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Spiritual Leadership: Background, Theory, and Application to Japanese Business Leaders

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Enterprise as a Carrier of Culture

Part of the book series: Translational Systems Sciences ((TSS,volume 16))

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Abstract

This chapter briefly surveys how the theory of spiritual leadership has developed out of previous leadership theories. The author gives a general account of business trends that unite spirituality and management as well as the research on this theme in North America. The author introduces the spiritual leadership theory put forward by Gilbert W. Fairholm and Louis W. Fry and Sadler Nisiewicz. Referring to Mother Teresa’s advice, the author states that we have borrowed things from God and God has lent them to us. This thought is well established in Tenrikyo, one of the powerful new religious movements in Japan. This type of idea that all resources are loaned to us may well become the key concept for a management paradigm shift. He further evaluates several famous Japanese business leaders both past and present from a spiritual perspective. The author hopes that Japanese business leaders may play an important role as spiritual leaders. The Japanese traditional religions of Buddhism and Shintoism as well as Tenrikyo are discussed as the source for spirituality. In conclusion, the author implies that since spirituality is so vague a term for the Japanese, religious reform is needed for seekers of real spirituality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    By referring to psychologists, Sanders et al. define spirituality as “a core component of internal development.” According to Emmons’ treatise on “ultimate concern,” spirituality is that aspect concerned with ultimate purpose and meaning in life, which translates into a commitment to God or a higher power, recognition of the transcendent in everyday experience, a selfless focus, and a set of beliefs and practices that facilitates a relationship with the transcendent. Karakas (2010) gives some definitions of spirituality and defines it as the journey to find a sustainable, meaningful, holistic, and profound understanding of the existential self and its relationship/interconnectedness with the sacred and the transcendent. Spirituality is distinguished from organized religion in that there is no strict definition of spirituality . My understanding of spirituality is an inner path based on the belief of a higher power or supernatural existence. Higher power includes God, Nature, the Great Spirit, and so on.

  2. 2.

    The translation was supervised by Dr. Toshihiro Kanai at Kobe University.

  3. 3.

    The author came across Mitorff’s name in an article in Business Week wherein Michelle Conlin wrote about “Religion in the Workplace – The growing presence of spirituality in Corporate America” in 1999. The author personally met Ian Mitroff at the University of Southern California in 2001. The latter suggested that the Japanese are more spiritual as there are books such as Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. Although right, there has been little research conducted on spirituality in the workplace in Japan .

  4. 4.

    Based on the works of many authors, Fairholm listed in alphabetical order what leadership deals with (Fairholm 1997: 106–107). See 3.8 Appendix.

  5. 5.

    Fairholm states that leadership is by nature developmental. Leaders seek to liberate the best in people, and we link the best to our higher selves. They focus on creating and maintaining organizationally healthy people. Leaders seek a state of mind of inner peace for self and others (Fairholm 1997: 117–118).

  6. 6.

    The IISL website.

  7. 7.

    The IISL website.

  8. 8.

    The IISL website

  9. 9.

    In Japan , the term “spiritual” implies psychical.

  10. 10.

    Rev. Kakuho Ichikawa, who had finished the Thousand-Day Circumambulation Practice, presides over Nihon Keiei-do Kyokai (the Japan Management Path Association) in Tokyo. He proposes the recovery of the Japanese spirit among executives and the use of Mountain Buddhist ascetic practices for spiritual training. This professional has created a company philosophy for various firms. See http://keieido.jp/ (Japanese).

  11. 11.

    Zaikai means business world, but it implies the circle of the top leaders of an economic organization who can exert influence on politics.

  12. 12.

    About the Inamori Philosophy (Official Website of Kazuo Inamori)

  13. 13.

    Amoeba Management is a unique management method that Inamori created while striving to uphold Kyocera’s management rationale.

    Amoeba Management begins with dividing an organization into small units called “amoebas.” Each amoeba leader is responsible for drafting plans and goals for the unit. Amoebas achieve their goals through collaboration and the hard efforts of all their amoeba members. In this system, every employee plays a major role and voluntarily participates in managing the unit, achieving what is known as “Management by All.” The Amoeba Management System has been implemented at approximately 600 companies, including Kyocera, KDDI, and JAL, where Inamori led the successful turnaround initiative. Source: Amoeba Management (Official Website of Kazuo Inamori)

  14. 14.

