Workplace spirituality is defined as a workplace that recognizes that employees have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community. This definition, based on three fundamental spiritual needs, has implications for how leaders can enhance work unit performance by nurturing the spirit at work. In an exploratory study of six work units in a large hospital system we used an instrument that measures workplace spirituality. The results led to propositions concerning the effect of work unit spirituality on work unit performance and the relationship between work unit spirituality and leadership. Among medical units within the same hospital system, work unit spirituality is greater in some than in others; work unit performance is associated with work unit spirituality; and work unit leaders likely have an impact on the degree to which work units acknowledge and encourage issues of the spirit.

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This paper presents the development of a measure for workplace spirituality. Workplace spirituality is initially proposed to consists of five components, but confirmatory factor analysis (CF A) applied to data collected from employees from a large Thai company suggests a four-factor model: compassion, meaningful work, mindfulness and transcendence.

A field study of 49 Junior Achievement Companies was conducted over a 6-month period in which a sociometric alternative to conventional measures of leader-member exchanges was used. Evidence is presented suggesting that not only is the exchange process observable, but also the sociometric assessment of leader-member exchanges converges with conventional measures of the exchange process. Evidence is also presented suggesting that certain demographic variables are predictive of In/Out group status, thus suggesting that quality of exchange may in part be explained by compatibility of a group member with a leader. Finally, evidence is presented suggesting that observable differences in leader-member relations do not necessarily lead to a lessened sense of influence, job enrichment, or satisfaction with the leader for Outgroup members.