“Faith the sub­stance of things hoped for, the ev­i­dence of things not seen.” (He­brews 11:1)

In a world char­ac­terised by un­cer­tain­ty, chal­lenges, dis­ap­point­ments and in­creas­ing stake­hold­ers’ ex­pec­ta­tions, lead­ers are recog­nis­ing the need for a per­son­al foun­da­tion.

Lead­ers need the con­fi­dence that suc­cess­es en­vis­aged will in fact ma­te­ri­alise. That be­lief is the essence of faith.

While tra­di­tion­al lead­er­ship mod­els have fo­cused on tech­ni­cal com­pe­ten­cies, an in­creas­ing num­ber of for­ward-think­ing lead­ers are draw­ing on faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty as they nav­i­gate abusi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, char­ac­terised by tur­bu­lence.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is no ex­cep­tion. There is in­creas­ing recog­ni­tion that lead­er­ship an­chored in faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty; in­ner pur­pose, moral clar­i­ty and self-aware­ness, is

per­son­al­ly mean­ing­ful, and strate­gi­cal­ly ad­van­ta­geous. This holds true for lead­ers across sec­tors; cor­po­rate, po­lit­i­cal, con­glom­er­ates and SMEs.

Faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty - clar­i­fy­ing the con­cepts

While faith re­flects a sys­tem of re­li­gious be­liefs or moral ground­ing, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty refers to in­ner pur­pose, val­ues, and a sense of con­nec­tion to some­thing be­yond self. Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in lead­er­ship is about cul­ti­vat­ing a moral com­pass, emo­tion­al bal­ance, em­pa­thy, and a mind­set of long-term stew­ard­ship. These are lead­er­ship qual­i­ties that fu­ture-ori­ent­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion­sseek in or­der to be in­clu­sive, im­pact­ful, and sus­tain­able.

Faith, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and pur­pose as com­pass

Re­search in or­gan­i­sa­tion­al be­hav­iour con­sis­tent­ly high­lights the ben­e­fits of spir­i­tu­al­ly an­chored lead­er­ship. Lead­ers who prac­tice re­flec­tion, hu­mil­i­ty, pur­pose-dri­ven de­ci­sion­mak­ing, and em­pa­thy tend to demon­strate:

• Im­proved emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence and self-reg­u­la­tion

• High­er re­silience when op­er­at­ing un­der pres­sure

• Greater con­sis­ten­cy in eth­i­cal choic­es

• Greater abil­i­ty to mo­ti­vate and in­spire oth­ers

• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles that build trust

A Glob­al Lead­er­ship Per­spec­tive – Glob­al­ly, more lead­ers are in­cor­po­rat­ing faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in­to their busi­ness prac­tices, or­gan­i­sa­tion cul­ture, and how they serve hu­man­i­ty.

They open­ly at­tribute suc­cess to their spir­i­tu­al be­liefs or val­ues-based prin­ci­ples, which in turn in­flu­ence their lead­er­ship style.

Oprah Win­frey, me­dia ex­ec­u­tive and phil­an­thropist, stat­ed that faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty are foun­da­tion­al ar­eas to busi­ness suc­cess, and that ful­fil­ment comes from the align­ment of ac­tiv­i­ties with a high­er pur­pose, ser­vice to oth­ers and in­tegri­ty. She ad­vo­cates that full­ness of life comes through grat­i­tude and prayer.

Satya Nadel­la, CEO of Mi­crosoft and ad­vo­cate for val­ue-based lead­er­shi,p fre­quent­ly ref­er­enced the im­pact of em­pa­thy, hu­mil­i­ty, and spir­i­tu­al in­flu­ences on busi­ness. He how­ev­er rec­om­mends spir­i­tu­al­i­ty with­out re­li­gious pre­scrip­tion. Nadel­la’s ap­proach is apt in the T&T con­text where or­gan­i­sa­tions must bal­ance de­sired com­mer­cial out­comes with so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, stake­hold­er trust, and cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

What is com­mon to both lead­ers ref­er­enced is not ac­tivism root­ed in re­li­gion, but a lead­er­ship iden­ti­ty built on an­chor­ing that is in­ter­nal rather than in­sti­tu­tion­al. Their ap­proach to lead­er­ship high­lights the theme: “when lead­ers are guid­ed by deep val­ues and there is moral ground­ing, or­gan­i­sa­tions and stake­hold­ers’ ben­e­fit.”

A Trinidad & To­ba­go Lead­er­ship Per­spec­tive:

T&T’s busi­ness cul­ture in­cludes an un­der­ly­ing ex­pec­ta­tion of moral aware­ness, shaped by the di­verse faiths that ex­ist, Chris­tian­i­ty, Hin­duism, Is­lam, Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist, and oth­ers.

While there is like­ly to be vari­a­tions among faiths and in­di­vid­u­als as to the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the core val­ues for suc­cess, there is how­ev­er a wide­ly ac­cept­ed prin­ci­ple glob­al­ly and lo­cal­ly, ofwhat con­sti­tutes right and wrong. Lead­ers are there­fore ex­pect­ed to ad­here to these prin­ci­ples and val­ues re­gard­less of re­li­gious be­liefs.

