Spiritual Leadership from a Management Perspective

Gilbert W. Fairholm in his book, Perspectives on Leadership: From the Science of Management to Its Spiritual Heart argues that the leadership style of leaders in the 21^st century needs to include a focus on spirituality. Fairholm argues that, “today people are hungry for meaning in their lives. They feel they have lost something, and they don’t remember what it is they’ve lost. This has left a gaping hole in their lives. To fill this void, some are trying to blend their spiritual with their everyday work lives.” (xxii). In his research Fairholm has identified the need for integrating the spiritual with everyday work lives. Without this integration people experience a form of loss and their work feels disintegrated to who they are.

 

Fairholm continually highlights the role that work plays in people’s lives. For instances he states that, “Work has become the center of our lives. Whether we like it or not, work is becoming the source of values in our society and the site of our most worthwhile contributions. The work community has become our most significant community, and the work place is fast becoming the place where most of us find our sense of full meaning.” (111) He acknowledges the centrality of work in our lives and intuitively makes the connection between work and vocation. He does not use the word vocation nor does he look at work from a Christian and theological perspective.

 

Fairholm’s concept of spiritual leadership connects with the centrality of work in our lives. The spiritual need of a person at the work place is acknowledged and explored. A spiritual leader is able to address this spiritual dimension of the work and the workers he is leading. In contrast the typical manager and most management theories are not able to address this dimension of the workers life in a meaningful way. Fairholm argues that, “what is most needed today is not more intellect, but more soul …. Neglect of our spiritual nature helps explain the whole range of workplace problems we now face – the persistence of hopelessness, worker anomie, lowered productivity and substance abuse …. Efforts aimed at improving people’s lives that don’t have a moral and spiritual dimension are literally a waste of time. A sense of spirituality is the anchor for most people’s work ethics and social morality ….” (114) Moreover, Fairholm argues that “for many people, the goal of work may ultimately be to more deeply become people of quality. The biggest mistake of current leadership texts is that they confuse dedication, mission and vision with spirituality. People are looking for significance in their work and the opportunity to use their minds and feelings in concert with the energizing life-giving principles within them.” (118) Since there is this convergence between people’s spirituality and their work Fairholm notes that, “Workers today are asking the company to weaves personal, spiritual, social and environmental dimensions into the fabric of corporate work life. Business is after all simply another form of human activity. Workers are saying that we should not expect less from it than we do from other social institutions. Today’s workers want their work to be more human-oriented, more humane.” (126) This observation, seems to carry a lot of opportunities for Christians to contribute insights from scripture and Christian tradition.

Thus, I’ll end this post with two questions:

 

1.) What does a Christian spirituality have to contribute to this conversation?

2.) What insights can a theological reflection bring to the discussion?