What Is Spiritual Intelligence? A Guide to Workplace Spirituality

What Is Spiritual Intelligence (SI)?
A People-First “Hack” For Workplace Spirituality In The AI Era

Spiritual Intelligence (SI) is emerging as a vital anchor for workplace spirituality, attitude, purpose, and resilience in today’s AI-driven, high-pressure workplace. This updated guide reframes SI for the modern Filipino professional — connecting biblical principles, research-backed insights, and people-first leadership practices that enable healthier culture and character.

In the Philippines, where pakikisama, hiya, and utang na loob influence workplace behavior, SI becomes a practical compass that guides integrity, courage, compassion, and principles-driven decisions.

Likewise, in my early years in leadership and HR role, I discovered that technical skills and emotional intelligence were not enough to sustain good performance, healthy relationships, and a values-driven culture.

What truly re-engineered my ASK and leadership framework was what I eventually coined as workplace spirituality and spiritual intelligence (SI).

Today—amid AI, hybrid work, mental health issues, and culture wars—this question is more relevant than ever:
How can employees stay grounded, values-driven, and hopeful in a rapidly changing, high-pressure workplace?

A growing body of empirical research now supports what many leaders have long observed: when people experience meaning, alignment to values, and a sense of higher purpose at work, their attitude, performance, and resilience significantly improve.

This article explains:

• What spiritual intelligence is (and what it is not)
• Why it matters for work, career, and leadership
• How biblical wisdom and time-tested principles translate into modern workplace outcomes
• How SI undergirds my Work Attitude Hacks Mentoring (WAHM) program

All while keeping the original heart of this 2005 article—and making it useful, searchable, and applicable today.

Why Are We Talking About Workplace Spirituality Now?

In one forum years ago, someone asked:

“Traditional science and skills training can’t fully explain how to live, stay positive, or make sense of life.

I believe there are no accidents and that life is, in many ways, our choice. How do we bring workplace spirituality into a typical skill-building training program, so that people grow not just in skill, but in that ‘little voice’ inside their head?”

Since Emotional Intelligence (EQ) became mainstream, practitioners and researchers have been looking at Spiritual Intelligence (SI) and workplace spirituality as another lever for addressing personal, business, and career challenges.

While IQ and EQ are now well established, spiritual intelligence is still often misunderstood—especially in the Philippines where religion, culture, and work frequently overlap.

Yet recent studies consistently show that workplace spirituality and spiritual intelligence are positively associated with:

• Job satisfaction and engagement
  ARC Journals – IJRSA,
  SSRN Study,
  IJIP Journal,
  PubMed Central Review,
  ScienceDirect,
  CMR Journal
• Performance and productivity
  SSRN Study,
  IJIP Journal,
  SAGE Publications,
  PubMed Central Review,
  ScienceDirect,
  CMR Journal
• Well-being, resilience, and career success
  PubMed Central – Career Success Study,
  PubMed Central Review,
  ScienceDirect
• Values-driven behavior and reduced misconduct or fraud
  CMR Journal – Ethics & Fraud Study,
  Dialnet – Workplace Ethics Paper

In other words, this is no longer just “nice to have” inspiration. It is a strategic lever for people and organizations.

What Workplace Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence Is Not (WSSI)

Different authors have tried to define workplace spirituality and spiritual intelligence in a way that can be accepted across cultures and belief systems. In the process, something important sometimes gets lost.

Let’s start with what WSSI is not:

• WSSI is not just religion. It is not simply church membership, religious rituals, or denominational labels.
• WSSI is not mere intuition or emotion. Spirituality is not anti-rational or just “vibes,” which is why many professionals hesitate to engage with it.

When we reduce workplace spirituality and spiritual intelligence (WSSI) to private ritual or emotion, we miss its potential to anchor values, decisions, and behavior in the workplace.

What Is Workplace Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence (WSSI)?

photo courtesy of 3Q Institute: visit https://sqi.co/definition-of-spiritual-intelligence/

Here is a workable, biblically grounded, and workplace-relevant definition:

Spiritual Intelligence is a person’s ability to recognize God as Creator, understand the principles that govern life (natural and spiritual laws), and align daily decisions, work, and relationships to those principles.

In simple terms, SI is the applied wisdom of God’s principles in real life and at work.

Contrary to popular belief, SI makes full use of reason and will. It involves:

• Thinking: observing patterns, reflecting on consequences, learning principles
• Deciding: choosing to align with those principles—even when it is costly
• Living: turning those principles into habits, culture, and systems

To illustrate, consider the law of gravity. You don’t have to feel gravity for it to operate. It is real whether you believe it or not. When people learned to work with this law, we got air travel and space exploration.

In the same way, there are moral and spiritual laws that govern:

• Integrity and trust
• Sowing and reaping
• Humility and promotion
• Justice and accountability
• Generosity and blessing

Workplace Spirituality and Spiritual intelligence (WSSI) is learning these biblical principles and then designing your life, work, and leadership around them.

Biblical Wisdom As the Foundation of Workplace Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence

“Treasure wisdom (spiritual intelligence) and it will make you great; hold on to it and it will bring you honor.”
— Proverbs 4:8 (NCV)

The Bible presents wisdom not just as information, but as the applied understanding of God’s principles.

From that lens, here are the fundamentals of spiritual intelligence and how they translate to work and career today.

1. Recognizing A Higher Spiritual Being (The Creator)

“Removing God from the picture is like removing ‘intelligence’ from SI—leaving you with spirituality without substance.”

Spiritual intelligence begins with the humble recognition that:

• There is a Creator who designed both the seen and unseen realms.
• This Creator set principles in place to sustain life and creation.

