Investigating the Risks of Spiritual Leadership

• Date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21262
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Anna Cregård

533

N M  L, vol. 27, no. 4, Summer 2017 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21262

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Investigating the Risks of

Spiritual Leadership

Anna Cregård

Halmstad University

The spiritual leadership literature suggests that such leadership has a positive influence on

organizations’ productivity and profitability as well as on employees’ enjoyment and well-

being. In a qualitative study conducted at a Swedish abbey for nuns, using interviews,

observations, correspondence, and documents, this research indicates that spiritual leader-

ship may pose negative risks to organizations and their leaders. Risks in spiritual leadership

that are indicated include a culture of narrow-mindedness and leadership rotation failure

that can lead to rigidity and to the leader ’ s work overload because of the demand for limit-

less empathy and for personal sacrifice. The findings should be viewed as an inspiration

for further research.

Keywords: spiritual leadership , leadership rotation , work overload , empathy , personal

sacrifice

THE LITERATURE ON spirituality in the workplace has argued that spiritual leadership in

organizations can increase workplace productivity and even financial performance at the

same time that it increases the well-being and organizational commitment of members (Fry

and Slocum 2008 ) who place a high value on ethical leadership (Wright and Quick 2011 ).

Research on leadership effectiveness (see Reave 2005 for an overview) suggests that such

spiritual leadership in the workplace has produced many positive results (Duchon and Plow-

man 2005 ; Eisler and Montouri 2003 ; Elm 2003 ; Garcia-Zamor 2003 ).  ese results include

greater job motivation and satisfaction among employees when spiritual leadership creates

an ethical workplace from which fear and abuse are eliminated. At the organizational level,

the positive results include reduced turnover, less absenteeism, and other cost savings. For

example, Dent, Higgins, and Wharff ( 2005 ), in a review of eighty-seven empirical articles on

spiritual leadership in the workplace, found that most research establishes, or hypothesizes, a

correlation between spirituality and productivity.

Spiritual leadership is a topic of interest in discussions of the management of nonprofit

organizations for two main reasons. First, nonprofit organizations whose leaders follow the

spiritual leadership model are implicitly communicating their concern for followers’ physical

and mental well-being. Society as well as the followers should welcome this kind of leadership

Correspondence to: Anna Cregård, Halmstad University, School of Business, Engineering and Science, Box 823, 30118

Halmstad, Sweden. Email: anna.cregard@hh.se.