Spirit Driven Leadership

Spiritual leadership is a type of leadership characterized by defending integrity, goodness, teamwork, knowing, wholeness, and interconnectedness. Designed for pastors, executives, administrators, managers, coordinators, and all who see themselves as leaders and who want to fulfill their God-given purpose, The Spirit-Led Leader addresses the critical fusion of spiritual life and leadership for those who not only want to see results, but who also desire to care just as deeply about who they are and how they lead as they do about what they produce and accomplish.

Spirituality is the context for leadership. In fact, research has shown that spiritual practices like contemplative prayer and mindfulness meditation heighten awareness of one's environment and one's self- awareness, leading to higher levels of moral reasoning.

The Three Fundamentals of Spirit Driven Leadership:

Spirit driven leadership builds on three fundamentals, namely Vision, Hope/Faith and Altruistic Love.

Vision

Employees should believe that the company’s vision provides a meaningful future. Instead of focusing on the drudgery of completing routine tasks, employees will be inspired to play their part in achieving something that matters. The vision, therefore, should have broad appeal, clearly describe the final destination and the steps the organization will take to get there, and encourage hope and faith. There are some similarities with visionary leadership here. 

Hope/Faith

Leaders should be confident that the team is able to achieve the vision. This represents the hope/faith necessary to inspire the team to make the vision a reality and gives employees a sense that their life has meaning.

Hope and faith also give the motivation to press forward towards the vision despite the challenges that arise. Therefore, it’s a two-pronged element that involves being inspired by a meaningful vision and using that inspiration as the primary motivation to keep moving forward.

Altruistic Love

Employees expect leaders to display mutual care and respect for all members of the organization. This altruistic love is based on fundamental values that the team accepts to be morally right and that are modeled by spiritual leaders in their attitudes and behavior.

These characteristics of spirit driven leadership make it a valuable leadership style for supporting an organization’s triple bottom line – people, planet, and profit.

Spirit driven leadership can also be viewed from two perspectives – personal and organizational. The personal perspective highlights inner life as its source where organizations recognize the spiritual needs of each employee. It also emphasizes personal spirit driven leadership where the leader’s development is based on individual knowledge, the skills required for the role, and how the leader is able to impact followers to move in a particular direction.

The organizational perspective focuses on how everyone in the organization can work together to achieve meaningful objectives. The leader in this case is anyone within the organization who has a positive influence on the team’s calling, membership, and performance. It allows for both formal and informal leaders to play a role in the organization’s development.

Ways you may explore in your 'path' to becoming a Spirit Driven Leader:

• A Leader is a CONSTANT student, knowing that their ability to develop talent in another is in direct proportion to their ability to develop their own gifts and talents. The student and the teacher co-exist within the heart of the spirit-driven leader.
• The Spirit-Driven Leader gives his/her spirit permission to guide others through the archway of love and humility utilizing appreciative inquiry and servant leadership rather than bullying behavior.
• Knowing that a successful organization is made up of individuals who seek out learning opportunities for growth, the spirit-driven leader creates a learning environment that fosters engagement: the force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance.
• A spirit-driven leader is one who has mastered herself in the area of impulse control revealing emotional intelligence that flows from the practice overcoming, what has been referred to by many spiritual mystics as fleshly outbursts, more commonly known as ego driven behavior: I need to rise above you in order to feel successful and enough. A spirit-driven leader fosters the growth in others without the fear of being overlooked or unseen in the light of the success of another for the good of all concerned, including the organization.
• The spirit-driven leader lives in the space of mental observation versus reactive behavior. The one who steps away from defensive routines: entrenched habits we use to protect ourselves from the embarrassment and threat that come from exposing our thinking. Rather than avoiding vulnerability, they champion it as an effective tool for instant human connection and learning opportunities.
• A good facilitator is a common trait associated with a leader who gives their spirit permission to guide their flesh. A spirit-driven leader does not need to own, control or possess a conversation rather they thrive on existing outside of judgments and assumptions and encourage the open flow of dialogue, stepping away from the expert role and empowering all participants to do the same.
• A spirit-driven leader steps away from labels that prevent solution based thinking. They define conflict as a situation that requires their attention for solution and invite the flow of meaning contained within effective dialogue.
• The leader who empowers others from their inner spirit practices mindful living, which allows space for those things that ignite creativity and spontaneity in the present moment; Playful behavior that quickly flips heavy team energy into lighthearted observation.
• Assumptions and conclusions are replaced by a curious, open mindset that asks, seeks and knocks when faced with opportunities for growth and expansion. The spirit-driven leader uses this powerhouse mindfulness approach in 1:1 conversations as well as collective thinking. Asking questions for clarity as well as mentoring opportunities make up a valuable piece in the foundation of spirit-driven leadership.
• Bookending the day with prayerful reflection around what worked and what didn’t work specifically within their personal field: choice of response to people and circumstances around them. Setting the intention for the next day without holding onto guilt and shame, releasing what didn’t work and expanding what did work.

Advantages of Spirit Driven Leadership in Organizations

1. Everyone feels like they belong

Spirit driven leadership helps create a sense of belonging. This brings a sense of security and satisfaction which motivates employees to be productive. It also reduces employee turnover right thus saving the organization from overspending on constantly hiring new employees. Affiliative leadership can have a similar result.

2. Individuals are recognized for the work they do

Altruistic love creates room for individual recognition. A spirit driven leader wants everyone to feel appreciated and will, therefore, put out the effort to recognize employees for their efforts.

3. Employee health can improve

It is believed that spirit driven leadership can have a positive impact on people’s mental health and general life satisfaction. This in turn leads to a positive impact on physical health.

4. Corporate social responsibility is an important organizational objective

Altruistic love extends beyond the workplace and into the communities an organization serves. Emphasis on spirit driven leadership ultimately leads to a greater focus on corporate social responsibility. Therefore, the organization will be more deliberate in supporting the needs of the community through environmental projects, volunteering in social projects, and giving back in other ways deemed relevant.

NB: Use was made of www.amazon.com/Spirit-Led-Leader, www.frontiersin.org, www.leaderahoy.com and www.cobizmag.com in researching for this article.

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