Spirituality and Strategic Leadership: The Influence of Spiritual Beliefs on Strategic Decision Making

Journal of Business Ethics · 2012 · Volume 106 · Issue 2

Abstract

This work extends the consideration of spirituality and leadership to the field of strategic leadership. Future development in the field of spirituality and leadership will depend on greater clarity concerning the level of analysis, and will require a distinction between personal and collective spirituality. Toward that end, a framework is proposed that describes how the personal spiritual beliefs of a top level leader operate in strategic decision making like a schema to filter and frame information. This function is mediated by the leader’s constructive development and meta-belief and moderated by the organizational context and leadership style. This framework provides a starting point for considering the many expressions of spirituality in organizations and serves as a foundation for a multi-level theory of spirituality and leadership.

Keywords

Spirituality, Strategic leadership, Spiritual beliefs, Decision making, Schema, Level of analysis

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