Samuel Mercier

Leadership and spirituality in business and public administration: a cross-cultural empirical study comparing the USA and France

In this discussion we build on previous work on the role of ethics in shaping the behaviour of leaders in business and public administration to investigate the relationship between leadership spirituality, the environment springing from such leadership, and the resulting followers’ attributions of leader effectiveness in the USA and France. Survey data collected from the USA and France were used to test a composite construct of spiritual leadership including (a) accountability, (b) rationality, and (c) honesty. The results of hypothesis tested suggest followers’ attributions of leaders’ positive outcomes increase in proportion with increases in leader’s spirituality. These results are indicative of a state of affairs that will force new standards to be written in political books, government manuals, and history books. This study contributes to the standards research by bridging ethical standards, spirituality, and organisational performance.