So I developed a new scale: Benevolent Leadership (2023)

Research-based insight

In this article, I travel back in time and take you to my thesis. Thesis I completed ten years ago. I was at McGill University in Canada at the time and my thesis was on Benevolent Leadership.

I will review and share the theoretical model of this work with you. I use doodles to illustrate the model and make it accessible and practical for you.

In my thesis, I tried to integrate four paradigms of common good in organizational research: morality, spirituality, positivity and community.
Benevolent leadership is based on the premise that these four research areas can provide managers and practitioners with a theoretical basis and a wealth of knowledge to create the common good in organizations.

Benevolent leaders are those who create observable benefits, actions or outcomes for the common good. The term "public interest" is used in the sense of shared benefit or positive outcomes for members of a society. Well-intentioned leaders thus embody honest and sincere action at work that benefits those around them. Therefore, they tend to do good, kind or charitable deeds because of an obligation to use their developmental and intentional qualities of love and charity.

This study adds to the leadership literature by integrating these four paradigms and examining how leaders can lead to positive change.

This research examines benevolent leadership and makes three major contributions to organizational research.

The first contribution is of a theoretical nature; the development of a theory-driven conceptual model of benevolent leadership based on four streams for creating common good in organizations; morality, spirituality, vitality and community.

The second contribution is the development of an instrument (Benevolent Leadership Scale) to measure the construct of benevolent leadership. This scale consists of four dimensions: ethical sensitivity, spiritual depth, positive involvement, and community obedience.

The third contribution is of an empirical nature; explore possible outcomes of benevolent leadership in organizations.

Benevolent leadership model illustrated with doodles

Benevolence is defined as a philosophical belief in the potential goodness of humanity and the corresponding belief that humans are required to use their natural instincts and develop attitudes of love and charity; a disposition to do good, to perform acts of kindness or charity. This study presents a conceptual model of benevolent leadership based on four common good schools of organizational research:

(1) Moral paradigm based on business ethics, management values ​​and ethics and literature on ethical decision making (emphasis on ethics and management values);

(2) Spirituality stream, based on workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership literature (emphasis on leaders' inner landscapes and spiritual actions);

(3) Vitality Stream, based on positive organizational science and strengths-based approaches (focusing on how leaders drive positive change in organizations and the world); And,

(4) Community Stream based on the literature on Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Citizenship (focusing on managers' contribution to society and community service).

I argue that the interplay of these four schools of thought can lead to a more complete understanding of benevolent leadership and that their synthesis will lead to a leadership theory that has a stronger and more comprehensive explanatory power than any of these four schools of thought alone.

Such integration is useful in several ways.

First, it is a step towards generating holistic theories of leadership for the common good. Here the emphasis on the public interest is decisive; for benevolent leadership focuses on creating positive change or taking actions that benefit everyone.

Second, the conceptual framework fulfills both normative and pragmatic functions. These four areas provide useful standards and practical guidelines for leaders to drive positive change in organizations.

Third, the resulting model emphasizes the importance of considering all four dimensions when theorizing or researching organizational phenomena.

These four research areas can provide managers and practitioners with a theoretical basis and a wealth of knowledge to create the common good in organizations.

I define benevolent leadership as the process of creating a virtuous cycle of nurturing and initiating positive change in organizations through:

• ethical decision making,
• be meaningful
• Instill hope and encourage positive action, and
• have a positive impact on the wider community.

Benevolent leaders are those who create observable benefits, actions or outcomes for the common good.

The term "public interest" is used in the sense of shared benefit or positive outcomes for all or most members of a society.

Well-intentioned leaders represent honest and sincere action at work that benefits those around them. Therefore, they tend to do good, kind or charitable deeds due to a sense of obligation to use their developmental and intentional qualities of love and charity.

Benevolent leadership differs from other concepts of leadership in that it focuses on creating observable benefits, actions, or outcomes for the "common good." The term common good has gained popularity over the past twenty years; as in books like "For the common good: restoring the economy for society, the environment and a sustainable future"of "Leadership for the Common Good: Managing Public Issues in a World of Shared Power".

