Sustainable Leadership: How Spirituality Drives Performance
Previously in this Series:
The Neuroscience of Spirituality and Grit
Unlocking Resilience in High-Pressure Environments
In the first blog of this series we explored how the neuroscience of spirituality and grit protects against stress, anxiety, and depression.
We discussed the neuroscience and neuroanatomy behind purpose-driven work, showing how belief and intrinsic motivation help leaders and professionals sustain peak performance. Research highlights that spirituality enhances decision-making, reduces stress, and fosters long-term motivation. Neuroscience provides actionable solutions for burnout, stress, and cognitive exhaustion. With advancements in fMRI, PET scans, and electrophysiology, researchers can now track how brain networks regulate resilience, focus, and emotional strength.
Building on that foundation, we now further into how purpose and value-based drivers ground leadership strategies and working styles that exemplify a high-performance mindset.
A Leadership Case Study:
The Power of Mindset and Culture in High-Pressure Environments
At a recent Federation of Small Businesses event, I had the opportunity to speak with Jordan Aspley, the Founder and Director of Velulon Ltd, a company specializing in AI-integrated products for eye health assessment. Jordan operates under a unique assumption: success is inevitable. He believes that if a leader assumes they will succeed, their mindset, decisions, and strategies will align to manifest that outcome. This philosophy has been a key driver of Velulon’s success, ensuring that funding goals are consistently met and technological innovations are delivered on schedule.
However, Jordan also understands that not all employees can function under the same high-stakes pressures as their leaders. He revealed that while he personally embraces the belief that failure is not an option, some of his staff are not always made aware of the full weight of their deadlines—such as the fact that missing a key funding goal could jeopardize the entire business. Instead, he fosters an environment that encourages creative problem-solving, psychological safety, and sustainable high performance without resorting to fear-based leadership or toxic productivity cultures.
His leadership approach stands in stark contrast to the brutal overwork culture that dominates many high-pressure industries today. In investment banking, consulting, and high-growth startups, stimulant use, sleep deprivation, and excessive work hours are often viewed as badges of honor rather than signs of systemic dysfunction. Research from The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review exposes a disturbing trend: professionals across industries are increasingly sacrificing their health and well-being in pursuit of short-term productivity gains.
This article will examine the modern workplace crisis of overwork, the corporate addiction to performance-enhancing stimulants, the toxic Finance Bro culture , and the systemic failures in both the United States and Japan. It will then present a sustainable, research-backed leadership model that replaces burnout culture with long-term resilience, sustainable high performance, and ethical workplace transformation.
The Overwork Epidemic: Investigations into a Broken System
Japan's Overwork Culture and the U.S. Financial Sector
The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal have extensively reported on the hidden costs of corporate overwork, revealing how high-pressure jobs create a culture that glorifies exhaustion while undermining real productivity.
A Financial Times report, “Curbs on Long Hours Spur Japanese Companies to Tackle Productivity” (Nov 2024), sheds light on how Japan is confronting its deep-rooted culture of overwork【211†source】. The government has implemented:
✔ A nationwide hotline for employees to report excessive work expectations.
✔ Mandatory reductions in overtime hours, forcing companies to rethink productivity strategies.
✔ Legal interventions to prevent “karoshi” (death by overwork).
Despite these reforms, Japan’s work culture remains deeply ingrained, with many workers staying at the office simply because leaving before one’s boss is seen as disrespectful. The United States finance and tech sectors promote a similar, input based value system that creates overwork through economic pressure, hustle culture, and the glorification of 24/7 mentalities in which one is always available, all the time.
The Pill Mill Crisis: The Role of Stimulants in High-Pressure Industries
A Wall Street Journal exposé, “The Drugs Young Bankers Use to Get Through the Day—and Night” (Dec 2024), revealed how Adderall, Vyvanse, and nicotine stimulants have become essential tools for professionals in high-pressure jobs【227†source】.
While these substances may offer short-term cognitive boosts, research from Harvard Medical School warns that chronic stimulant use leads to diminished executive function, increased anxiety, and long-term burnout.
The problem has escalated to the point that the U.S. government has begun cracking down on so-called “pill mills”—telehealth companies that aggressively prescribe stimulants with little oversight. A phone call and a virtual appointment are all it takes to get a prescription for medical misuse and overwork.
