Research Article - (2017) Volume 5, Issue 2

Relationship Between Spiritual Quotient and Transformational Leadership of Managers with Organizational Commitment of Staffs: A Case Study in the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran

Dargahi Hossein1*, Rajabnezhad Zeynab2 and Reshadatjou Hamideh3
1Department of Health Care Management, Health Information Management Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2School of Management and Economics, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran
3Department of Higher Education Management, School of Management and Economics, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch Tehran, Iran
*Corresponding Author: Dargahi Hossein, Department of Health Care Management, Health Information Management Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, Tel: 00989123010027 Email:

Abstract

Background and aim: Quotient is one of the basic competencies that promote the managers. New approach in current century believes the relationship between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership style of managers with organizational commitment of staffs as a new aspect of organizational performance. Therefore, this research was aimed to determine the relationship between spiritual quotient and the transformational leadership of managers with staffs’ organizational commitment in headquarters departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran.

Materials and methods: This was a descriptive analytical and cross-sectional research that induced at 2014-2015. The research community was 225 staffs and 70 senior, middle and junior managers. The research tools were three questionnaires including MLQ for assessment of transformational leadership, Badie for spiritual quotient, and Allen and Meyers for the organizational commitment of the staffs. The data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software, using average, and percent for descriptive statistics, and Pearson, t-student and variance analysis for analytical statistics.

Results: The results of this research showed that TUMS headquarters department’s managers had desired transformational leadership and spiritual quotient, but the organizational commitment of the staffs was moderate. Using Pearson method showed that there was significant relationship between these variables.

Conclusion: The managers with increased spiritual quotient and transformational leadership cause motivate and develop the staffs to be more commitment in their organizations.

Keywords: Spiritual quotient; Transformational leadership; Organizational commitment; Staffs and managers

Introduction

Management is an important challenging issue for both current and future organizations. Managers’ intelligence is a pivotal competency that contributes to the organizational success. Spiritual quotient (SQ) is a type of intelligence that enables managers to make strategic decisions in the current complicated business world [1]. The concept of contributions of spiritual quotient of managers to organizational commitment of staffs’ performance appear a new aspect to organizational activities in order to move them towards achieving success and dignity [2].

In 1995, Goleman [3] suggested that success in life required more than high intelligence quotient (IQ), and proposed emotional quotient (EQ) which encompassed such characteristics as self-awareness, task performance ability, flexibility, self-control and direct perception. However, nowadays it is claimed that even both IQ and EQ are not completely sufficient, and there is a strong need as a third factor which is called spiritual quotient (SQ) [3].

Spiritual quotient refers to a collection of abilities, capacities and spiritual resources which enhance an individual’s adaptability to environmental conditions [4]. Although, spiritual quotient applies to all organizational levels, it is crucial for success of management ranking [5].

Spiritual quotient supports the values and believes of leaders and is associated with continuation of organizational commitment [6]. Managers with high spiritual quotients are capable of developing different methods of directing the staffs and creating proper working conditions, and thus can promote their organizational commitment [7].

Stough and Gardner [8] reported that transformational leaders would stimulate the needs of the staffs and promote their motivation, tend to direct the attentions of their followers toward team goals to attain organizational goals through stimulation of their motivation [8]. These leaders move beyond the interactive leadership style which is solely based on punishment or reward system. By securing the trust and loyalty of others, transformational leaders inspire the followers to develop stronger commitment to change and high levels of self-control. They help the staff to be a change agent and push the organization toward a bright future [9].

Transformational leadership which is an indispensable constituent of learning organizations could envisage necessary and modern paths for new organization [10,11]. To preserve continuity, stability and development, private and public organizations have to improve the staff’s knowledge regarding the environment of organization and ways of kick starting sweeping changes in structures, cultures and trends, where the roles of transformational leaders for pushing the organization from now toward future, recognizing environmental requirements and bringing about necessary changes are highlighted [12].

