A Study on Spirituality Management in the Armed Forces

Abstract

By definition, effectiveness implies producing intended results. As long as a professional, like the person in uniform achieves what is expected of him, he may be considered effective . However, the present day s societal pressure and job specific stresses are either degrading his output or not allowing his effectiveness to be enhanced. This is where spiritual awareness can possibly play an important part in maintaining the desired level of effectiveness of armed forces as well as enhancing the existing yardstick. Spirituality cannot provide tactical solutions but can help in character building and personality development of the soldiers. This will also help them to have a better understanding of human values and improve their Emotional Quotient or capability to tackle various unforeseen/crisis situations with a new vigour, perception and zeal. Thus, it might be possible to use spirituality as an indirect tool to arrive at more viable solutions to tactical, operational and even strategic problems. A lot of research has been done as to how the effectiveness can be improved by following a spiritual path. However, after undertaking a deep analysis of the available literature, it was observed that in the literature reviewed, no significant research has been carried out on Spiritual Management in the Armed Forces and it assumes importance in today s stress filled environment because of the commissioning of officers and enrolment of men from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Though a subtle relationship between Religion and Spirituality has been established, enough evidence has not yet been evolved, to establish whether this linkage could be exploited for enhancing the output of a soldier.This proposed research work aims to investigate the role of Spiritual Management in the Armed Forces and to get a deep insight of how spirituality can be utilized as a tool to increase the efficiency of the members of armed forces, reduce combat stress and in the process suggest a formalized spirituality awareness tra