Spiritual Capital and Giftedness: Subsidiarity in Business

Spiritual capital is the openness for interior movements of the heart that can receive gifts of intellect, will, and soul in gratitude. We can call this openness capital because it is an asset for business. The spiritual capital a person brings to the workplace weaves an individual desire to develop personal gifts into the free market. Awareness for spiritual capital forms a lens, with which business leaders can perceive individual gifts, and it is thus a precondition for subsidiarity, which allows business to focus on the productivity of strengths, an integration of individual purpose with organizational needs, and an integration of organizational purpose to better meet societal needs. This chapter explores the benefits of spiritual capital, the challenges in bringing out the spiritual capital in each individual, and the competitive advantage an organization can gain viewing gifts through the lens of spiritual capital. This chapter argues that spiritual capital brings about greater capacity in terms of productivity and allows decisions to be made at the most appropriate level—upholding the benefit of subsidiarity.