Organizational commitment as an important job attitude has been the focus of extensive research in recent years. Organizational commitment is a form of emotional attachment to the organization. Those who have developed this commitment feel strong loyalty to their organizations and use organizational commitment to associate themselves with their respective organization [13].

Spiritual quotient as an effective factor on individual-social behaviors and consequently on organizational commitment is a recent concept. It has now been established that organizational commitment in general and emotional commitment in particular are closely associated with spiritual quotient [14].

Organizational commitment as an ethical pillar is a spiritualbased, essential and notable issue in an organization with considerable contributions to its success [15]. Different levels of organizational commitment have a positive and significant correlation with transformational leadership of organizations [16]. Moreover, the managers could positively affect the organizational commitment and trust of the staff via adoption of transformational leadership styles [17].

The committed workforce may recover probable financial losses, bring added value, profit and utility to an organization, and strengthen its financial assets through its satisfactory performance and behavior, and also adoption of timely decisions [18].

Considering the above-mentioned arguments, this study intends to determine the relationship between the spiritual quotient and transformational leadership of managers with organizational commitment of the staff in of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

As no similar study to date has been conducted in the field of health system in Iran, if a relationship between the spiritual quotient and transformational leadership and its influences the organizational commitment of the staff are established, laying the new and appropriate groundwork via selection of managers commanding high levels of spiritual quotient and transformational abilities is thus expected. This improves the organizational commitment of the staff and as a result enhances the organizational performance and productivity in various parts of the staff department.

The conceptual model of this research in the Figure 1 displays the relationship between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership styles of the managers and the organizational commitment of the staff.

review-public-adminstration-management-research-conceptual

Figure 1: The research conceptual model.

Research Methodology

The study was an applied descriptive-analytical and cross sectional research that, conducted in 2015 in the headquarters departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Iran.

The statistical population of this research included all the senior, middle and junior managers along with the staff of headquarters departments consisted of vice chancellor of education, research and technology, medicine, health, culture, student’s affairs, international relations, management development and resource planning departments.

The number of managers participated in this study was 80, and thus the sampling performed by censes method. The statistical population of the staff was estimated to be 1912. Using Cochran sampling formula, 320 respondents were selected by stratified sampling at a confidence level of 95% (p=q=0.5, z=1.96) and 5% level of error. 70 questionnaires were returned measuring spiritual quotient and transformational leadership (a response rate of 87.5%). Also out of 320 questionnaires measuring organizational commitment, 225 questionnaires were returned (a response rate of 70%).

3 types of questionnaires were employed in this research. The first named transformational leadership style as a part of Multi- Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) encompasses 26 items with a 5-point Liekert-type scale, ranging from 1 or “always” to 5 or “never” Avolio, et al. [19,20]. This questionnaire includes 20 items to assess five components of transformational leadership, consist of idealized characteristics (4 items), idealized behavior (4 items), inspirational motivation (4 items), intellectual stimulation (4 items) and individual considerations (4 items).

The second questionnaire which measures spiritual quotient was first used as a researcher made by Badie et al. [21] in 2010. This questionnaire has 26 items, ranging from 1 or “completely agree” to 5 or “completely disagree” including 4 components of general thought and the belief (12 items), having ability to deal and interact with problems (15 items), promotion of moral virtues (8 items)) and self-awareness, love, interest, empathy and philanthropy with others (7 items) [21].

The third questionnaire which measures organizational commitment was designed by Allen and Mayer in 1993. This questionnaire covers 3 components of emotional commitment (8 items), continuous commitment (15 items) and normative commitment (6 items) [22]. Demographic data of the respondents such as age, gender, marital status, occupational classification, educational degrees and the years of experiences were collected in all questionnaires.

