Exploring value compasses of leaders in organizations: introducing nine spiritual anchors

This article aims to develop an integral framework for analyzing and capturing diverse forms of value compasses of leaders in organizations. Building on the concept of “career anchors” (Schein, Career anchors: discovering your real values, Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, San Francisco, 1990), the concept of “spiritual anchors” is introduced, patterns of deeply held spiritual motives, values and attitudes that provide direction, meaning, wholeness, and connectedness to a person’s life or work. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with 32 managers in Turkey, a taxonomy of spiritual anchors is developed, each of which can be thought of as the spiritual DNA of a person or a fractal of that person’s holistic value system. Each of the spiritual anchors refers to a unique way of perceiving and practicing spirituality. The article introduces nine spiritual anchors as the underlying basis of leadership values and team roles in organizations: perfection, compassion, passion, inspiration, investigation, dedication, appreciation, determination, and cooperation. The model based on spiritual anchors is a multidimensional and holistic model of leadership values and individual differences, and it provides professionals and managers with “a big picture” of spirituality, values, and leadership dimensions in organizations