The Relationships of Managers’ Self-Reported Leadership Practices and Their Spirituality

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spirituality and leadership.

METHODOLOGY
Community leaders (N = 138; response rate = 61%) who were graduates of a 10-week leadership development program (in Fort Lauderdale from 1994-2004) completed the Spirituality Assessment Scale (Beazley, 1997), four transformational leadership items of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1995) and the Leadership Practices Inventory. Fifty-three percent of the respondents were male.

KEY FINDINGS
Two of the leadership practices were significantly related to Spirituality, with Inspiring a Shared Vision accounting for 10 percent of the variance of the SAS Definitive dimension and Encouraging the Heart accounting for 30 percent of the variance of the SAS Correlated dimension. For the Total spirituality score, two models were revealed. In the first one, Encouraging accounted for 28 percent of the variance and in the second model, Encouraging and Inspiring together accounted for 31 percent of the total variance. None of the transformational leadership practices from the MLQ were significantly related to Spirituality.

The author points out that “this relationship is significant across professional spheres. This is an important implication, suggesting that the relationship of spirituality and leadership is not ‘reserved’ to a specific leadership or occupational field” (p. 105).