick, 1986; Ryan & La Guardia, 2000; Ryan, Stiller, & Lynch, 1994).
Intrinsic motivation at work is also manifested through autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Intrinsic motivation in the workplace requires some degree of autonomy or self-management. Intrinsically motivated workers feel competence and relatedness through working in empowered teams that are directing team activities toward a meaningful purpose and doing something the members regard as significant and meaningful. Individuals in empowered teams have a sense of ownership of the work and are completely engaged in its tasks, which require their best thinking and creativity. They take pride in their work and are excited in having a sense of progress and seeing the results of their efforts (Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Spreitzer, 1996; Thomas, 2000).
Intrinsic rewards involving task involvement are internal and under control of the individual and satisfy higher order needs for competency, self-determination, and selffulfillment. These rewards result from the internal experience one has in performing a task that one feels gives satisfaction through its performance. Solving a problem at work that benefits others that may fulfill a personal mission or purpose, being part of a ‘‘winning’’ team, L.W. Fry / The Leadership Quarterly 14 (2003) 693–727 699 or completion of a complex task that gives a pleasant feeling of accomplishment are examples. For individuals experiencing intrinsic motivation, the performance of the task becomes the reward. In this sense, performance and rewards are fused, indistinguishable, or become one and the same (see Fig. 2).
Intrinsic motivation at work can also occur through goal identification. Goal identification occurs to the extent that individuals have internalized into their own value systems the vision and values of the organization and the goals or subgoals the organization is pursuing (Galbraith, 1977). The goals have value to the individual because they are acquired through a long process of socialization in the organization or because they participated in developing the organization’s vision, values, and goals and have therefore have high acceptance of and are highly committed to them. The achievement of these goals then is instrumental in satisfying one’s higher order (spiritual) needs for self-esteem, relatedness, and growth. It is through this process that behaviors perceived to be instrumental to goal attainment acquire value and become intrinsically rewarding.