Manifestation of Self-interest Transcendence: The Role of Team Transformational Leadership and Workplace Spirituality

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of team transformational leadership on ‘spirit at work’, an individual-level construct of workplace spirituality. Further, this paper seeks to know the moderating role of organizational spiritual climate in the relationship between team transformational leadership and ‘spirit at work’. Furthermore, this paper has examined how the notion of self-interest transcendence acts as the connecting theme among these constructs. This paper has examined the theoretical and empirical evidences relating to the nature of relationships among team transformational leadership, spirit at work and spiritual climate. There exists theory-based empirical justification to build a model of workplace spirituality by positing team transformational leadership as an antecedent of ‘spirit at work’, the construct that captures individual experiences of spirituality at workplace. Articulation of the relationship between team transformational leadership and ‘spirit at work,’ an individual-level construct of workplace spirituality and discussion on theoretical evidences that point towards the moderating role of organizational spiritual climate in the association between team transformational leadership and ‘spirit at work’ are the contributions of this paper. Inspiring potential of super-ordinate goals, motivational potential of transformational leadership behaviors of team members, and the need for verification of identities of organizational members are discussed. Future research should attempt to articulate the limitations inherent in the conceptualization of workplace spirituality and therefore, attempt to thus provide fresh perspectives of the same so as to integrate the sense of sacred in workplace conceptualization of spirituality.