Spiritual Intelligence as in Nichiren Buddhism: Implications for Consciousness-Based Leadership and Management

Abstract

Spiritual intelligence (SI) has been gaining popularity as a concept among academicians and the general public since its inception. In the COVID world, many people are suffering from the problems of stress, anxiety and depression, and SI presents a promising solution. It is often confused with spirituality. We tried to highlight their difference by separately defining them. Though many attempts have been made to conceptualize SI by researchers worldwide, efforts to define it from Nichiren Buddhism are limited. This study aims to fill this gap. It’s an exploratory study based on qualitative research methods using ‘Gosho’ as the data source. Inductive content analysis is used to analyze the data. A total of seven themes emerged for SI, suggesting that we can achieve “absolute happiness”. Further, a multilayered model is proposed to represent the themes. This article discusses the implications of SI for conscious leadership and ends with future research directions.