How Does Workplace Leadership Affect the Spiritual Well-being of Employees?

1. How Does Workplace Leadership Affect the Spiritual Well-being of Employees? Roger Gill, PhD, C.Psychol. Visiting Professor of Leadership Studies 16 February 2017 r.w.t.gill@durham.ac.uk

2. Why Are We Asking This Question? • ‘Employees [increasingly] want an opportunity to express their whole being: physical, intellectual, emotional and, yes, even a spiritual sense of higher purpose and contribution.’ (Gregory Unruth, 2015) • ‘Never has there been a more exciting time for all of us to explore this next great frontier where the boundaries between work and higher purpose are merging into one.’ (Sir Richard Branson, 2011) • These needs and opportunities concern spiritual well-being and leadership in the workplace

3. The Nature of Leadership in the Workplace • Many definitions of ‘leadership’, mostly focusing on motivating or influencing people to pursue a common objective – on engagement of followers and employees • Unsatisfactory basis for fully understanding and effectively developing and practising leadership • Proposed definition: ‘Leadership is showing the way and helping or inducing people to pursue it’ (Roger Gill, 2011) • Comprises six core themes and practices

4. A Model of Six Core Themes and Practices of Leadership(Gill, 2011)

5. Concepts of Spirituality • Definitions of spirituality also vary • Spirituality concerns what relates to, or affects, the emotions and character of a person in relation to mood, courage, determination and energy – a person’s animating force (spirit). • Spirituality concerns the synergy, based on our values and beliefs, of meaning, purpose, a sense of belonging, and a sense of value or worth in our lives that animates us in what we seek and do.

6. Workplace Spirituality • Concerns the motivation or driving force that is uniquely human in seeking, providing or fulfilling a need or desire for meaning, purpose, a sense of belonging, and a sense of value or worth in performing work • Consistent with the human need or desire both for understanding the human experience and for self-actualization (Maslow) (John Milliman et al, 2016) • May take a humanistic (secular) form or – relating to a transcendent higher power – a religious form

7. Spirituality at Work • Spirituality can help people to maintain good mental health and well-being • Some evidence, however, that people who are spiritual but not religious are more prone to mental health problems than those who are spiritual and religious and those who are neither spiritual nor religious (Michael King, 2014) • ‘Being able to express and explore our spirituality is a basic human need and a universal human right… applied to everyone and… enshrined in European and UK law, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’ (Mental Health Foundation, 2014)

8. Workplace Spirituality and Person-Environment Fit Level of P-E Fit Aspect of Workplace Spirituality ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Person-Job Fit Meaningful work Person-Group Fit Sense of belongingness and community Person-Organization Fit Alignment with organizational vision, purpose and values __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adapted from John Milliman at al., 2016

9. Leadership and Spirituality at Work • Leaders encourage ‘a sense of collective identity and collective efficacy, which in turn brings stronger feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy’ (James MacGregor Burns, 2003) • This enhances a sense of meaningfulness in one’s work and life (Bernard M. Bass, quoted by Burns, 2003) • Spirituality includes the sense of community that people feel (Margaret C. McKee, et al., 2011) • Feeling disconnected from colleagues – from the social aspects of work – may adversely affect well-being at work, e.g. remote working in the virtual organization and ‘hot desking’

10. The Ethical Issue with Workplace Spirituality • Spirituality at work also has a dark side: its distortion and exploitation for instrumental purposes – e.g. employer domination and control, making more money – leading to distrust, cynicism, disgust with management, and disengagement – the very opposite of its more honourable intentions (Peter Case and Jonathan Gosling, 2010; Denis Tourish, 2013) • ‘How best to impart spiritual meaning without imposing one’s religious beliefs on others remains a challenge’ (Karen Holland et al., 2016)

11. A General Concept of Spiritual Well-being ‘A state of being that reflects positive feelings, behaviours and cognitions of relationships with oneself, others, nature and the transcendent, which provides the individual with a sense of identity, wholeness, satisfaction, joy, contentment, beauty, love, respect, positive attitudes, inner peace and harmony, and purpose and direction in life.’ R. Gomez and J.W. Fisher (2003)

12. A Concept of Spiritual Well-being in the Workplace A state of well-being characterized by positive feelings, behaviours and cognitions of relationships with one’s workplace in respect meaning, purpose, belonging, and value or worth.

13. Meaning and Purpose in Spiritual Well-being • Our striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in human beings (Viktor Frankl, 1984) • Psychological [spiritual] wellbeing in employees is characterized as having a sense of purpose and meaning and positive emotions (Ivan Robertson and Cary Cooper, 2015) • Well-being in general is associated with purpose in life (Jeromy Anglim and Sharon Grant, 2016) • Spiritual meaning, to which a sense of purpose, goals and values contribute, enhances well-being (R.A. Emmons et al., 1998)