The call to understand the roots, characteristics and outcomes of benevolent leadership is timely for several reasons. First of all, there is dissatisfaction with the management, which is reflected in a growing crisis of confidence in the management. Concretely, it manifests itself in company layoffs, psychological withdrawal of people from work, economic recession with rising unemployment, a sense of betrayal caused by downsizing and restructuring, and ethical scandals.

Both the academic and professional management literature is replete with compelling examples of business leaders abusing power and acting selfishly. This crisis of confidence in leadership was also reflected in the global financial crisis of 2008, which had moral and ethical roots, such as unchecked greed. We see similar signs in the current economic crisis, which has been caused and exacerbated by the coronavirus.

In addition to managerial dissatisfaction, there is increasing uncertainty and turnover in today's workplace due to technological advances, mergers and acquisitions, and increasing globalization. Waves of change sweeping the business world include artificial intelligence, digitization, hyper-competition, increased volatility, changing demographics and a highly turbulent environment.

In addition, increasing complexity and interdependence mean that change is increasingly non-linear and unpredictable. The resulting competitive and economic pressures have led to massive cost-cutting, massive downsizing and increased stress. Over the past decade, four million jobs have been cut by Fortune 500 companies, causing severe emotional damage to the affected employees and families (victims), as well as the colleagues and leaders left behind in their organizations (survivors ).

Many downsizing, restructuring and reorganization strategies over the decades have resulted in changing the old psychological contract that offered job security in exchange for loyalty. Today's managers are faced with employees whose attitudes are not characterized by trust and commitment; but of skepticism, fear and cynicism. Because of these changes, the old competitive and hierarchical management models that have served us in the past are no longer suitable for the many challenges described above. There is a need for a new approach to management that better meets these unique challenges.

In the past decade, a paradigm shift in management theory and practice has been discussed. Although no consensus has been reached on the name of this new management concept, it is increasingly recognized that some of the major research topics in management revolve around morality, spirituality, positive change and social responsibility.

Articulating the role of managers as agents of positive change in organizations is of theoretical and practical importance. To understand how leaders contribute to the world around them, researchers have adopted many concepts and theories from other disciplines, such as business ethics, workplace spirituality, positive organizational science, appreciative inquiry, and corporate social responsibility.

All of these areas seek to help managers better meet the challenges of the competitive, materialistic business landscape. However, an eclectic integration of these different areas into a broader framework of benevolent leadership has not yet been achieved. The confluence and synergy of all these areas through a conceptual model of benevolent leadership could mark a turning point in how organizations are brought to life.

I conducted an interdisciplinary literature review to identify alternative theories and streams of research on how leaders facilitate and initiate positive change in organizations. This assessment was supported by an automated search for keywords such as ethics, values, virtues, spirituality and positive change.

Through an inductive investigation of the content and intellectual heritage of these theories, I found that most of them could be grouped into four basic schools of thought. Each of these four schools of thought has a rich and long-standing intellectual tradition, although different disciplines use different terminologies.

The benevolent management model we propose is based on three key assumptions. First, these four streams relate to the creation of common good in organizations. They can be used to promote and initiate positive change in organizations. Second, these four schools of thought differ in that, although they interact to a great extent, the goals they pursue are not interchangeable. Third, these four schools of thought provide a holistic set of assumptions and research into creating common good in organizations.

These four currents together can therefore give us the cornerstones of a conceptual management model.

This study adds to the management literature by arguing for an integration of these four schools of thought. More specifically, the benevolent leadership model is at the intersection of four major lines of research in organizational behavior.

First within ethics, I build on the literature on leadership values ​​and ethical decision-making, which shows that ethical principles are critical elements in explaining how leaders act ethically.

Second, in the area of ​​spirituality, I draw from research on workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership, which portrays leaders in search of meaning, deeper self-awareness, and transcendence, to explore how leaders integrate spirituality into their actions in the workplace.

