A Role for Spirituality in the Kyosei Process in Workplace

Abstract

The pathogenic approach is rather ineffective for prescribing for solution of workers' health problems. Especially to deal with the problems of strain-caused “karoshi” and suicides resulting from overwork, the authors of this article prefer adopting the “salutogenic” model of Antonovsky, which pays heed to such concepts as human sense of coherence (SOC) along with generalized resistance resources (GRRs). As this approach associates workers' health issues with their state of mind bearing upon the sense of worthiness of living, it may well be interleces with the emerging discussion on the positive significance of “spirituality” in the context of workers' health as well as “kyosei” relationship (agreeableness) in workplace. This study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted on female employees in a local autonomy, which included a number of parameters representing leadership functions, management functions, stressfulness symptoms, burdensomeness of work, work-life balance, spirituality (self, lifeworld and project), and moral harassment. It has been found that stress tends to increase by harassments that disturb kyosei and to decrease with spiritual leadership and the functioning of management. The relationship between spirituality and the process toward kyosei can be interpreted in termsof making network among a mass. So reducing both management and leadership functions can increase stress, except in the case where they operate as a “double bind” (in Bateson's sense of the term). This study thus demonstrates that there is scope for paying heed to elements of spirituality along with the functions of management ans leadership in fostering both physical and mental health essential for the kyosei process in workplace.