Spiritual Leadership Workplace Applications Benefits

Spirituality can be a controversial concept in modern workplaces, given the need to treat all persons of all faiths with dignity and respect. However, according to Houghton (et al., 2016), spirituality can be an important source of competitive advantage for an organization, given its ability to enable both leaders and subordinates alike to develop a sense of meaningful connection to their work. Houghton (et al., 2016) proposes that all six types of leadership: “spiritual leadership, servant leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership, empowering leadership, and shared leadership” might promote a healthier and more cohesive and productive workplace environment (Houghton et al., p. 194). Paradoxically, however, the authors believe that spiritual leadership, with its explicit focus upon hope, faith, and an altruistic perspective, has the very greatest potential to foster spiritual workplace diversity.

For example, according to Fry & Egel (2017), spiritual leadership is manifest in the new call for businesses to respond to environmental concerns, or to honor the new, triple bottom line of “social and ecological sustainability without sacrificing acceptable profitability, revenue growth, and other indicators of financial performance” (Frey & Egel, 2017, par. 5). Even if employees do not embrace the same religious doctrine, the idea of improving the world and creating a new and better environment for new generations is critical. This enables the business to respond to the market environment, to honor demands that the organization honors consumer demands for greater environmental sustainability, and takes a forward-thinking approach to renewable and recyclable resources.

FedEx is an excellent example of an organization which has had to embrace a more diverse workforce, given it is international scope. It has had to honor spiritual and ethical demands for the organization to unite during difficult times, and to advance a broader perspective regarding the demands of consumers, including offering more sustainable methods of transport. Even at a print office location, there are ways that the office can put the priorities of efficiency and sustainability at the forefront of the company’s ethical perspective, as well as stress the value the company offers in conserving the environment and connecting people who are sharing goods and information.

For example, FedEx currently uses carbon neutral branded envelopes, uses recycled materials almost exclusively, and also offers electronic documentation customers can upload virtually, thus reducing the cost of traveling to a physical location and reducing the need to create new physical materials and documents which generate waste (Environment, 2022). This infuses the organization with a sense of higher purpose, by stressing to its employees that the services it offers are improving how people connect and do business in eco-friendly ways. The organization has also created more sustainable ways in which to enable physical operations to sustain themselves, including using solar power (Environment, 2022).