Spiritual Intelligence and Transformational Leadership: A New Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this paper is to establish a connection between spiritual intelligence and transformational leadership in an effort to encourage further debate about the legitimacy of spiritual intelligence in educational discourse. In this context we define spiritual intelligence as an interconnected configuration of affective orientations intimately linked to create meaning through connecting ideas, events, and persons rather than to a specific religious tradition or orientation. An exploration of the meaning of transformational leadership in education in K-12 settings provides the basis for the development of a synthesis from a new perspective of two concepts that empower the dispositions of leadership impacting school culture.