Spiritual leadership: Current status and Agenda for future research and practice

Abstract

Over the past decade, spiritual leadership has emerged as a new paradigm of and approach to leadership. To provide a thorough understanding of the current status of research on this new phenomenon and stimulate more scholarly interest, we conducted a systematic review of existing spiritual leadership literature. By analyzing 59 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals, we unraveled how the concept of spiritual leadership was defined, developed, utilized and validated by researchers across disciplines. This article also provides some directions for future research by highlighting knowledge gaps and critical issues identified in previous studies, such as definitions, methodologies, construct measurements, research contexts, and nomological relationships of spiritual leadership. For scholars who are interested in pursuing spiritual leadership research, this review can serve as a useful reference guide.