Investigations have found:
Telehealth startups exploiting ADHD diagnoses to prescribe stimulants to professionals who may not need them.
Executives and junior employees relying on prescription drugs rather than sustainable performance strategies.
Federal scrutiny on companies that prescribe stimulants after 10-minute online consultations【196†source】.
How Stimulant Use Creates a Cycle of Dependence
Many professionals report that once they begin using stimulants, the pressure to maintain heightened performance makes it difficult to stop. While initially perceived as a productivity booster, long-term stimulant use often leads to serious consequences, including heightened anxiety, social withdrawal, cardiovascular risks, and ultimately, burnout. The irony is that a substance intended to provide an edge in high-pressure environments frequently becomes a liability, eroding cognitive function, mental health, and overall well-being.
The Finance Bro Culture: Toxic Productivity and Performative Overwork
A Wall Street Journal article, “Finance Bro Culture and the Glorification of Overwork” (June 2024), details how the finance sector continues to romanticise extreme work habits, reinforcing a toxic productivity mindset and stereotype: 'They're hardworking and they're smart'. 【214†source】.
This culture, partly fueled by social media satire, gained widespread attention through a viral TikTok video featuring the singsong phrase:
“I’m looking for a man in finance. Trust fund. 6’5. Blue eyes."
But 49 million viewers missed the point. Megan Boni, who made the original post, said she made the original video to parody impossible dating standards. The video sparked serious conversations about the reality of finance culture—a world where well-being is sacrificed for professional success.
The Reality of Overwork in the Finance Sector
For many finance professionals, the stereotype of the “finance bro” isn’t just a meme—it reflects a high-pressure reality. The expectation to work 100+ hours per week creates a culture where:
✔ Employees sacrifice personal relationships for career success.
✔ Long workdays and weekend hours are seen as commitments to the firm.
✔ Overwork is worn as a badge of honor rather than a warning sign.
The Wall Street Journal article illustrates this through a familiar scenario in finance culture:
A young professional, eager to maintain status and financial stability, juggles demanding expectations from both work and personal life. Their boss emails at midnight, expecting a redraft of tomorrow’s client proposal. Their romantic partner, waiting at a restaurant, watches the reservation go to waste—another evening lost to the job.
The unspoken inner monologue of finance professionals follows a familiar script:
“If I put in the time, I deserve my $200K paycheck.”
However, this constant performance-based validation comes at a cost—mental and physical exhaustion.
The Role of Stimulants in Finance Industry Overwork
Breaking Free from the Finance Bro Work Ethic
Beyond the social and psychological toll, the finance industry has seen a troubling rise in stimulant use as professionals attempt to sustain unsustainable workloads. A Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered:
✔ The normalization of Adderall, Vyvanse, and Modafinil for focus and endurance.
✔ Executives and junior employees relying on stimulants to meet excessive deadlines.
✔ A dangerous cycle of stimulant dependency, leading to anxiety, heart issues, and burnout.
This pattern of pushing past natural human limits has led to severe health complications, overdoses, and fatalities in high-performance industries.
The expectation to be “always on” is not just unsustainable—it’s harmful. Organizations must shift their focus from input-based success (hours worked) to output-based performance (real results).
By prioritizing ethical leadership, workplace well-being, and sustainable productivity strategies, the finance industry can create a new high-performance culture—one that values resilience over exhaustion.
Leadership Frameworks and Neuro-Cognitive Resilience
The Fry Model: Vision, Altruistic Love and Hope/Faith in Leadership
Louis W. Fry’s seminal work on spiritual leadership provides a structural framework for understanding how spiritual engagement translates into effective leadership, intrinsic motivation, and long-term resilience in high-pressure business environments. Fry's research integrates vision, hope/faith, and altruistic loveinto leadership paradigms. He emphasises how a leader who can give their teams a sense of calling, that membership to the organisation speaks for something larger than the organisation itself, fosters deeper organizational commitment and productivity. We’re better workers when we believe our work benefits others as well as ourselves. We benefit our clients, our patients, our staff, our families. We perform highly because our frame of reference has shifted from an inattentive, self-sabotaging selfishness to focused, optimistic goals for the good of all.