With­in re­cent times promi­nent per­sons in T&T have ad­vo­cat­ed the im­por­tance of faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty to good gov­er­nance and im­pact­ful lead­er­ship. In com­pa­nies such as Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics Lim­it­ed, SM Jaleel & Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and Xtra Foods Su­per­mar­ket, the sig­nif­i­cance of faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in busi­ness is ev­i­dent.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad, in a de­liv­ery to wor­ship­pers at a Pres­by­ter­ian Church late last year stat­ed that god­li­ness is cen­tral to lead­er­ship. He ex­pressed the view that T&T needs lead­ers who pri­ori­tise the ma­jor­i­ty and have the for­ti­tude to act against those who en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ties harm­ful to oth­er cit­i­zens. He called for a com­mit­ment to place cit­i­zens at the fore­front and for lead­er­ship root­ed in fair­ness, eq­ui­ty, and em­pa­thy. This judge is how­ev­er not alone.

An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III, Group CEO of con­glom­er­ate ANSA McAL in de­liv­er­ing an ad­dress at a con­fer­ence host­ed by the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of T&T, pro­vid­ed in­sights on­spir­i­tu­al re­con­nec­tion and pur­pose-dri­ven lead­er­ship. He at­trib­uted the group’s progress on strate­gic trans­for­ma­tion, and its cor­po­rate well-be­ing to a holis­tic lead­er­ship ap­proach, onethat nur­tures the mind, body and spir­it, ac­knowl­edges a high­er pow­er and is well-root­ed in a com­mit­ment to “re­con­nect­ing to your pur­pose­ful­ness.”

Langston Roach, founder, chair­man and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Langston Roach In­dus­tries, in his re­cent­ly pub­lished book, ad­vo­cat­ed that spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is about con­nec­tion

greater than one­self, con­nec­tion that pro­vides a sense of di­rec­tion and strength. Roach at­trib­ut­es his suc­cess to seeds of faith plant­ed by his par­ents and grand­par­ents at an ear­ly age.

For him “there has al­ways been God.”

Prac­ti­cal ex­pres­sions of spir­i­tu­al lead­er­ship in the work­place

Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in lead­er­ship does not re­quire prayer rooms in of­fices or pub­lic de­c­la­ra­tions of be­lief. It should be prac­ti­cal, sub­tle, and pro­fes­sion­al.

• Val­ue-aligned de­ci­sion-mak­ing

Lead­ers must en­sure that choic­es re­flect prin­ci­ples such as fair­ness, re­spect, and longterm re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

• Mind­ful­ness and re­flec­tion

Med­i­ta­tion or qui­et re­flec­tion should be used to main­tain clar­i­ty.

• Com­pas­sion­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Lead­ers should be ground­ed spir­i­tu­al­ly to speak with au­then­tic­i­ty and em­pa­thy,es­pe­cial­ly when com­mu­ni­cat­ing com­plex de­ci­sions.

• Stew­ard­ship mind­set

A be­lief in re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to stake­hold­ers, fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, or a high­er pur­pose en­cour­ages long-term think­ing over short-term gain.

• Cre­at­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe work­places

Lead­ers are re­quired to fos­ter re­spect, in­clu­sion, and moral con­sis­ten­cy.

Risks and bound­aries: Avoid­ing mis­use of be­liefs

Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is on­ly ben­e­fi­cial when ap­proached with cau­tion and re­spect. Healthy spir­i­tu­al lead­er­ship is in­clu­sive, not pre­scrip­tive.

• Be­liefs or re­li­gious ex­pec­ta­tions should not be im­posed.

• Work­places must re­main in­clu­sive, recog­nis­ing di­verse faiths and non-faith

world­views.

• Spir­i­tu­al nar­ra­tives must nev­er mask poor man­age­ment or be used to moralise

em­ploy­ees.

Ground­ed lead­ers - key for a brighter T&T

As T&T’s busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment be­comes more com­plex, the lead­ers who will stand out are those who com­bine com­pe­tence, char­ac­ter, and strat­e­gy. Faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, when ap­proached with hu­mil­i­ty and in­clu­siv­i­ty, pro­vide lead­ers with an in­ner sta­bil­i­ty that strength­ens per­for­mance, pur­pose, and re­silience.

In a coun­try where re­la­tion­ships and rep­u­ta­tion mat­ter and where stake­hold­er and pub­lic scruti­ny are ever-present, a leader who draws on val­ues, whether shaped by faith or spir­i­tu­al re­flec­tion has few­er rep­u­ta­tion­al crises, stronger stake­hold­er trust and is bet­ter equipped to op­er­ate trans­par­ent­ly, eth­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly sen­si­tive, even when un­der pres­sure.

The hope for 2026 is that the qui­et lead­er­ship ad­van­tage that faith and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of­fer will move the coun­try for­ward, to­wards eco­nom­ic and so­cial re­silience, and a more in­clu­sive so­ci­ety.

I look for­ward to the con­tin­u­a­tion of shar­ing my per­spec­tives on lead­er­ship, in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship through ar­ti­cles that are in­for­ma­tion­al, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and in­sight­ful.

Best wish­es for a pros­per­ous and peace­ful New Year!!

Dr Ju­dith M S Mark is busi­ness strat­e­gy con­sul­tant, ed­u­ca­tor, aca­d­e­m­ic coach & ad­vo­cate for in­no­va­tion-dri­ven lead­er­ship