Content validity was used to determine the validity of all three questionnaires. For this, two English translators first rendered the original versions into Persian. Then two other translators were commissioned to check the translations in terms of adequacy, clarity, translation quality, terminology and contextual equivalents. In next stage, the translations were back translated by another translator, and then the results were compared. Later, all three questionnaires were submitted to 12 experts of healthcare management, organizational behavior management, and psychology to receive their feedbacks and comments. In the last stage, Content Validity Index (CVI) revealed to be 0.82 for transformational leadership, 0.87 for spiritual quotient and 0.83 for organizational commitment that all indicating the sufficient validity of the questionnaires.

To examine the reliability of the questionnaires using Testretest technique, all 3 questionnaires were completed by 20 staff and managers that had not been included in the research sample for the first time and completed again by them with a 2-week break to prevent chances of remembering. Therefore, the Internal Correlation Coefficients (ICC) for transformational leadership, spiritual quotient and organizational commitment questionnaires were respectively 0.89, 0.85 and 0.80. Also, Alpha Cronbach formula was employed to calculate the internal cohesion and coherence of the measurement instruments. For transformational leadership, spiritual quotient and organizational commitment questionnaires scores are 0.82, 0.84 and 0.75 respectively. The researcher handed the questionnaires in person to the staff and the managers of headquarters departments, and later visited them to collect the completed questionnaires.

In order to ethical research consideration, the necessary permission was acquired from the senior managers of headquarters departments and research objectives were completely explained to the respondents. Moreover, the respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their personal information at any rate and were informed that the results and findings would be submitted to the senior managers of headquarters departments.

Findings

The results revealed that the age groups of 30-40 and over 50 had the highest and lowest frequencies in this study. One third of the staff was females, and the rest were males. 26.6% of the staff was single and 73.4% were married. Those with 5-10 and 10-15 years of experiences had the highest and lowest portions of the staff, respectively. The staff with master degrees had the highest portion regarding the educational degree with 46.2%. As for employment status, temporary staff was the largest group with 48% of the whole.

The demographic characteristics of the managers showed that the age group 40-50, male and married mangers had the highest frequencies, while those 10-20 years of experiences, M.A degrees, permanent employment status, had the highest frequencies.

As Table 1 shows, the average of spiritual quotient and all components are over 3 which indicate that the headquarters department’s managers are at relatively satisfactory levels in terms of spiritual quotients. Although, general thought and believe dimension had the highest score, while having ability to deal and interact with problems had the lowest scores

Statistical Indices (Spiritual quotient Components) Average SD
General thought and belief 4.43 0.43
Promotion of moral virtues 4.23 0.42
Self-awareness, love, interest, empathy and philanthropy with others 3.86 0.58
Having ability to deal and interact with problems 3.18 0,.46
Spiritual quotient 3.93 0.34

Table 1: The mean and standard deviation of the components of spiritual quotients among the managers of headquarters departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

As Table 2 suggests, the average of transformational leadership and all components are over 3 which indicates that the headquarters departments managers are at relatively satisfactory levels in terms of this kind of leadership. Moreover, the component of idealized characteristics had the highest score, while personal considerations had the lowest scores.

Statistical indices
Transformational leadership
Mean SD
Idealized characteristics 3.85 0.72
Inspirational motivation 3.75 0.68
Intellectual encouragement 3.55 0.88
Idealized behavior 3.50 0.66
Personal considerations 3.31 0.59
Transformational leadership    

Table 2: The average and standard deviation of the components of transformational leadership of headquarters department managers of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

As the Table 3 suggests, the average of all organizational commitment and all components are below 3 which indicates that headquarters department’s managers are at average levels in terms of this kind of commitment.

Statistical indices
Organizational Commitment Components
Average SD
Continuous commitment 2.81 0.59
Normative commitment 2.76 0.55
Emotional commitment 2.68 0.86
Organizational commitment 2.75 0.46

Table 3: The average and standard deviation of the components of organizational commitment of headquarters department staff of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

The results of 2 samples T-test revealed a significant relationship between personal considerations of the transformation leadership styles and the marital status of the managers; i.e., married managers had more personal considerations in comparison with their single counterparts (p=0.02).

