Does Spiritual Intelligence Affect Leadership Learning?

Leadership is having the ability and skills to lead a group of people or an organization in effective way to finally reach what’s intended-success. Every person has his own beliefs and ideas about leadership. Some considers it being a leader means being a guide for others to complete and achieve certain goals, and for others it means being a motivator for the team to reach the best of their selves and ultimately get success. But in general leaders are those that are able to inspire and set a vision for others to follow.

Becoming a leader requires certain skills and talents to define one’s leadership style. The student leaders get necessary elements in high institutions and learn how to lead. According to science, among some main elements that affect leadership learning is Spiritual Intelligence.

As defined in Wikpedia "Spiritual Intelligence is a term used by some philosophers, psychologists, and developmental theorists to indicate spiritual parallels with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). The term was first coined in 1997 by the speaker Danah Zohar and introduced it in her book "ReWiring the Corporate Brain."

A recently published study has gone through studying of spiritual intelligence and how it affects transformational leadership style displayed by student leaders. "Transformational leadership is a style of leadership where the leader is charged with identifying the needed change, creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of the group" as defined in Wikipedia.

The mentioned study is conducted by a group of researchers from Malaysia and published in a Journal of Southeast Asian Research. Researchers used questionnaires answered by students from many parts of the world. The research stated that ‘Intelligence is a skill, an innate potential that can be developed through trainings. As old as it can be, it is a tool used to distinguish an individual from one another and also a predictor of where you stand in a society."

Stating Zohar and Berman, the research shows that "Spiritual Intelligence is conceptualized as creativity, in-depth and transformative thinking… (It is) the development of desire and capacity for purpose, vision and values that juggles between reason and emotion, mind and body. It combines interpersonal communication skill and intrapersonal thoughts that surpasses the difference between self and others."

Scientific studies have talked about a part in human brain that is responsible of spirituality, and some scientists call it "God Spot" which "is activated based on one’s emotional intensity and activity" as indicated in the study. "Spiritual Intelligence (is) a problem solving skill that incorporates one’s belief and value into one’s actions and decisions, which leads to a meaningful course of action" the study added.

The mission of the study was to investigate relation of transformational leadership with Spiritual Intelligence through its dimensions that include Consciousness, Grace, Meaning, Transcendence, and Truth. After analyzing the data collected, researchers confirmed that "dimensions of Spiritual Intelligence have a positive and significant correlation with Transformational Leadership. However based on the coefficient values, it showed that the student leaders are not fully transformed. They do not display the full characteristics of Spiritual Intelligence. It was found that among the dimensions, Grace has the highest correlation value."

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