This concluding chapter considers how a framework of respectful pluralism applies to the study and practice of leadership in diverse organizations. The following pages discuss constructive ways in which individual leaders and the leadership process as a whole can promote an organizational environment that respects the dignity of all employees. Stated succinctly, the effort to shape a workplace marked by respectful pluralism is a matter of good leadership.

This book has made a number of connections with issues that are central to leadership studies, including organizational culture, ethics, spirituality, critical thinking, conflict, diversity, and profitability. The analysis offers strong criticism of overly simplistic treatments of the interrelationships of some of these topics – for example, the interrelationship between a leader's faith and her ethics; between spirituality and profitability; and between religion and organizational culture. In this chapter I consider questions of leadership and provide a tempered account of legitimate links between and among some of these topics. Finally, the chapter provides some key conclusions, limitations, and implications of the analysis undertaken in this book.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP: ENABLING PLURALISM

In respectful pluralism, the organization itself should not be aligned with any explicitly religious, spiritual, or other comprehensive worldview. Rather, in this moral framework I posit that organizations should allow for significant employee expression of various aspects of their identity on an equal basis.