Emotional and spiritual enablers for building trust within churches for organizational effectiveness

Over the last 3 decades, religious organizations have been embroiled in scandals that have diminished public trust in the ecclesiastic community.The purpose of this study was to examine church leaders and members emotional intelligence and spiritual leadership behavioral characteristics that cultivate trust, and enhance organizational effectiveness, and establish a baseline database to facilitate perpetuating positive social change. The theoretical framework for this study used three models: Chathoth Trust Model; the Wei, Liu and Allen Emotional Intelligence (EI) model, and the Fry Spiritual Leadership Theory (SL) model. Survey instruments for each model were used to determine perspectives within the church that could support building trust. The key research questions considered whether there was a correlation between EI, SL, and trust and if there was any impact of trust on organization effectiveness (OE) in the sample of church leaders and members. A sample of 364 church leaders and members provided the data via opportunity sampling. Correlation, regression, and factor analyses were conducted between EI, and SL (predictor variables), and trust (primary outcome variable) and OE (secondary outcome variable). The results indicated a significant, positive relationship (a) between EI and trust, (b) between SL and trust, and (c) with trust influencing OE. Positve social change for both followers and leaders within an ecclesiastic community may be experience, if leadership find value in the current outcomes and apply what has been learned to further positive organizational transformation and trust