Proposal: Spiritual Leadership and Employee Engagement as Driver for Organizational Performance

Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM

Introduction

Men and women who run the world’s largest organizations in the likes of Josef Ackermann, formerly of Deutsche Bank; Carlos Ghosn of Nissan and Renault; Moya Greene of Royal Mail Group; Ellen Kullman of DuPont; and President Shimon Peres of Israel affirmed with increasing frequency how different everything feels a decade ago of this writing on Leading in the 21st Century by (Barton, Grant, & Horn, 2012). They spoke of bewildering new environment in which little is certain, the tempo quicker, and the dynamics more complex.

As the McKinsey Quarterly elucidated,

“…today’s leaders face extraordinary new challenges and must learn to think differently about their role and how to fulfill it. Those who do may have an opportunity to change the world in ways their predecessors never imagined”(Ibid).

Over the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in workplace spirituality (Case and Gosling 2010; Giacalone and Jurkiewicz 2010; Pfeffer 2010) and employee engagement (Macey and Schneider 2008) from consultants, organizations, and management scholars. Increasing numbers of individuals are searching for meaning and the desire to experience spirituality at work while organizations are searching for ways to engage their employees. (Rahmani, 2012) said, spirituality in the workplace is not just a concept - it is a practical method for attaining business success.

Several factors led to the emerging interest in integrating spirituality and work. Neal (2004) identified mergers and acquisitions; changing demographics and aging of the workforce; the millennium effect; increased interest in self-help groups and personal growth; and terrorism were among the key factors. Earlier studies such as that of Burack (1999) mentioned two main stream business developments led to its fast growing interest and durability. He termed them as  "economic-technological imperative", the other one is simply described as "people...