Spiritual leadership and intention to stay: examining the mediating role of employee voice behaviour

Abstract

PurposeSpiritual leadership focuses on intrinsically motivating the workforce though shared values, attitudes and behaviours and is about achieving organizational excellence through shared aspirations. In the context of tough competition among organizations and relentless disruptions of existing business processes, leaders look forward to devise strategies that will help keep their employees stay alongside, offering constructive criticisms as well. This study aims to examine the influence of spiritual leadership style on employees' intention to stay with the organization, mediated through their voice behaviour.Design/methodology/approachThis cross-sectional study followed a descriptive research design, and data were collected from 357 employees working in the information technology sector in India. Validated instruments in the existing literature were used among the sample respondents, and structural equation modelling was done to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsThe findings of the study suggest that employees' experience of dimensions of spiritual leadership style had varying influences on their voice behaviour and intention to stay with the organization. Also, employee voice behaviour mediated the relationships between two dimensions of spiritual leadership (hope and altruistic love) and intention to stay, but not the relationship between vision and intention to stay.Originality/valueThis study is pioneering in conceptualizing and testing a theoretical model linking spiritual leadership style, employee voice behaviour and their intention to stay with the organization. The results of the study emphasis the need for cultivating a leadership style of shared vision, value congruence and facilitating standards of excellence grounded on values of integrity, humility, compassion and perseverance. Implications for management development on how to promote employee voice behaviour are also discussed.