This study aimed at building a theory on spiritual leadership development process through adult learners' spiritual experiences. For this purpose constructive grounded theory was used as methodology. Three sub-research problems- adult learners' spirit...
This study aimed at building a theory on spiritual leadership development process through adult learners' spiritual experiences. For this purpose constructive grounded theory was used as methodology. Three sub-research problems- adult learners' spiritual experiences, transformation process and resulting characteristics from spiritual leadership development- were set to solve the research problem. Ten participants were selected by snowball sampling. Data were collected from in-depth interviews and analysed by line-by-line coding, focused coding, theoretical coding. In order to gain the trustworthiness of research, several means were used, such as member-checking, researcher's bias revealing, opulent description, protecting one's privacy by using pseudonyms, participation consent, following the principle of line-by-line coding to prevent intentional omission and distortion of data.
First, spiritual experiences were characterized by three periodical stages of spiritual pursuit, which were defined by the early stage, focusing stage, coming-back stage. Characteristics of spiritual experiences closely resembled the results of previous studies that investigated elements of SQ. One interesting phenomenon was ‘one-body(hanmom) phenomenon’ in which the problems that appear outside one's environment are felt and cleansed through one's body. The one-body phenomenon motivated one to make effort to understand the meaning of this phenomenon and the truth of co-intelligence and co-life that accelerates further spiritual development.
With respect to the second sub-research question, the transformation process through spiritual experiences was in line with the development of "becoming". The essence of spiritual experience was seeing true-I and the development of "becoming" meant true-I's governing one's life. The structural process of the development of becoming was to be continued from the beginning to see the true-I, and being convinced that one met the true-I through physical, emotional cognitive, and behavioral change, embodying co-intelligence & co-life and shedding one's egoistic self, attaining oneness. By attaining oneness, true-I was the subject of one's life and helped the world as one-body.
Concerning the third sub-research question (i.e., the characteristics resulting from spiritual leadership development), spiritual leadership was defined as leadership led by power emerging from spirituality. In this context, spiritual leadership without spiritual experience could be illusory. As with the development of becoming, various leadership capacities such as democratic leadership, servant leadership, superleadership, and self-leadership were unintentionally developed and elements of spiritual leadership emerged. Through this process, the individuals naturally appeared as leaders. Learning, meditation, and reflection took the most important place in the spiritual leadership development. After spiritual experiences, perceived lacks in one's life that are envisioned by dreams and aspirations motivated spiritual development. The nature of the spiritual leadership development was not about developing new capacities that did not exist before. Rather, it was about inherent capacities that emerged and came to fruition, thus ‘emerging development’.
Through answering sub-questions, theory relating how spiritual leadership emerged and the model for developing spiritual leadership were constructed. The theory and model stated that spiritual leadership was the kind of leadership, in which the true-I helped all to be activated. The natures of the spiritual experiences involved being whole rather than partial, helping all, and becoming the true governor to himself, which were the same as the spiritual leadership.
The model of the spiritual leadership development was composed of spiritual experience and the growth of "becoming". The spiritual experiences were followed by the trigger -> reflection -> all quadrants reinforcement, and encounter with the true-I. In spiritual experience, the role of a teacher or a fellow student was important who was able to use the one-body phenomenon that helped one's spiritual wellness. The process of "becoming" could be summarized by the process of having the true-I be the subject of one's life and "becoming" was followed by the spiritual leadership development which took place by assuming the leadership position.
This study showed that from the perspective of generic spirituality, everybody could get spiritual experience and learning was the motivator transforming hardship to enjoyment. It could be expected that the subjectivity problem of postmodernism be solved and some of the obstacles of transformational learning be overcome from spiritual experience seeing true-I.