From Spiritual Values to Passionate Leadership: Transforming Teacher Motivation in Islamic Primary Schools

Abstract

This study examines how teachers in an Islamic primary school experience and internalize spiritual values embedded in school leadership and how this process reshapes their professional motivation. Although spiritual leadership has been associated with teacher commitment, well-being, and performance, previous studies have largely used variable-based designs, offering limited explanation of the lived processes through which everyday leadership practices acquire moral meaning for teachers. This study employed a qualitative transcendental phenomenological design at SD Integral Hidayatullah Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia. The study purposively selected five teachers with 8–17 years of service. Data were generated through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and institutional documents and analyzed through bracketing, horizontalization, identification of significant statements, development of meaning units, thematic clustering, and interpretive synthesis. The findings reveal a sequential mechanism that begins with visible leadership enthusiasm and spiritual-ethical modeling, followed by affective resonance, symbolic moral authority, internalization of values, and a transformation in professional motivation. Teachers increasingly interpreted discipline, participation in religious practices, and consistent ethical conduct not merely as administrative behaviors but as credible representations of the school’s spiritual mission. This interpretation shifted motivation from externally regulated task fulfillment toward intrinsic commitment, service, and moral responsibility. The study contributes a phenomenological model explaining how spiritual leadership translates observable practices into teacher motivation through emotional and symbolic meaning-making. The findings suggest that leadership development in Islamic schools should integrate managerial competence with consistent moral exemplarity and relational engagement.