The results of one-way variance analysis test revealed a significant relationship between personal considerations of the transformation leadership styles and the managers’ years of experiences; i.e., the longer the tenure of managers, the more personal considerations they have (p=0.004). Moreover, no significant relationship was observed between transformational leadership and its components with the other demographic characteristics of the headquarters managers (p˃0.05).

Furthermore, according to the results of T-test and variance analysis, no significant relationship was observed between organizational commitment and its components with demographic characteristics of the headquarters staff (p˃0.05).

According to Table 4, and using Pearson correlation coefficient, the results showed that there was no significant relationship between selfawareness, love, interest and empathy with others, and promotion of moral virtues, while other components showed significant relationship with each other’s. Also, there was no significant correlation between continuous commitment with self-awareness, love, interest and empathy with each other and having ability to deal with problems. Finally, significant relationship was observed between organizational commitment dimensions.

Components Statistic General thought
and  belief
Self-awareness, love, interest and empathy with others Having ability to deal and interact with problems Promotion of moral virtues Emotional  commitment Continuous commitment Normative commitment
General thought and  belief Correlation
coefficient
1 0.207 0.505 0.604 -0.565 0.233 -0.373
Significance level - 0.011 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.004 0.000
Self-awareness, love, interest and empathy with others Correlation
coefficient
0.207 1 0.283 0.037 -0.233 0.005 -0.211
Significance level 0.011 - 0.000 0.654 0.004 0.147 0.009
Having ability to deal and interact with problems Correlation
coefficient
0.505 0.283 1 0.424 -0.473 0.37 0.413
Significance level 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.244 0.000
Promotion of moral virtues Correlation
coefficient
0.604 0.037 0.424 1 -0.523 0.216 0.435
Significance level 0.000 0.645 0.000 - 0.000 0.008 0.000
Emotional  commitment Correlation
coefficient
-0.565 -0.233 -0.473 -0.523 1 -0.22 0.781
Significance level 0.000 0.004 0.000 0.000 - 0.006 0.006
Continuous commitment Correlation
coefficient
0.233 0.005 0.038 0.216 -0.223 1 0.435
commitment Significance level 0.004 0.147 0.244 0.008 0.006 - 0.000
Normative commitment Correlation
coefficient
-0.373 -0.211 0.413 0.345 0.781 0.435 1
  Significance level 0.000 0.009 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 -

Table 4: The relationship between spiritual quotient components and its dimensions among the managers and the organizational commitment of the staff of the staff departments of Medical University of Tehran, Iran.

According to Table 5, using the Pearson correlation coefficient, the results showed that significant relationships between all dimensions of transformational leadership with organizational commitment, expert between inspirational motivation with continuous commitment.

Idealized behaviorcoefficient
  Components   Statistic Idealized characteristics Intellectual encouragement Personal considerations Inspirational motivation Idealized behavior Emotional commitment Consistent commitment Normative commitment
Idealized characteristics Correlation
coefficient
1 0.625 0.580 0.704 0.783 0.465 0.343 -0.413
Significance level - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.006 0.000
Intellectual encouragement Correlation
coefficient
0.625 1 0.563 0.436 0.733 -0.517 0.141 0.387
Significance level 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.086 0.000
Personal considerations Correlation
coefficient
0.580 0.563 1 0.579 0.859 0.761 0.215 0.565
Significance level 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.008 0.000
  Inspirational motivation Correlation
coefficient
0.704 0.436 0.579 1 0.766 -0.623 0.318 -0.445
Significance level 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.000 0.008 0.000
Correlation 0.783 0.733 0.859 0.766 1 -0.756 0.215 -0.542
Significance level 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 - 0.000 0.008 0.000

Table 5: The relationship between transformational leadership and its dimensions among the managers with the organizational commitment of the staff headquarters departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

