Toward a discerning mind and heart: An Ignatian approach to workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership

The emerging paradigms of workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership are in an early stage of development (Meng, Biomedical Reports 5:408-412, 2016) and ripe for further scholarly exploration (Hill et al., From concept to science: continuing steps in workplace spirituality research. In: Paloutzian RF, Park CL, Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality, 2nd. Guilford Press, New York, 617-631, 2013). Integrating the work of others who have advanced an Ignatian approach to leadership (Lowney, Heroic leadership: best practices from a 450-year-old company that changed the world. Loyola Press, Chicago, 2003; Byron, Next-generation leadership: a toolkit for those in their teens, twenties, & thirties, who want to be successful leaders. University of Scranton Press, Scranton, 2010; Dufresne et al., J Jesuit Bus Educ 6:1-19, 2015; Rothausen, J Bus Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3241-4, 2016), this chapter explores the nearly 500-year-old spiritual philosophy of Ignatius of Loyola, "a sixteenth-century soldier-turned-mystic" (Martin, The Jesuit guide to (almost) everything: a spirituality for real life. HarperOne, New York, p. 1, 2010), who is regarded as a "towering figure in the history of spirituality" (Sparough et al., What's your decision?: how to make choices with confidence and clarity. Loyola Press, Chicago, p. ix, 2010). Loyola's insights into the spiritual dimension of discernment, his psychology of choosing, and method for transformation are "conceptually sound, robust, and well-developed" (Dufresne et al., J Jesuit Bus Educ 6:1-19, p. 2, 2015) and can be adapted to respect everyone's individual needs, circumstances, and concerns. We advance a distinctive approach to workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership based on Ignatius of Loyola's insights on decision-making and spiritual growth. This inquiry unfolds across the following three questions: (1) What is (Ignatian) spirituality? (2) What is (Ignatian) leadership? and (3) How can Ignatian leadership enhance our practice of workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership?.