Thirdly, in the Vitality Stream I build on strength-based approaches; such as positive psychology, positive organizational behavior, positive organizational science and appreciative research to develop theoretical insights into how leaders nurture human strengths and lead to positive change in work organizations.

Fourth, in the community stream, I draw from research on corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and organizational citizenship behavior to examine how leaders fulfill their social responsibilities and contribute to their communities.

These four schools of thought are useful research objects for exploring how leaders create positive change in organizations and the world around them. It is useful to think of these streams as four overlapping circles that share a common conceptual space yet have distinct intellectual properties.

I developed a benevolent leadership scale by building on four streams of organizational research that focus on key aspects of leadership responsibility to create the common good:

• (1) ethical sensitivity,
• (2) spiritual depth,
• (3) positive engagement and
• (4) Community responsiveness.

The benevolent leadership model emphasizes the importance of considering all four dimensions when theorizing or researching positive change in organizations. Most of the research to date has focused on only one of these leadership roles; while the benevolent leadership model is based on summarizing and considering all these four dimensions.

My goal was to develop a multidimensional, theory-based measure of benevolent leadership (the Benevolent Leadership Scale (BLS)) and provide preliminary evidence for its construct validity.

I operationalized the construct of benevolent leadership using the Benevolent Leadership Scale (BLS), which consists of four subscales.

ethical sensitivityrefers to the manager's process of moral reflection and consideration of what is right and wrong behavior in the workplace.

spiritual depthrefers to the manager's search for meaning and purpose in work.

Positive engagementrefers to creating positive change in the organization by inspiring hope and courage.

Finally,Community Responsivenessrefers to the role of leadership in solving societal problems and enabling social innovation to contribute to society.

I used both deductive and inductive approaches to product generation to assess how managers exhibit benevolent leadership. Initial content specifications were developed based on the following:

• an in-depth review of the literature on four lines of research that represent four anchors of benevolent leadership,
• Pilot interviews with three managers about what benevolent leadership and benevolent leadership are, and
• a series of academic discussions and meetings with field experts focusing on construct clarity, validity and subject validation.

After reading approximately 300 articles and books on four lines of organizational science research aimed at creating the common good, I conducted pilot interviews with ten managers in Canada. I have used theoretical sampling to identify individuals who have significant experience and idealism in creating positive change in their organizations. To assess the appropriateness of the above categories, I asked these managers to describe a person they considered a benevolent leader (for example: What made him or her a benevolent leader?). Their responses were then analyzed for content. The new categories were broadly similar to those just described (resulting in 90% similar themes in content analysis) and provided early evidence for the multidimensionality of the benevolent leadership construct.

Based on this extensive literature review, pilot interviews, and content analysis, the four subscales above were deemed appropriate to represent the benevolent leadership concept.

Subsequently, a pool of 20 to 25 topics was created for each dimension based on four research streams and including strategies for developing structured topics. I theoretically derived a total of 90 sample items that were later refined to 40 items that best represent the proposed content areas and were considered the least ambiguous and most supported. The articles are written in four research lines for clarity and coherence with the theoretical descriptions and previous work. The revised items were then tested for spurious validity by three subject matter experts.

I made sure that the items in each of the four subscales:

• captured both benevolent management attitudes and behaviors;
• was theoretically consistent with the identified and proposed leadership behaviors in each branch of research;
• Measurement of multiple attitudes or behaviors in one item was avoided to reduce ambiguity and error.

The first subscale,ethical sensitivity, contained 10 items that reflected the moral principles and ethics of managers at work; as "When I make a management decision at work, I think about the ethical consequences of my decision", i"I challenge my colleagues if they deviate from ethical values ​​at work."

The second subscale,spiritual depth, contained 10 items that capture leaders' search for meaning and self-reflection and the integration of spirituality into work; as "I feel alive and passionate when I put my soul into the work"i"I believe that we are all connected and part of a meaningful whole.”