According to Table 6, the Pearson correlation coefficient revealed significant correlations between general thought and belief with idealized behavior, between having ability to deal and interact with problems with intellectual encouragement, and between Selfawareness, love, interest and empathy with others with Idealized characteristics. However, there was no significant relationship between other dimensions (P>0.05).

equation   Statistic Idealized characteristics Intellectual encouragement Personal considerations Inspirational motivation Idealized behavior
General thought and belief Correlation
coefficient
-0.072 -0.060 -0.056 -0.049 0.350
Significance level 0.704 0.753 0.769 0.799 0.048
  Self-awareness, love, interest and empathy with others Correlation
coefficient
0.003 0.026 0.045 0.008 -0.050
Significance level 0.037 0.891 0.814 0.968 0.792
  Having ability to deal and interact with problems Correlation
coefficient
-0.066 0.030 0.031 -0.043 0.190
Significance level 0.728 0.044 0.872 0.821 0.315
Promotion of moral virtues Correlation
coefficient
-0.112 0.057 0.028 -0.174 -0.120
  Significance level 0.555 0.766 0.882 0.358 0.527

Table 6: The relationship between spiritual quotient components and transformational leadership components in headquarters departments’ managers of Medical University of Tehran, Iran.

According to the Table 7, The Pearson coefficient correlation showed a significant relationship between spiritual quotient, transformational leadership of the managers with organizational commitment of the staff (P<0.05).

Components Statistics Spiritual quotient Transformational leadership Organizational commitment
Spiritual quotient Correlation Coefficient 1 0.011 0.302
Significance Level 0.033 0.049 0.034
Transformational Leadership Correlation Coefficient 0.011 1 0.445
Significance Level 0.049 0.000 0.007
Organizational commitment Correlation Coefficient 0.302 0.445 1
Significance Level 0.034 0.002 0.007

Table 7: The relationships between the three research components.

Results and Discussion

The present research attempted to determine the relationship between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership of managers with organizational commitment of staff in headquarters departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The research was completed in 2014-2015 by employing 225 of the staffs and 70 of managers.

It was found out that the headquarters managers were at relatively satisfactory levels in terms of spiritual quotient and its dimensions with general thought and belief receiving the highest scores. Rastegaryan and Jaefari showed that the promotion of moral virtues had the highest scores among the managers of Ahwaz city in Iran [23] which are not consistent with the results of this research. This could be explained by the type of the studied organization and the research community. Also, managers working in headquarters departments are generally expected to have stronger general thought and belief due to the nature of their jobs.

The findings showed that the headquarters managers were at relatively satisfactory levels in terms of transformational leadership and its dimensions with idealized characteristics receiving the highest scores. Emmons and Price [6,24] suggested that spiritual quotient integrates spirituality and intelligence constructs into the new structure. Spiritual quotient focuses on strong preservation of individual values and is associated with the factors that contribute to consistent organizational commitment [24]. Tischler et al. [25] declared that spiritually speaking, leaders could have the strongest influence on their followers, and in this way might understand their feelings, thoughts and viewpoints [25].

Jafari et al. [26] reported that except for personal considerations, all other dimensions of transformational leadership of a manufacturing company had received low scores [26]. These findings are not consistent with the results of the current research. However, Malazenian et al. [27] demonstrated that the average of Transformational leadership styles obtained by nursing administrators of teaching and non-teaching hospitals of Central Khorasan in Iran were at satisfactory level which was partially consistent with this study [27].

The findings of this research showed that TUMS staffs had average organizational commitment with continuous commitment receiving the highest average. In their study on nurses of Ontario teaching hospital, Laschinger and Finegan [28] reported average organizational commitment for the staff [28]. Also, Delgoshaie et al. reported that emotional commitment had high score, and normative commitment had lowest score among the staffs of teaching hospitals in Hamedan, Iran [29]. Moreover, Yaghoubi [30] reported that among the staffs of hospitals of Isfahan, emotional commitment was the strongest and normative commitment was the weakest form of organizational commitment [30]. Han et al. [31] conducted a study in South Korea among 416 permanent and temporary nurses in terms of empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment showed that emotional commitment was the strongest, and continuous commitment was the weakest form of organizational commitment [31]. These findings are not consistent with the results of the present research. Although, Eskandari [32] reported the continuous commitment as the dominant form of organizational commitment among the nurses of Zanjan hospitals in Iran that is compatible with current research [32]. The differences in results between current studies and mentioned studies and also stronger continuous commitment among the TUMS staffs might be explained by differences in leadership styles, human resource management and the quality of the relationship between staff and managers under different cultural and environmental conditions.

