A Leadership Decision-Making Framework That Integrates Spiritual and Professional Growth

Jason felt torn. He had always intended for his business to be about more than profit alone. For Jason, a critical aspect of leadership was how his company could foster the spiritual health and well-being of everyone who worked there.

The problem? Jason didn’t know how to pursue business goals in a way that genuinely nurtured people. And the lack of a spiritual dimension at work was beginning to show. He and the staff were starting to feel the workplace as a hamster wheel rather than a place where meaningful, purpose-driven work could flourish.

“If I bring in a practice from one tradition, people wonder why I’m not including other traditions,” Jason vented. “We lose unity over dogma instead of benefitting from a shared practice.”

“Have you heard of Ignatius of Loyola?” I wondered.

Jason shook his head. Maybe you haven’t either.

Ignatius of Loyola founded what is now called the Jesuit order. Much of his work continues to influence how we think about meaning, purpose, and leadership. Perhaps the most significant is a highly adaptable decision-making framework based on the idea that the Divine is in all things—meaning that daily decisions can become a path to clarity if we know how to listen.

The method is simple.

You take all the external information necessary for a decision, combine it with your interior responses to your options, and notice two categories of movement.

Consolation describes movements toward the Divine: increases in freedom, hope, connection, joy, and especially gratitude.

Desolation describes movements away from the Divine: increases in confinement, hopelessness, isolation, meaninglessness, and ingratitude.

You imagine taking each option and notice the consolations and desolations that accompany the decision over the long term. The option that offers the most consolation—both personally and outwardly to the world—is the path toward the Divine.

“So what if your team meetings were structured around a practice like this,” I asked, “so that your work and your spiritual lives were harmonized?”

“I’m intrigued,” he said. “That feels like it could clarify a lot for us without alienating anyone. And it feels like we could recapture that sense of meaningful direction. But how do I know it will work with the kinds of decisions we have to make for our business?”

It’s a fair question.

The method works because it brings together all the dimensions of leadership decision-making, rather than elevating one part and ignoring the rest. Data, emotional impact, relational dynamics, long-term meaning, human cost, and core values all get their say.

The result is greater clarity, alignment, and sustainability—key qualities every executive needs in a rapidly changing landscape.

Spiritual and professional development are distinguishable, but not separate. Your professional life can be the garden in which spiritual depth grows.

How are your leadership decisions shaping your inner life—and how is your inner life shaping the way you lead?

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Live and Lead with Soul,

Ben Shoup