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Abstract
A leader's behavior has been shown to have the greatest potential to positively impact employee engagement due to frequency of workplace interactions; meanwhile, employee engagement continues to be an organizational issue. In addition to behavior, a range of intelligences is seen to contribute to leadership effectiveness including spiritual intelligence (SI). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the relationship between SI in leaders and employee engagement. Online questionnaires hosted on the data collection platform SurveyMonkey were utilized in the study of seventy-one individuals within two organizations. The Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI-24) was used to measure SI levels in leaders, and the Intellectual, Social, and Affective (ISA) Engagement Scale was administered to measure employee engagement. Follow-up qualitative interviews of eleven individuals (four leaders and seven direct reports) were conducted to gain further insight. Multiple regression analysis was used to measure correlation strength between SI in leaders and employee engagement, while ANOVA was used to measure engagement levels between the groups of direct reports with leaders that held high versus low levels of SI. NVivo software was utilized to identify reoccurring themes in interview responses. Results indicated nonsignificant relationships between overall SI levels and engagement or within groups that reported to leaders with high levels of SI, however, follow-up interviews indicated that personal meaning production (PMP) plays an important role in perceived engagement. The results could contribute to the positive training and development of leaders, and deepen the understanding of the role of SI in employee engagement.
Keywords: spiritual intelligence, employee engagement, spiritually intelligent leadership, personal meaning production.
Introduction
For contemporary business leaders to be effective they must learn how to form trustworthy relationships with all stakeholders while satisfying values-based needs of employees (Korazija, Sarotar Zizek, & Mumel, 2016). Individual leaders have unique skill sets comprised of intelligence, experience, creativity, and learned knowledge, and when used in alignment with organizational mission and vision, are seen to be effective (Peterlin, Dimovski, & Penger, 2013). In addition to these personal characteristics of leaders, a wide-ranging scope of intelligences are seen to contribute to leadership effectiveness including intellectual intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EI) (Shabnaml & Tung, 2013), and spiritual intelligence (SI) (Barvydienu & Katilienu, 2009; Fry & Slocum JR., 2008; Stupar, Pilav-Velic, & Sahic,...