American Latter-Day Saint Business Leaders: A Meta-Ethical, Prosocial, and Transformational Leadership

Abstract

This article seeks to understand how religion informs the managerial discourse of American managers and business leaders who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the "Mormon Church". These managers represent an active, if not hyperactive, minority in the American managerial landscape but academic studies about them are extremely limited. We rely on interviews with 12 American managers from this church to understand how their beliefs and the history of their religion influence their managerial vison and practices. Our findings reveal a religiously-informed managerial approach with an ethic of genuine care for individual well-being as a way to attain collective success. This approach is based on five empirical principles: first, active faith leading to personal and collective transformational leadership; second, a search for divine guidance or "revelation" in the decision-making process; third, a "spirit of Deseret" culture that fosters unity in diversity in a "beehive" organizational culture; fourth, goodwill as a source of mutual trust and loyalty; and fifth, a family-oriented business culture. The discussion portrays these religiously-driven managers by also evoking the limits of their prosocial and transformational leadership.