| This phenomenological study investigates the journey of top spiritual leaders' quest for wholeness. The experience of ethical and spiritual crises in the contemporary society, especially in organizational leadership, calls for a deeper quest for meaning and wholeness. However, little is known about how prominent spiritual leaders, who have a reputation for wholeness, experience their journey. In order to gain insight into lived experience, 10 top spiritual leaders from different organizational contexts and across the globe engaged in in-depth conversational interviews to describe their experience of the quest. The selection criteria for the prominent spiritual leaders included being known nationally or internationally for their holistic leadership and their quest for wholeness at least for the last five years. Four essential themes of spiritual leaders' quest for wholeness emerged from an analysis of the interview texts: (1) experiencing existential crisis; (2) embracing light and shadow; (3) unfolding the ultimate dimension of being; (4) fostering an ethic of co-responsibility. From the analysis of the themes, a model of wholeness was constructed: Leadership Wholeness Model portrays the intra-dynamics of leaders' ongoing quest for wholeness penetrating through their existential, learning, spiritual, and moral dimensions of being and five ethical dimensions of wholeness permeating through the personal, organizational, social, global, and environmental spheres of life. The findings of this study provide insight into the ways top spiritual leaders engaged in quest for wholeness, confirm classic and emerging research on wholeness, and support the relevance of wholeness and spirituality concepts to top organizational leaders and leaders at any levels who lead and guide teams and organizations to greater wholeness in the contemporary world. |
