Shared Leadership in Spiritual Workplaces: An Exploratory Study of Community-Service Organizations

Leadership research has largely privileged leader-centric models, yet emerging perspectives highlight collective influence processes such as shared leadership. Parallel work on workplace spirituality emphasizes purpose, connectedness, and values-driven collaboration, but the intersection of these streams remains underexplored. This study investigates how shared leadership is understood and practiced within spiritually oriented work contexts, focusing on community-service organizations (charitable, nonprofit, humanitarian). Using an exploratory qualitative design, we conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with leaders who self-identify as spiritual and report engaging in shared leadership. Thematic analysis reveals five interrelated themes: (1) plural meanings and localized understandings of shared leadership oriented toward the collective good; (2) flexible, interchangeable leadership roles shaped by task and context; (3) spirituality promoted by formal managers as part of an inclusive culture and mission enactment; (4) spirituality as an integral influence on sharing leadershipframing selflessness, mutual respect, and distributed responsibility; and (5) a work orientation characterized as a “calling,” where intrinsic purpose outweighs extrinsic rewards. The findings contribute to shared leadership and workplace spirituality literatures by offering empirically grounded insights from an understudied sector and context. I conclude by outlining implications for research and practice and raise potential avenues for future research.