Spiritual Based Leadership: Spirituality as the Basis for Business Leadership By William and Debra Miller
Spiritual Based Leadership: Spirituality as the Basis for Business Leadership What would you think if a senior vice-president from a multinational telecom firm said to you: Spirituality is very important to me as a person. I believe in God strongly. If ever there's a time for spiritual leadership, it's now. You must connect with a person's soul, at the deepest core. It can sometimes be lonely but you also feel happy and grounded inside. You also embrace your own humanness and imperfections and it keeps you humble as a leader and yet still strong. She, and other executives like her, have helped us realise that spirituality is an emerging basis for highly successful business leadership. While these words are an inspiration to many, they can also evoke scepticism, doubt, and criticism. To put these reactions into perspective, we've found that over the last 100 years, four distinct contexts of leadership have emerged in business. Each context represents a fundamental change in how we view the nature of business leadership and will therefore shape the perspectives and reactions of its leaders. I. Paternal-mechanistic:)From this view, business is "survival of the fittest," and competition is a win-lose game. The goal of business and its leadership is wealth-creation (specifically, profit-maximisation) on behalf of business owners. Business leaders adopt the military model of command-and-control to serve the overall goals for efficiency and productivity. The common employee is usually seen as an interchangeable part in the big machine, expected to perform within clearly defined parameters. II. Humanistic:)From this view, the purpose of business and leadership is still wealth-creation, but with a win-win mentality in which "enlightened self-interest" supplants "selfish-interest." The leader's job is to help employees become self-actualised "intra-preneurs" who invest both their emotions and their minds, for their own sake and the organisation's. People are considered a resource to be managed sensitively. "Win-win" problem-solving is prominent in this context. III. Holistic:)From this view, the goal of business and leadership evolves beyond "wealth-creation for shareholders " to "wealth creation for the optimal benefit of all stakeholders " -- including shareholders, employees, customers, community, nature, society, and future generations. Leadership "control" lies more in having a common purpose and value-system rather than the "command-convince" or even " participative empowerment" leadership styles. This view recognises that people are, in fact, the principal assets of wealth-creation, especially in the knowledge-intensive, learning organisations. IV. Spiritual-based:)From this view, the nature of business itself is transformed - so that the primary purpose of business and leadership is spiritual fulfillment and selfless service to society , where both are motivated from the Source of creation. Wealth creation is no longer the goal ; it becomes a means for enabling and sustaining this purpose. Business leaders promote the spiritual fulfillment of everyone touched by the business: Employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, and society. Likewise, business leaders develop selflessness in their service to society, seeing the Source in all whom they serve. Each of the four contexts of business leadership all currently co-exist, sometimes not very peacefully, in today's business world. Within a company, different leaders might operate from any one of these four contexts, and any single leader might operate from a blend of contexts. How about you? No matter what your work is, which context most represents the basis from which you lead? What might your leadership be like if it were from a spiritual context? As we all become more and more conscious of the spiritual nature of life, we discover that spirituality can provide the practical grounding for solving the seemingly unsolvable issues in business. Bob Galvin, former CEO and chairman of Motorola, once described the primary job of leaders as, Inspiring acts of faith ("things are do-able that are not necessarily provable"), spreading hope, and building trust . When a vice president asked how these values relate to the "real world of business," Galvin replied that executives must develop strong character in themselves and others, not just good technical or financial skills. Then he concluded: Faith, hope, and trust... Theology is very practical business. . . More from same authors see: William and Debra Miller See also: ) * Spirituality At Work * Work As A Spiritual Practice * Spiritual Based Leadership, The authors, William and Debra Miller, is running The Global Dharma Center: The mission of the Global Dharma Center is to inspire and empower people from all walks of life to live and work from a spiritual basis, in accord with our inherent, spiritual nature. We believe that every aspect of our lives, including work, can become an exercise in spiritual wisdom, devotion, and service. Please visit http://globaldharma.org/ for more information.
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