Page 191 - Appreciative Leadership

164 Appreciative Leadership

then to create dreams, visions, and stories that we sense at
our center want to happen—that as Buber said, “want to be
actualized … with human spirit and deed.” 3

Diana Whitney calls this “spiritual resonance” and suggests that
it “occurs when people working together share a purpose that is at
the same time both task oriented and spiritually oriented. It occurs
when people truly honor each other as well as nature as living beings,
and when they do their best to care for all life. It occurs when people
recognize vulnerabilities and strengths and work in ways that bring
out the best of people, personally and collectively. Most signifi cantly,
spiritual resonance is a collective spiritual experience.” 4
Appreciative Leadership advances “spirituality in the workplace.”

The Tyson Center for Faith and Spirituality in the Workplace at the
Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas is

a source of more information on this subject. The center’s mission is
to advance the state of research, practice, and teaching in the fi eld
of faith and spirituality in the workplace. It serves as a resource for
business leaders, academics, spiritual and faith leaders, and practitio-
ners. Programs cover topics such as principles for incorporating faith,
religion, and spirituality in the workplace along with stories of how
exemplary organizations are integrating them. 5
Along the path of integrity, Appreciative Leadership encounters

many choices, among them: whom to hire, promote, or fire; where and
with whom to do business; how to determine fees, costs, and budgets;
how to allocate resources; how to balance work and family needs; and
how to be a good parent, partner, colleague, and leader. The issues fac-

ing leadership today are seldom simple, and the path of integrity may
not be readily apparent. Appreciative Leadership’s positively powerful
approach is to engage with others and together, to make decisions for
the good of the whole.
Working in service to the whole may mean going against dominant
social structures, even those that you earlier believed in and supported.
When necessary, appreciative leaders take a stand against habitual social