14. Meaningfulness of Work • Determined by skill variety, task identity, and task significance (Hackman and Oldham, 1976, 1980) • The meaningfulness of events, goals, tasks, actions and situations in the workplace is determined significantly by personal values, beliefs and needs • Meaningfulness is an antecedent of engagement (Kahn, 1990) • Meaningfulness is a mediator in the relationship between leadership and engagement (Mohammed Yasin Ghadi et al., 2013) • Meaningfulness is associated both with employee motivation and productivity (Hackman and Oldham, 1976)and with psychological well-being(Arnold et al., 2007)

15. Workplace Leadership and Spiritual Well-being: Propositions • Employees’ spiritual well-being is a consequence of workplace leadership, moderated by empowerment and mediated by workplace spirituality and engagement • Spiritual leadership in the workplace is an employee-centred form of leadership that focuses on enabling people to experience meaning, purpose, belongingness, and positive feelings about value or worth in doing the work (workplace spirituality)

16. Model of Workplace Leadership and Spiritual Well-being(Gill, 2017)

17. Workplace Spirituality and Employee Empowerment and Engagement • Workplace spirituality is linked particularly closely with employee empowerment and engagement – two core characteristics of effective leadership • Empowerment can be defined as giving people the knowledge, skills, self-confidence, opportunity, freedom, authority and resources to manage themselves and be able to do what needs to be done • Engagement is the extent to which people are motivated or inspired to want to do willingly, even eagerly, what needs to be done and even give of their discretionary effort over and above it Roger Gill (2011)

18. Employee Empowerment • A moderator in the relationship between leadership and workplace spirituality, employee engagement and spiritual well-being • Empowerment influences employee engagement (Rudolph and Baltes, 2016; Jussi Tanskanen et al., 2016; Katharina Vogt et al., 2016) • Empowerment is a strategy for enhancing employee engagement by providing more meaningful work (The Economist, 2015) • Examples: Toyota, Whole Foods, quality circles

19. Employee Engagement – 1 • A healthy organizational culture is characterized by employee engagement (Jim Dethmer et al., 2014) • Positive correlation with organizational performance and employee loyalty, productivity and customer care (Daniel Goleman, 2012) • Employee engagement is demonstrated by absorption, dedication and vigour (W.B. Schaufeli et al., 2002) – ‘flow’ (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, 2003) • Employee engagement is associated with employee well-being (David Guest, 2014) • Employees’ lack of engagement and actual disengagement are the most widespread and most important driver of employee dissatisfaction and consequent turnover

20. Employee Engagement – 2 • Making money for the owners of a business (their purpose) never was motivating, inspiring or engaging for its employees • Two reasons why employees are unengaged or disengaged: - Organizations do not understand what people really want from work - Too many managers are incompetent leaders (Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, 2016) • Reasons for this: faulty management selection, training and development and promotion practices, self-interest, sycophancy, narcissism, and sheer lack of aptitude for leadership • Those who need leadership development most are those who desire it least!

21. Causal Links between Spirituality and Spiritual Well-being: Which Causes Which? Many studies show a positive correlation between spirituality (however defined) and spiritual well-being in the population as a whole. The causal link, however, is less clear, for several reasons: • Variations in the definition of spirituality and in its measurement • Evidence that an agreeable temperament and sociability (which correlate with spirituality) may be the key personality characteristics that predispose people to be spiritually orientated and that these characteristics, rather than spirituality in itself, contribute to well-being • Evidence that the benefits associated with spirituality may be largely due to being a member of a close-knit community In other words, spirituality just may be a consequence, rather than a cause, of spiritual well-being

22. Engagement and Spiritual Well-being • Meaningfulness of work is associated positively with psychological well-being (Arnold et al., 2007) • Employee engagement is associated positively with employee job satisfaction (Saks, 2006) • One particular feature of engagement – affective commitment (emotional attachment to the organization) – is a direct predictor of employees’ psychological well-being (Rivkin et al., 2016)

23. The Nature of Spiritual Leadership – 1 • ‘Leadership is showing the way and helping or inducing people to pursue it’ (Roger Gill, 2011) • ‘Spiritual leadership involves intrinsically motivating and inspiring workers through… - hope/faith in a vision of service to key stakeholders, and - a corporate culture based on the values of altruistic love … to produce a highly motivated, committed and productive workforce’ Louis Fry and Melissa Sadler Nisiewicz (2013)

24. The Nature of Spiritual Leadership – 2 • Spiritual leadership may serve both an organization’s needs for effectiveness, however measured, and employees’ psychological needs (Steger, 2012) • No form of effective moral leadership coerces people to change or compromise deeply held personal values and beliefs • Instead, true spiritual leadership enables employees to find meaning, purpose, belongingness, and a sense of value or worth in their work, not imposing this on them – or ignoring it • This contributes to employees’ spiritual well-being and their happiness in their lives as a whole

25. Leadership, Spirituality and Well-being • Research in a Canadian healthcare setting found a significant relationship between leadership and employees’ mental and spiritual well-being • This relationship was mediated by workplace spirituality, in particular employees’ sense of community • ‘Leaders influence individual well-being through their ability to enhance employees’ sense of community in the workplace’ Margaret McKee et al., 2011