The findings suggested that there was significant relationships between spiritual quotient with years of experiences with having ability to deal and interact with problems, and promotion of moral virtues (p=0.004); i.e., the longer the tenure of the managers, the higher the rates of promotion of moral virtues and having ability to deal and interact with problems.

These findings contradict the study of Hariri and Zarrin Abadi. That suggested these were no relationship between demographic characteristics and spiritual quotient [33]. Although, Sayyar found a significant relationship between males and females’ spiritual quotients [34], it seems that differences in the statistical population and also recruiting managers with longer tenures could explain the differences between the findings of current study and previous ones.

The findings indicated that from the transformational leadership dimensions, only personal considerations had significant relationships with demographic characteristics, namely years of experiences and marital status (p=0.004); i.e., married individuals had more personal considerations than single ones. Also, the longer the tenure, the higher the personal considerations (p=0.035). However, no significant relationship was found between transformational leadership and other demographics. Javdani [35] observed a significant relationship between transformational leadership rates of females and males with females outdoing men in this regard [35] which is not consistent with current research. Differences in statistical populations, organizational cultures and environmental, geographical and ethnicity differences may help explain the contradictions.

According to the current findings, there was no relationship between organizational commitment and demographic characteristics of the staffs such as age, gender, education, years of experiences, and marital and employment status. Yaghoubi et al. [36] and Delgoshaei showed that staffs with different educational backgrounds had the same organizatioanal commitment [30,36] which is consistent with current research. However, Yaghoubi et al. [36] and Allah Dadi [37] found out stronger organizational commitment with longer age and years of experiences [36,37] which is not consistent with current research. Allah Dadi found [37] a significant relationship between demographic characteristic and organizational commitment; i.e., stronger organizational commitment deponds of age and years of experiences [37]. Salami [38] did not find any relationship between demographics characteristic and organizational commitment [38] that is compatible with current study. It seems that dominant social and cultural conditions in organizations and different research communities have led to development of different directions in previous researches.

This research indicated that there was a significant relationship between transformational leadership and spiritual quotient. [39-44] in Utara University demonstrated a simple, multiple, and positive relationship between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership styles [40-44]; i.e., the higher the spiritual quotient of the managers, they are more likely to implement a transformational leadership style in an organization. However, Zwart [45] did not report this relationship as significant which seems is due to application of different spiritual quotient measurement instruments [45].

The current findings indicated that there was a significant relationship between spiritual quotient of the managers and the organizational commitments of the staffs. Moreover, three components of spiritual quotient including having ability to deal and interact with problems, promotion of moral virtues and self-awareness, love, interest and empathy with others had direct and positive effects on direct interaction with the staffs and improving their organizational commitments. Farhangi et al. [40] employed spiritual quotient as an applicable aspect of the spirituality concept and its dimensions influence the transformational leadership styles [39,40]. Srivastara and Misra found out a positive correlation with spirituality and transformational styles of leaders. In other words, more spiritual leaders are more likely to use transformational leadership styles [39].

Ghahramani demonstrated that spiritual quotient had a positive and direct and significant relationship on the organizational commitments of the staffs [46]. This is consistent with researches conducted by Avolio et al.[20] performed on French nurses, [47] conducted in Pakistan, Parandeh et al. [48], Seyyedi et al. [49], Emmons and Price [6,24].