    The author presented this paper after Kondo’s presentation at the 73rd national convention of the Nippon Academy of Management held at Komazawa University on June 19, 2016. He understood my presentation and confessed doing Morning Prayer before an executive meeting.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Administration, Tokiwa University, Ibaraki, Japan

    Motomasa Murayama

Authors
  1. Motomasa Murayama
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Correspondence to Motomasa Murayama .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Suita City Museum, Suita, Osaka, Japan

    Hirochika Nakamaki

  2. Faculty of Business Administration, Shujitsu University, Okayama, Japan

    Koichiro Hioki

  3. Faculty of International Studies, Tenri University, Tenri, Nara, Japan

    Noriya Sumihara

  4. College of Economics, Nihon University, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Izumi Mitsui

Appendix

Appendix

  • Affirmation. Leaders Acknowledge a Basic Optimism

  • Balance. Leaders strive for balance between work, family, and professional areas of life.

  • Capacity. Leaders tap into worker capabilities and resources.

  • Ceremony. Leaders define new ceremonies and rituals that bring people together.

  • Community. Leaders relate to the organization as a community.

  • Continuous improvement. Leaders help others express their highest potential in ways that generate fulfillment in work-related activities.

  • Corporate spirit. Leaders create a spiritual force that honors high performance , compassion, empathy for others, and individual contributions.

  • Credibility. Leaders are more likely to feel a strong sense of team spirit and see their personal values as consistent with the group’s and thus be seen as creditable by members.

  • Culture. Leaders build a sense of community, of oneness by creating cultures consonant with the shared values of the group.

  • Emotions. The leader is a mood setter. Leaders deal with contentment, capacity, equanimity, detachment, and connectedness.

  • Ethics. Leaders set the moral tone of the group.

  • Heart. Leaders are a guide to spiritual awareness, through a sense of their inner core self.

  • Higher standard. Leaders set the standards for excellence for the group. The standards are the basis of their ethics.

  • Holistic. Leaders see the organization both as an economic enterprise and as a human system. Both are equally important and equally controlling of individual and group action.

  • Integrity. Leaders are moral architects, truth clarifiers. They model moral truth in their actions.

  • Liberation. Leaders seek to liberate the best in people. The best is linked to one’s higher self.

  • Love. Leaders love their followers, the common work, and the people served. They care for, respect, and honor followers.

  • Meaning. Leadership is about sharing intentions.

  • Nonsectarian spirit. Leaders expand work-life concerns and relate inner spirit in business to the “soft” topics of meaning, fidelity, and caring.

  • Oneness. Leaders bring unity to organizations .

  • Organizational health. Leaders strive to help stakeholders make choices about the care of their body, mind, heart, and spirit.

  • Power. Leaders are models of inner power. They maintain an attitude of unbending intent.

  • Presence. Leaders reflect inner strength.

  • Relationships. Leaders create bonds that fulfill the deep needs of employees and the purposes of the organization .

  • Sacred. Leaders help followers find the sacred everywhere, including in the self.

  • Servant. The leader is first servant, then a boss.

  • Spirituality. Leaders recognize the process of living out deeply held personal values, of honoring forces or a presence greater than self.

  • State of mind. Leaders seek inner peace for self and others.

  • Stewardship. Leaders hold work resources in trust for a temporary period. Stewardship is a collective idea. It is by sharing equally all power that we become one, united.

  • Team. Leaders use their power to help accomplish the group’s ends, not only the leader’s ends.

  • Trust. Leaders rely on the integrity, truth, justice, and fairness of others in trusting them.

  • Trusteeship. Leaders hold work resources in trust for a temporary period.

  • Truth. Leaders apply the truth. The application of truth calls up the innermost secrets of the soul.

  • Values. The leader is a value steward, a steward of virtues.

  • Visioning. Leadership is sense-making, covenant-making.

  • Wholeness. The leader is a whole-maker, a creator of oneness within the group.

  • (Fairholm 1997 106-107)

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Murayama, M. (2019). Spiritual Leadership: Background, Theory, and Application to Japanese Business Leaders. In: Nakamaki, H., Hioki, K., Sumihara, N., Mitsui, I. (eds) Enterprise as a Carrier of Culture. Translational Systems Sciences, vol 16. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7193-6_3

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