26. Spiritual Experience and Its Outcomes • Spiritual experience should not be conflated with its outcomes(Michael King, 2014) • My model aims to avoid this confusion by proposing that the discovery or revelation of inspirational meaning, purpose, belongingness and value or worth in work and empowerment to be able to do it – i.e. a spiritual experience – determines engagement in the form of wanting to do it and to exercise discretionary effort in doing so, i.e. outcomes • Same relationship for leadership and spirituality and for engagement and spiritual well-being and happiness (e.g. enjoyment, pleasure, joy, fulfilment, contentment)

27. Further Evidence Supporting the Model • A study of 148 employees in 69 companies in the Netherlands found that leadership was related positively to work engagement (and, in turn, to job performance generally) (Antje Schmitt et al., 2016) • Leadership and employee work engagement are positively associated, and the relationship between leadership and performance is mediated by engagement (S. Kovjanik et al., 2013; K. Breevart et al., 2014) • Leadership style affects organizational performance but does so through its effect on employee well-being (Jaana Kuoppala et al., 2008)

28. Issues Needing Attention – 1 • Relationships between spirituality and well-being failed to be found in studies of a UK undergraduate sample (V. Anand et al., 2015) and in a general population in the USA (M. Lindeman et al., 2012) (though there are methodological issues with both studies) • A recent study, exploring inconsistencies in research findings on the connection between spirituality and well-being, concluded that personality (a preference for intuitive cognition rather than analytical cognition) exerts an important influence in any salutogenic effects from spirituality or religiosity (Kristína Czekóová et al., 2016)

29. Issues Needing Attention – 2 • Many studies have produced artificially high associations due to common items in research questionnaires (using spiritual well-being scales to test the effect of spirituality on well-being) (Bert Garssen et al., 2016) • High self-ratings of spiritual well-being may both mask negative aspects of life revealed in respondents’ interview narratives and lack supporting evidence (L.Ponocny et al., 2015) • Need to adopt the same rigorous standards in studies of spirituality that are the norm in scientific method (cf. Michael King, 2014) • Who is responsible for employees’ spiritual well-being at work? • What needs to be done, and by whom?

31. One View on Who Is Responsible for Employees’ Spiritual Well-being at Work Employees can help themselves in handling conflict, stress, difficulties, discouragement and frustration in the workplace, for example, by using Buddhist principles that focus on honesty, openness, courage, maturity and continuous learning in gaining clarity, wisdom and inspiration. Michael Carroll (2004)

32. Organizational Responsibility for Employees’ Spiritual Well-being at Work – 1 • Action by organizations’ CEOs, boards of directors and HR functions • HR policies and practices that focus on the salutogenic factors – factors that determine health and well-being at work • Employers’ policies and actions may meet with mixed reactions, e.g. cynicism about Tesco’s ‘health pledge’ (‘Very little helps’) (Marianne Calnan, CIPD, 2017) • Action by leaders and managers, individually and collectively, especially to treat the causes rather than merely the consequences of lack of well-being at work • Attention to employee empowerment and engagement

33. Organizational Responsibility for Employees’ Spiritual Well-being at Work - 2 • Attention to employee empowerment: enhancing employees’ own decision making and control over their role and how they deliver their work (Maria Hudson, ACAS, 2016) • Attention to employee engagement case example: the struggling NHS, with excessive staff shortages and high workloads, needs to focus on staff engagement (Cary Cooper, CIPD, 2017) and make compassionate leadership and care the core element of its leadership strategy(Michael West, CIPD, 2017) • Leadership that inspires excessive employee engagement is likely to rebound, with increased absence due to sickness (Karina Nielsen and Kevin Daniels, 2016)

34. Conclusions • Spiritual well-being is both instrumental for organizational effectiveness (however defined and measured) and a socially and morally responsible and desirable end in itself • Workplace spirituality is causally related in certain ways to employees’ spiritual well-being • Spiritual leadership, as a form of leadership, creates workplace spirituality and ultimately spiritual well-being, partly but significantly through employee empowerment and engagement • We need to further help or induce employers to enhance leadership, in particular spiritual leadership, in their organizations

35. Implications for Leadership Practice – 1 • Attention to leadership and leadership development policy and practice as part of general HR policy and practice • Ensure that a clear, valid and appealing vision is defined and communicated • Ensure that a clear, valid and appealing mission or purpose is defined and communicated • Ensure that shared values that support the vision, purpose and strategies to pursue them are identified, communicated and personally displayed by leaders • Ensure that rational strategies that are informed by these shared values are developed, communicated and implemented

36. Implications for Leadership Practice – 2 • Ensure that people are empowered to find meaning, purpose, belongingness, and a sense of value or worth in their work so that they are able to do what needs to be done • Ensure that they are engaged with their work – that they are motivated, even inspired – to want to do what needs to be done and will even willingly, even eagerly, give discretionary effort over and above this • Ensure that employee well-being – physical, mental and spiritual – is always maintained and, where necessary or possible, enhanced through an ethical and spiritual approach to leadership

37. How Does Workplace Leadership Affect the Spiritual Well-being of Employees? Roger Gill, PhD, C.Psychol. Visiting Professor of Leadership Studies 16 February 2017 r.w.t.gill@durham.ac.uk