The relationship between spiritual intelligence and organizational excellence with the mediating role of organizational trust among principals

Due to the world's remarkable changes and today's social needs, the excellence and quality of education in the educational organization is undeniable. So, the school principals have to strive to achieve it. Excellence means organizational commitment to sustainable development, participation in customer satisfaction, and continuous increase of profitability of the organization in a comprehensive and supportive national environment for achieving total quality. Applying total quality management to organizations requires managers and staff who have the potential to move towards transcendental goals and also have an appropriate level of intelligence. One of the important types of intelligence in humans is spiritual intelligence. Spiritual intelligence is an instrument that integrates the external aspects of intelligence with the inner aspects of spirituality and creates an extraordinary capacity in person to use spirituality in an applied way. However, the individual efforts are not sufficient by themselves to optimize the organization's work, especially at schools, which requires teamwork. To organize their teams, the principals must be able to strengthen the cooperation and create a spirit of trust. There are mutual expectations in social relations, but the structure of unequal power against the subordinate usually causes distrust. The school principals need to create a climate of trust and benevolence among teachers, students and parents so that the effective and efficient education in Schools will be achieved. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between spiritual intelligence and organizational excellence with the mediating role of organizational trust among the high school principals in Isfahan. In this context, the paper also examines the research model underlying the variables of the study. Research A descriptive-correlation research method was utilized. The statistical population included all 222 principals of high and secondary schools in 2015-2016 academic years. The sample size (128 participants) was selected based on Krejcie & Morgan (1970) table through multiplecluster random sampling. The research instruments included: King (2008) spiritual intelligence questionnaire with four dimentions of critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, conscious state expansion,Bruce (2008) organizational excellence and Sztompka (2002) organizational trust respectively. Their face and content validity was confirmed by a number of respondents and five experts in educational administration area. The reliability of the tools was calculated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.93, 0.81 and 0.88 for Bruce's Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire (2008), King's Excellence Questionnaire (2008), and Ztompka's Organizational Trust Inventory (2002). To analysis the data’s SEM, correlation coefficient and regression were utilized. Data analysis was performed using statistical methods of structural equation model, regression analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient. The findings revealed a positive and significant relationship generally between spiritual intelligence, organizational trust and organizational excellence. Also, among the components of spiritual intelligence of principals, only transcendental awareness predicted organizational excellence. Moreover, the finding showed a significant relationship between organizational trust and organizational excellence, and the obtained data fits the presented model through direct and indirect effects (p≤0/05, t≥1/96). The results of the coefficients of direct effects of variables on each other show that spiritual intelligence with the effect coefficient of 0.22 and 0.75 directly affects organizational excellence and organizational trust. Also, organizational trust with the coefficient of 0.35 directly affects organizational excellence. The indirect effect of spiritual intelligence on organizational excellence is significant and the role of mediator of organizational trust is confirmed. Spirituality makes life meaningful as long as rational behaviors and trust in others are flourished based on the mutual respect and equality. Therefore, it is possible to say that principals who have high spiritual intelligence at school may lead to the formation of a sense of trust and a healthy and logical environment in the organization, using the rational existence in order to thought awareness about the nature of the realities, the purpose and the reason for schools’ existence, and lead people in a conscious and purposeful way for its excellence. So, it can be concluded that relying on creating group relationships and using the spiritual intelligence of principals in its development can increase the sense of trust and also the sense of responsibility of individuals to the work and organizational tasks. This process follows by the principal's efforts in achieving the goals of the school and, consequently, the pursuit of excellence and the growth of the organization. School principals can focus on the excellence of the organization and the concept of quality through the demonstration of the usage of the spiritual intelligence capacity in understanding the meanings of collaboration, participation and collective work, and establishing group communication in its portfolio. Spiritual intelligence strengthens the basis of individual beliefs and influences its performance and school principals who have enough of it, in their beliefs, relationships and behaviors enhance the aspects that affect the level of organizational trust and strengthen them. According to the findings of the main hypothesis and the research model as well as the relationship between spiritual intelligence of principals and organizational excellence and trust, the practitioners, policy makers and senior administrators in educational organization are suggested: - Hold workshops on customer-orientation, organizational decision making, goal-recognition and organizational ethics for school principals and other staff. - School principals, while establishing meaningful relationships in schools, especially with teachers, should strengthen the competencies of teachers and promote their critical thinking in different ways, such as holding creativity and self-awareness courses. They can explain the nature of the reality of education, the purpose and reason of its existence, and the responsibility of different people to excel in the education system. - Finally, it is suggested that, while emphasizing the discussion and gathering sessions for the principals and staff of the organization, hold workshops on job skills training, human relationships, teamwork and participation, in order to increase the organizational trust and the organization will be on the path of excellence. Also, by strengthening the parents and teachers’ community, connecting with cultural and social institutions as well as student councils, the interactions and relationships between the organization, school staff, students, parents ae well as related social and cultural institutions will be flourished with the goal of education excellence. In brief, the organizations should focus on training principals, by understanding the complexities of the environment and establishing friendly rational relationships in schools especially with teachers, strive to strengthen their competencies and promote their critical thinking.