Leadership with inner meaning: A contingency theory of leadership based on the worldviews of five religions

The purpose of this article is to create the foundation for a contingency theory of leadership based on the inner values and worldviews of five major religious traditions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The article identifies similarities and differences in the implicit leadership models among these five religious traditions. It further explores the implications of this model for organizational leadership in an increasingly uncertain and evolving global economy, where not only cultures but also religions, their belief systems and their values, are in increasing contact and interaction. We develop and describe a multiple-level ontological model of being to expand upon and enlarge the currently accepted behavior-based contingency theories of leadership. The article proposes and creates an integrative model of organizational leadership based on inner meaning, leader values, vision and moral examples at multiple levels of being as an extension to prior behavior-based contingency theories of organizational leadership.