5: A Theoretical Framework: Examining Spiritual Leadership Through the Praxis of Educational Administration

Spiritual leadership has been included as an integral component of study in several careers such as nursing and social work but deliberately ignored by the writers of textbooks and praxis of the educational leader. During the past four decades, servant leadership has been the topic of robust conversations in the workplace emphasizing a more service-oriented approach to leading organizations. Its transformational approach has spiritual underpinnings in working with stakeholders and the community and embodies the leadership characteristics outlined in the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. The concepts of humility, values, sacrifice, integrity, ethics, and humanism reference a leader’s evolution from ordinary to servant. The writings of Greenleaf who devoted the final years of his life to the servant theme, are discussed and analyzed along with authors who have expanded on his ideas, reflections, and thinking. While exploring spiritual and servant leaders, there is also value in discussing terms associated with administrative practice and theory such as the authentic leader, Miles’ organizational health, and the searches for the inner self through spiritual transcendence, immanence interconnectedness, and transformation. The authors pose the question of whether spiritual leadership is a skill that can be learned and offer several scholarly discussions in response.