According to current findings, there was a relationship between organizational commitment of staff and transformational leadership styles of the managers which is consistent with the findings of Amir kabiri et al. [50], Javdani [35], and Tredget [7] who found a significant relationship between these components. Therefore, it is concluded that in organizations where managers implementing transformational leadership styles, the staffs develop stronger organizational commitment.

Considering the significant relationships between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership (p=0.011) and the spiritual quotient with organizational commitment (p=0.34), also the relationship established between managers’ transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of the staffs in Tehan University of Medical Sciences, it could be claimed that the conceptual model of the research has been proven. In other words, higher promoting spiritual quotients and promotion of transformational leadership styles improve the organizational commitment of the staff. Tredget [7] concluded that the managers enjoying higher spiritual quotients could come up with innovative methods of managing and guiding the staffs. Transformational leaders improve the organizational commitment of the staffs through creation of positive and supporting environment [7].

In Yee Min et al. [51] research on numerous students across the world, they found out a relationship between spiritual quotients and their use of transformational leadership styles. Moreover, they revealed that the student were at average levels in terms of transformational leadership and spiritual quotients [51].

Vatankhah et al. [52] found out that managers’ spirituality had a significant and positive effect on their leadership styles (P≤0.01) in Tehran University of Medical Sciences [52]. Therefore, as spirituality is associated with transformational practice of managers, recruiting managers with high spiritual dedications is recommended.

Kabiri et al. [50] observed a significant relationship between transformational leadership styles and the organizational commitment of the staffs. They also noted that managers use transformational leadership styles tend to be more successful in promotion of organizational commitment of their staffs [50]. Nahrir et al. [53] addressed the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment of nurses in a number of hospitals and found out that job satisfaction might contribute to improved organizational commitment of the staffs [53]. Therefore, it is proven in all studies that using transformational leadership styles by managers could improve organizational commitments of staff and finally job satisfaction.

Finally, reported that observing spiritual regulations in organizations and organizational commitments have a significant relationship with managers’ spiritual quotient [54]. This was corroborated in the conclusion of the present research.

The most removable limitation of the present study was using selfassessment questionnaires landed to headquarters staff and managers of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Second, this study was induced cross-sectionally in 2015. Therefore, the kind of correlation between two mentioned variables may be different in similar studies. Third, our research only studied the relationship between spiritual quotient and transformational leadership of managers with organizational commitment of staff. But, there may be the other factors influencing the organizational commitment of the staffs.

Conclusion

This research assessed direct and significant relationship between spiritual quotients, transformational leadership styles of the managers and the organizational commitments of the staffs in Tehran University of Medical Sciences. As, human capital is the most valuable asset of every organization, focusing on this capital could considerably contribute to success of the organization. Therefore, managers should attempt to raise their spiritual quotients and also follow transformational leadership styles to encourage the staffs to enhance their organizational commitments. Committed and professional workforce could provide the organizational development.

Moreover, as spiritual quotient could be learned, it is possible to improve this quotient. To this end, and for education and measurement of spiritual quotient, recruiting organizational psychologists is highly recommended. This education should not be limited to the theoretical aspect. The trainees must be placed in leadership positions and receive guidance at the same time from experienced instructors.

As spiritual quotient, transformational leadership styles of the managers and the organizational commitments are positively related, managers with high spiritual quotients tend to opt for transformational leadership which contributed to stronger organizational commitments among the staff and make them more loyal. Because a variety of factors influence the organizational commitment of the staffs, these factors should be studied in future researches, in particular, the relationships between environmental, cultural and organizational factors, organizational justice and job satisfaction.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported as a grant by Vice Chancellorship of Research in Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The authors like to thank all staff and managers of TUMS headquarters departments.

References

Citation: Hossein D, Zeynab R, Hamideh R (2017) Relationship Between Spiritual Quotient and Transformational Leadership of Managers with Organizational Commitment of Staffs: A Case Study in the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Review Pub Administration Manag 5:210.

Copyright: © 2017 Hossein D, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.