The third subscale,positive Engagement, contains 10 elements that express the manager's passion for initiating and driving positive change in the organization; as "I try to give those around me hope and courage to act positively"i"I am confident that we are capable of achieving desired results or positive results in this organization.”

The fourth subscale,Community Responsiveness, including 10 points that express a leader's sensitivity and idealism in leaving a social legacy and contributing to the community; as "I go above and beyond my job description to contribute to my community and the world"i"I am actively involved in social responsibility projects for the benefit of the community.”Responses were on a 5-point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Totally agree).

The Benevolent Leadership Scale is an additive index composed of these four subscales. An additive index implies that these four dimensions complement each other and together form the construct of benevolent leadership. The psychometric properties of the proposed scale are assessed using standard methods presented in the next section.

I have tested the Benevolent Leadership Scale on several international examples, but that is the subject of another post. In further research, I would like to operationalize the benevolent leadership construct with different examples and cultural contexts to improve generalizability and further confirm the discriminant, convergent, and predictive validity of the benevolent leadership scale.

The benevolent management model allows for the integration of several areas of organizational research aimed at creating the common good: business ethics, workplace spirituality, positive organizational science and corporate social responsibility. I have proposed the use of benevolent leadership as a unifying construct to guide further research in these areas.

Inclusion of the Benevolent Leadership Scale in future studies of positive organizational science, leadership, business ethics, and workplace spirituality will allow scholars to take stock of measuring different benevolent tendencies in leaders.

The crisis of confidence in organizational leadership has become a major concern in business.

The new challenges require a new level of courageous, principled and inclusive leadership. In response, I propose benevolent leadership that simultaneously balances ethical, spiritual, transformative, and social concerns.

As organizations seek to address ethical, spiritual, transformational and social challenges; A benevolent leadership model can give leaders a new perspective on tackling and solving these complex problems.

Interview-based methods can provide detailed descriptions of how well-intentioned leaders drive positive change in organizations. Longitudinal studies could describe the processes by which well-intentioned leaders think about themselves, make decisions, take positive actions, improve organizational effectiveness, and influence those around them.

There are alternative leadership styles that leaders can use to achieve positive results, such as: B. ethical leadership, spiritual leadership, transformational leadership, and servant leadership. Future research is needed to explore how different leadership styles and roles relate to and complement each other to create shared well-being in organizations.

The antecedents of benevolent management also offer research opportunities. For example, variables such as emotional intelligence, flexibility, and openness to experience, or situational variables such as education, organizational culture, and dealing with benevolent leaders may serve as precursors.

A clear assessment and measurement of the organizational results of benevolent leadership is a crucial agenda for further research. Benevolent leadership may be positively associated with other positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction, vitality, innovative work behavior, and perceptions of organizational effectiveness. The extent to which benevolent leaders promote positive organizational outcomes is a promising source of empirical research.

The benevolent leadership model suggests that these four dimensions form a meaningful whole and a comprehensive toolkit for leaders interested in creating positive change.

The vitality and usefulness of the benevolent leadership model is based on the insight and big picture it provides leaders in their workplace decisions and actions. Without such integration at a significant level of differentiated thinking and balanced action, managers could face the danger of analytical paralysis and partial decision-making.

This study argues that leveraging four critical cores of benevolent leadership will be a critical success factor in leading positive change and creating community good in 21st century organizations.

As organizations devote enormous resources to creating the common good, the need for a better understanding of benevolent leadership continues to grow. While not a definitive statement on the subject, this study adds to the growing body of evidence that doing good helps organizations thrive. By understanding how leaders enable positive change in organizations, we can discover new ways to create "common goods" for our communities. As such, this paper adds to the positive organizational science literature that helps uncover the dynamics toward positive change in human systems.

I hope this article (and my research) on benevolent leadership has been helpful to you.

Frankly speaking;

Volunteering

Fahri Karakas is the author ofDIY studio. You can discover moreHer.

Meget dank aan dr. Emine Sarigollu.

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