A Study on Prominent Traditional Leadership Styles and Spiritual Leadership

Chanchal Singh

leadership, Indian philosophy

The present study aims to underline the conceptual similarities and differences between four popular traditional styles of leadership (transformational, transactional, servant and authentic) and spiritual leadership by critically reviewing the available literatures. The present paper also tries to figure out the reasons behind the emergence of spiritual leadership. Moreover, the present study tries to explore the roots of spiritual leadership in Indian philosophy by relating it to the teachings of Lord Krishna and Lord Buddha. Spiritual leadership has been incorporated by many companies in the west but in India, it is often confused with religiosity, but how they are different is also covered in the present study. Furthermore, role of ethicality is also discussed in this paper. A lot of theoretical research has been done in defining spiritual leadership, but how significant and relevant it is in present scenario is also one of the objectives behind this study.