Spirituality In The Workplace
This is a short article that discusses ways of incorporating spirituality into the workplace.
Q: How does spirituality show up in the workplace?
Workplace activities that are spiritually sourced include:
- Bereavement programs.
- Wellness information displayed and distributed.
- Employee Assistance Programs.
- Programs that integrate work/family.
- Management systems that encourage personal and spiritual transformation.
- Servant leadership - the desire to serve others first in preference to self.
- Stewardship - leadership practices that support the growth and well-being of others.
- Diversity programs that create inclusive cultures.
- Integration of core values and core business decisions and practices.
- Leadership practices that support the growth and development of all employees.
Q: What are workers experiencing that requires spirituality as a work force necessity?
The necessity for spirituality has intensified because of the pressures of today's workplace in terms of:
- Personal Stability - surviving/adapting to the chaotically changing workplace.
- Balancing Work/Personal Life - revisiting what's important to us and reprioritizing our life activities (based upon spirituality sourced values).
- Greater Performance - need for continuous learning driven from an inner passion.
- Work as Meaning - given today's workplace pressures, employees are asking, "What's meaningful work for me?"
- Work Force Reduction - an increasing need to do more in less time.
- Humanistic Organizational Cultures - the connect (or disconnect) between an individual's personal values and the organization's practiced values.
- Self-Management - the need to solve our own problems through greater empowerment and creativity.
Solutions to these challenges require "inner space" exploration and resolution. Inner space exploration and resolution is a spiritual process! Inner space refers to one's spiritual center.
Q: What is the relationship between spirituality and the workplace?
In order to compensate for the loss of job security and the continuing need for high-performing employees, today's productive and profitable workplaces require organizational cultures that integrate humanistic core values with core business policies, decisions, functions, and behaviors; cultures that support the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of its employees.
Q: What is the role of leadership in promoting spirituality?
- Appoint a committee to define how spirituality plays out in your organization - including an appropriate definition of "spirituality in our workplace."
- Define how spirituality is (or can be) integrated into your strategic plan.
- Do a Spirituality Survey.
- Make certain your performance surveys include an evaluation of how effectively your organizational core values are practiced.
- Create an environment of trust - where employees feel safe to question, learn, and contribute.
- Require personal development seminars - including values clarification and expected humanistic behaviors.
- Be an example of the humanistic values you expect of others.
- Promote diversity because it is a moral and ethical statement of your spiritual belief in human equality.
Q: How do you overcome the challenge of living/working in a workplace where spiritual principles are not valued or practiced?
First, realize that integrating spirituality into your life is for your personal benefit in terms of stress-reduction, centeredness, and personal stability. It is your source of personal adaptation in today's chaotically changing workplace and world.
Adapting to your present workplace practices begins with:
- Redefining your five most important personal values that are spiritually sourced, such as family, personal time, creativity, religious practices, health, etc.
- Defining your personal workplace values, such as money, equality, empowerment, respect, quality relationships, making a difference, etc.
- Comparing your personal values with your perception of the practiced values of your workplace, such as competition, self-interest, control, hierarchy, as well as empowering humanistic values.
- If your values and their values are significantly out of alignment, you have important decisions to make.
i. Remain and non-reactively accept your situation (because your workplace benefits are too great to give up).
ii. Remain and work to change the culture, accepting whatever consequences that may occur.
iii. Begin looking for a workplace that is more compatible with your values-then decide to leave or accept (i), or (ii).
iv. Start your own small business.
Q: How do individuals who accept and live spiritual values lead teams that have not moved into this realm?
- Introduce the idea that humanistic team values are as important as business objectives in achieving team success.
- Don't use the word "spiritual" initially, if unnecessary. Use ethics, values, or morals.
- Do a brainstorming session where "spiritual" or "ethical values" are established as a working part of the team dynamics.
- Expose team members to "appropriate" spiritual literature that show the practical relationship between business success and spirituality, e.g., Soul of the Firm by C. William Pollard.
Q:Are the differences between spiritual goals and organizational goals compatible and possible to manifest? For example, a spiritual goal may be to fully develop employees, allowing and building upon the creativity of the individual. An organizational goal is usually to deliver a product on time and within budget. If an individual is not mastering the organizational goal fast enough, how does one stay connected to the spiritual goal?
First, spirituality is more about process - the way things are done - than it is about achieving goals. The development of an individual and building on creativity will naturally require spiritual practices in the process of achieving an organizational goal. The rate at which an individual grows is mostly self-determined. An organizational goal to deliver a product on time within budget may force or inspire an employee to learn new skills and assume greater responsibility in order to achieve that goal. In this sense, spiritual goals and organizational goals are not only compatible, but mutually beneficial.
Q: Because all organizations set specific (and frequently unrealistic) financial goals and objectives, how does an employee not move into "fear" concerning one's own survival?
Remember, fear is always sourced from a belief we have about ourselves that is usually unfounded. By exploring the worst case scenario regarding our fear and how we would adapt, the energy surrounding our fear is tremendously reduced. Survival really involves food, shelter, and clothing, and these are usually covered in most worst case scenarios. What we usually fear is a lack of income to sustain a certain "standard of living."
In the final analysis, our survival is dependent upon our ability to continually develop leading-edge skills that ensure employment.
Q: Fear-based management is often the driver in most companies. Such quotes as "do it right the first time" have been greatly misquoted in purpose and meaning. Now many employees fear making a mistake. Spirituality is the absence of fear. How does one move from the fear-driven culture to one of peace and love?
True, being centered in one's spiritual self is the absence of fear. Therefore, when fear is present we have uncoupled from our spiritual source and the survival instincts of the mind have taken over. If we are secure within ourselves of our inherent value of being human and our ability to contribute to the success of our organization, then fear-based management has no power. Again, exploring beliefs we may have around "perceived security" and realizing they are involved is how we become immune to fear-based management. The key realization is that peace and love are inner sourced, whether they are an inherent part of a culture or not.