An Oscar-winning corporate movie “Wall Street” had an infamous dialogue “greed is good” and the same appears to be the mantra of many in the corporate world. Too much capitalism is an economic model grounded in a world view of only "self-interest". For example, some of the recent social media influenced crimes and acts of violence suggest how less has been done by social media companies to eradicate the menace with flawed algorithms as only reactive actions on content moderation & so much more sincerity and investment are required in Artificial Intelligence and other deep learning to take equal responsibility. As per Alice Marwick, a communication professor at the University of North Carolina, "If you are going to garner the benefits of having a massive platform - of tremendous ad revenues and humongous user bases - then you also have a responsibility to govern that platform." Another example is the fast-food industry, a multi-billion dollar industry which has only reaped the benefits but has been destructive for our health and for the society.
Though capitalism encourages innovation, it provides consumers to freely choose products and services they desire and eradicates bureaucracy to an extent, however, too much of it can be detrimental to exploit not only consumers but the backbone of the companies i.e. it's people and lends towards inequality. Most of the time the externalization not only creates division but also impacts workplace culture. However, the culture culprit of too much capitalism is slowly making entrepreneurs and leaders think and create the right balance which not only fosters innovation but innovation which leads to harmony at the workplace and the world as a whole. Today's consumers are way more aware than before which is prompting many organizations to consciously try to inculcate a culture of spirituality and conscience capitalism still not sacrificing the core purpose of profit earning. So what exactly is Spiritual Leadership and how does it bring workplace harmony and greater productivity?
Spiritual leadership has actually nothing to do with religion but purely based on a moral code of conduct and ethical business practice. According to researcher Louis Fry, "Spiritual leadership in business is a constitution of values, attitudes, and behaviours necessary to intrinsically motivate one’s self and others through a compelling vision where employees experience a sense of responsibility towards their work; a vision that is meaningful and provides purpose to their lives. Spiritual leaders create a work culture based on inclusion, trust, altruism, and respect such that employees feel valued and appreciated".
Corporate culture stems from the fundamental ethical values of top managers that affect employees’ behaviours. When selfless values of respect, fair treatment, honesty, ownership of work and the like are an integral part of an organization’s culture, a culture of trust emerges. Leaders play an integral role in creating an Organization’s culture and an ethical Leader rests upon three important pillars: i) the leader’s moral conduct, ii) the leader’s vision and values and iii) the integrity of choices made and actions taken. And an organization’s long term performance is strongly linked with ethical leadership.
A research done by a renown researcher shows that great organizations who have achieved excellence in performance year on year have established culture by creating an environment of inclusion in the decision making process and have flattened the hierarchy, an environment where people have been empowered to take personal ownership of good work as well as bad work and can communicate the same honestly and openly, an environment where leaders can accept failures and criticism with humility. Such leaders have sustained high performance by creating a culture where truth is heard and brutal facts are faced. Such organizations have been cautious in hiring the right people and letting the unethical people off and then worry about developing the vision and mission for the company. Recruitment in such organizations gives greater importance to a person’s ethical thinking, integrity, moral character rather than looking at the person’s educational background, managerial competence, expertise or work experience.
Another research shows that the main reason for absenteeism, attrition, and low productivity is that people feel that their work fails to provide them with a sense of purpose and meaning. This is where Spirituality in work comes in the picture; a spiritual leader can motivate such workers by showing them a vision of where the company wants to be and how the worker can equally grow with the company. A spiritual leader can inspire the workers and work towards meeting the spiritual needs of workers which can be aligned with the organization’s objectives. This higher motivation, commitment, and productivity have a direct impact on the bottom line. Research shows that in today’s complex business scenario workplace spirituality not only increases positive human health and psychological well-being but also delivers improved employee commitment, productivity, and reduced absenteeism and turnover. In such organizations, the environment is cleansed from denominational politics and religious ideology is avoided as religion can lead to arrogance. Spirituality instead is concerned with qualities of the human spirit, positive psychological concepts such as patience, tolerance, forgiveness, personal responsibility and having the humility to regard oneself as equal to another and not greater in value than to another individual.
Some other HRM practices for creating positive workplace culture-
# Recruitment and Selection Process – Organizations that have achieved greater achievement through workplace spirituality give the highest importance in their selection process on employee attitudes and values rather than technical abilities. This philosophy includes everyone from top managers to the bottom line. To test a person’s behaviours such as a sense of humour, teamwork, friendliness; group interviews can be taken where applicants are asked to tell jokes, role play to demonstrate teamwork, capacity to act spontaneously, taking ownership if anything goes wrong. The interview panel also includes peer employees to provide a greater perspective and emphasize teamwork.
# Induction – An induction is very important as it introduces the new hire to the organization’s work environment and values. Spiritual organizations ensure that the induction process is also team-oriented rather than a typical practice where the responsibility is entirely given to HR for introducing the new hire to the company’s history, policies, managers, etc. A spiritual organization rather makes team members, managers, HR all together greet new hires and making the new hire feel at their comfort zone. Such organizations also go a step ahead and invite customers to provide their perspective or an introduction mail welcoming the new hire. Senior employees without looking at the designation are assigned as mentors empowering employees to think independently, training sessions are arranged as per the employee’s need and also making sure stress is diagnosed. Training sessions can include humorous videos and skits prepared by volunteers to teach the company’s culture and fun at work.
# Few other policies such as casual dress code, financial and non- financial rewards, a pat on the work for good work done, empowering to express tough issues which do not compromise their security of a job. No lay off policy even in difficult economic scenarios rather than face downturn with innovative policies including the employees as well to participate in bringing the company back to its feet.
# Career Management- Policies such as lateral transfers, promoting employees from within is a great way to inspire and retain people.
#Robust Compensation and Benefits Programs - Chalking out tax-effective salary structure, sharing profit and being fair and honest about the organization’s performance, retirement savings policy, stock option plans, etc motivate employees to remain committed with the company. South West Airlines, an organization which has consistently done well for years, demonstrated this attitude when the CEO agreed to freeze his own pay when SWA’s pilots were asked to choose a stock option plan instead of an annual pay increase for five years. During the downturn, the chief executive of Southwest Airlines voluntarily cut his 2009 base salary by 10 per cent citing the company’s first-quarter results. In 2017, Southwest Airlines announced it would be sharing $586 million in profits with its 54,000 employees – which equates to about a 13.2% average bonus for each employee, or roughly the equivalent of six weeks' pay. And that doesn’t even count the extra $351 million the company contributed to its employees' 401(k) plans. Remarkably, Southwest shared profits with its employees year after year because the company always had a people-first approach which resulted in continuous growth and success and never laid-off or cut pay as a short term approach.
Thus, to conclude conscience capitalism along with spiritual leadership can bring a paradigm shift in the way organizations work and can bring long term excellence in performance and social harmony.
Ref:
Fry, L. (2003). “Toward a Theory of Spiritual Leadership.” The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 693-727.
#consciencecapitalism #workplaceculture #spiritualleadership #ethicalbusinesspractice
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