The Relationship Between Employees
The Relationship Between Employees’ Perception of Spiritual Leadership in Their Organizational Leaders and Employees’ Commitment to Stay with the Organization
Alexander Averin | 2018
Abstract
Recent interest in the effects of spiritual leadership on organizational outcomes focused mainly on the impact of spiritual practices on the leader, as well as the relationship between spiritual leadership and group-level outcomes, thus leaving the link between spiritual leadership and individual followers’ behavior chiefly unexplored (Reave, 2005). The purpose of this research was to add to the understanding of the connection between spiritual leadership and followers’ behavior by addressing the research question of whether there is a relationship between employees’ perception of spiritual leadership of their organizations’ leaders and the employees’ commitment to remain with their organizations. This study proposed to explore this relationship by focusing on the vision, hope/faith, and altruistic love dimensions of spiritual leadership proposed by L. W. Fry (2003) and continuance commitment dimension of employee commitment as proposed by Meyer and Allen (1991). To answer the research question and test stated hypotheses, this study utilized a nonexperimental, cross-sectional, correlational research design and employed the Spiritual Leadership Theory Survey as well as the Continuous Commitment–High Sacrifice scale to collect necessary data (Allen & Meyer, 1990; L. W. Fry, Vitucci, & Cedillo, 2005; Powell & Meyer, 2004). The data were collected from 88 participants who were employed in nonprofit religious organizations in the United States. The results of the data analysis revealed a significant relationship between employees’ perception of their leaders’ vision and altruistic love and their continuance commitment. The relationship between employees’ perception of their leaders’ faith/hope and their continuance commitment was found to be not significant. The potential confounding influence of age, gender, and social desirability bias was also explored and found to be not significant. Implications and limitations of this study as well as recommendations for future research were also discussed.