Spiritual Leadership in a Health Foundation of João Pessoa

Abstract

Spiritual Leadership (SL) stands out for its potential positive impact, creating vision and congruence of values in the team, empowering at the individual level, promoting commitment and productivity. It is capable of meeting routine needs, such as promoting social alternatives for emergency situations, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The styles and attributes of leadership is one of the topics covered in the area of people management in the third sector (TS) and tends to collaborate with the SDGs. There are four Private Foundations in João Pessoa/PB. Although SL has characteristics inherent to TS, there is a lack of research that identifies such praxis, since only one study was found that deals with SL in TS. Another gap is that no study was found that analyzed the Holistic Model of Spiritual Leadership (HMSL). Studying leadership styles active in the TS helps the development of people management practices that are more trustworthy in these organizations. Therefore: what are the characteristics of spiritual leadership in a Health Foundation in João Pessoa? Qualitative research has a thematic scope that addresses the HMSL categories and factors. The geographic scope is a health civil society organization in João Pessoa/PB and the temporal scope is longitudinal. The case study is unique, using the interpretive type. Interviews with four individuals were analyzed by Atlas.ti, via content analysis and coding. A sociodemographic questionnaire and descriptive statistics were used. Eight factors were analyzed by 35 indicators, from: 1st) Inner Life (4); 2nd) Altruistic Love (5), Hope/Faith (4) and Vision (4); 3rd) Calling/Meaning (4), Membership/Belonging (4); none of the 4th; and 5th) “Attitude or Psychological”: Organizational Commitment (5) and Satisfaction in Life (5). The “Social Order” was based on Hunsaker (2014) and the “Citizen Behavior in Organization” on Phuong et al. (2018). All categories and 39 of the 47 HMSL factors were identified. The results demonstrate that SL is strongly present in the Foundation. So, this study contributes to the field of leadership styles in TS, adding to the research on SL in philanthropic Foundations and Treatment Centers working in the area of drug addiction. Academically corroborates by analyzing the HMSL, taking into account the gaps: qualitative, contemplation of Antecedents, leaders and followers. It collaborates with relevant empiricism regarding male performance in SL, guides Civil Society Organization managers on the value of adopting SL, and indicates which factors and categories deserve more attention, according to this scope, to achieve better implementation and results.