In the workplace, this translates to:

• Humility in leadership: recognizing that power is entrusted, not owned.
• Accountability: decisions are not just to shareholders, but ultimately to God.
• Ethics with a spine: doing right even when no one is watching, because Someone is.

2. Recognizing Our Own Spiritual Nature

Unless a person recognizes that they are more than a physical body or job title, SI will remain abstract. We are:

• Physical (body)
• Rational and emotional (mind and heart)
• Spiritual (spirit, made in God’s image)

In practice, this means:

• Work cannot fully satisfy the deepest questions of identity and purpose.
• Disconnecting from the spiritual dimension makes people vulnerable to burnout, cynicism, and moral compromise.
• Honoring one’s spiritual nature increases meaning, integrity, and alignment.

3. Recognizing There Is A “Guidebook” For Life

Whenever we unbox a new gadget, we look for the manual. In the same way:

If there is a Creator and we are created, there must be a guidebook about life and creation.

For me as a Christian, that guidebook is the Bible—a source of:

• Principles on justice, stewardship, and integrity
• Teaching on relationships, conflict, and forgiveness
• Wisdom about money, power, suffering, and hope

At work, this plays out in:

• Decision-making: choosing what is right over what is merely profitable in the short term
• People management: seeing employees as image-bearers of God, not just “resources”
• Policies and culture: designing systems that honor dignity, fairness, and truth

4. Understanding Your Purpose and Calling

“We can be good at something because of training, but that does not automatically mean it is our calling.”

Some skills can be acquired; others feel almost “encoded”—they come naturally, as if woven into our design. Spiritual intelligence helps you:

Spiritual intelligence helps you:

• Discern the difference between what you can do and what you are called to do
• See your work (whether in HR, IT, finance, operations, or creative fields) as a stewardship, not just a paycheck
• Make career decisions based on purpose, values, and impact, not just salary or title

In the AI era, where roles are disrupted and reskilling is constant, purpose clarity becomes a stabilizing anchor.

5. Understanding Your Place in God’s Heart

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How we see God often shapes how we see ourselves:

• If we see God as distant and harsh, we may work from fear, perfectionism, or legalism.
• If we see God as loving, just, and wise, we can work from a place of security, stewardship, and grace.

“The personality of each individual is partly a reflection of their understanding (or lack of it) of God.”

At work, this influences:

• How we handle failure (condemnation vs. learning and growth)
• How we view success (ego vs. gratitude and responsibility)
• How we treat others (competition vs. service and collaboration)

6. Recognizing Life Principles And Synchronizing Your Lifestyle

“The road to a successful life depends on a person’s ability to recognize ‘life principles’ and synchronize their lifestyle and decisions with these laws.”

Our world is changing fast—AI, digital disruption, pandemics, socio-political shifts. Businesses and people must adapt to survive.

Yet not everything changes.

Former US President Jimmy Carter put it this way:

“We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”

Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to:

1. Recognize time‑honored principles (e.g., sowing and reaping, integrity, humility, stewardship).
2. Apply them to modern situations (hybrid work, data privacy, AI ethics, workplace harassment, diversity and inclusion, etc.).

Without application, SI is just theory. With application, it becomes a competitive advantage in character and culture.

In short: values-aligned spirituality at work is not only good theology; it is good organizational strategy.

How Spiritual Intelligence Shows Up In The Workplace

To make this practical, here’s how SI can “hack” work attitude and values:

• When faced with unfair treatment, SI moves us from revenge to principled, values-driven response.
• When tempted with dishonesty (e.g., falsifying reports, cutting corners), SI reminds us of integrity and accountability before God.
• When overwhelmed with change or uncertainty, SI anchors us in purpose, calling, and God’s sovereignty.
• When leading teams, SI helps us see people as image-bearers, not just headcount—shaping our approach to feedback, discipline, recognition, and development.

This is why spiritual intelligence is not an abstract topic for retreats only.
It belongs in leadership development, engagement programs, and culture-building initiatives.

Why Spiritual Intelligence Still Matters—And Will Matter Even More

As AI automates tasks and data becomes abundant, what will distinguish people and leaders?

• Character
• Discernment
• Purpose and values
• Capacity to hold tension between business goals and eternal principles

That is the domain of spiritual intelligence.

SI does not compete with IQ and EQ.
It grounds them—so that brilliance and emotional skill are guided by wisdom and aligned with God’s heart.

ASK Integration: How Workplace Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence Anchors Work Attitude and Values

This expanded version of Spiritual Intelligence ties directly into our
ASK Framework — Align • Strengthen • Kickstart.

• ALIGN — SI grounds employees and leaders in biblical principles, timeless values, ethical anchors, and a clear sense of purpose.
• STRENGTHEN — SI shapes resilience, emotional maturity, humility, and ethical consistency in high-pressure environments and AI-driven workflows.
• KICKSTART — SI turns convictions into action: integrity, accountability, compassion, and values-driven leadership.

With SI as an internal compass, employees become grounded, proactive, and better equipped to navigate uncertainty, relational tension, and ethical complexity at work.

Where To Go From Here

If you want to go deeper, you can:

• Reflect on your own definition of success, purpose, and calling.
• Examine where your current work habits align—or misalign—with biblical principles.
• Explore structured interventions like Work Attitude Hacks Mentoring (WAHM) for yourself or your organization.

On my succeeding posts and programs, we discuss specific workplace applications of spiritual intelligence—from handling office politics and career transitions, to leading teams and designing values-driven culture.

If you’d like help integrating spiritual intelligence into your HR strategy, leadership development, or culture programs, you may reach out via the contact channels on this site.