By embedding these components into leadership training, professionals can cultivate higher emotional resilience, stress tolerance, and executive cognitive clarity, ensuring sustained high performance. A visual representation of Fry’s Spiritual Leadership Model is presented below, outlining the integration of vision, altruistic love, and hope/faith into leadership effectiveness:
Spiritual Belief and Behaviours Provide:
✔Vision – Establishing a purpose-driven mindset aligns with prefrontal cortex activation, reinforcing long-term strategic focus and cognitive endurance.
✔ Altruistic Love – Associated with oxytocin-mediated social bonding and limbic regulation, fostering emotional intelligence and leadership presence.
✔ Hope/Faith – Strengthens dopaminergic motivation circuits, sustaining resilience and adaptability in high-pressure decision-making
✔ Organisational Commitment – Modulates salience network engagement around shared beliefs, operational values, and goals, improving team cohesion and executive leadership effectiveness.
Spiritual Anchors: A Long-Term Alternative to Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Unlike performance-enhancing drugs such as Adderall and stimulants, spiritual anchors—including Compassion, Determination, and Cooperation—provide a sustainable, long-term solution for maintaining productivity, resilience, and leadership effectiveness in the workplace.
The Research Behind Spiritual Anchors in Leadership
A study conducted at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, influenced by Edgar Schein’s 1990 research on career anchors, examined how spiritual belief systems shape business leadership and decision-making. Researcher F. Karakas explored the role spiritual anchors play in business organizations and how intrinsic motivation enhances executive performance.
Karakas defines a spiritual anchor as:
“The underlying structure of unique spiritual needs, attitudes, and motivations of an individual…. When examining a spiritual anchor, we are able to see patterns and dynamics of the individual’s whole life.”
His research identified spiritual anchors as a core set of workplace behaviors that drive long-term career success, ethical leadership, and sustainable performance.
How Business Leaders Find Meaning and Purpose
KKarakas conducted qualitative interviews with 32 business professionals and executives, asking them how spirituality and purpose influence their career decisions, leadership mindset, and professional fulfillment. Respondents reflected on questions such as:
How would you describe your spiritual life?
What guiding principles, priorities, and core values shape your decision-making?
What gives you a sense of meaning, faith, and hope in your work?
Can you describe a workplace experience that made you reflect on your spiritual values?
Which spiritual values are indispensable in leadership and business culture?
The Nine Spiritual Anchors for High-Performance Careers
Through analyzing interview responses, Karakas identified nine fundamental spiritual career anchors that guide professionals in finding meaning, resilience, and ethical purpose in their careers:
✅ Perfection – Striving for excellence while balancing realistic expectations to avoid burnout.
✅ Compassion – Cultivating empathy and emotional intelligence in leadership.
✅ Passion – Aligning career goals with personal purpose and intrinsic motivation.
✅ Inspiration – Encouraging creativity, big-picture thinking, and visionary leadership.
✅ Investigation – Committing to continuous learning, curiosity, and adaptability.
✅ Dedication – Developing resilience and perseverance in high-stakes decision-making.
✅ Appreciation – Recognizing the contributions of employees and fostering a culture of gratitude.
✅ Determination – Strengthening grit and perseverance without falling into overwork traps.
✅ Cooperation – Encouraging teamwork, collaboration, and collective success.
Why Spiritual Anchors Strengthen Leadership Resilience
Research shows that leaders who integrate spiritual principles into their leadership framework experience:
✔ Higher job satisfaction and long-term fulfillment.
✔ Lower stress levels and improved mental well-being.
✔ Increased productivity without reliance on stimulants.
✔ Better decision-making and problem-solving skills.
Unlike workplaces that reward overwork and stimulant reliance, organizations that embrace spiritual leadership models shift productivity measurement from input-based (hours worked) to output-based (actual results). This shift allows professionals to develop resilience strategies, cognitive endurance, and high-performance habits—ensuring a healthier and more effective workplace culture.
By actively training cognitive and emotional resilience, professionals can improve focus, maintain peak performance, and build long-term success in a sustainable, ethical way.
The Nine Spiritual Anchors:
An Action Plan for Leaders and Individuals
How to Achieve Sustainable Leadership and Personal Fulfillment
To maintain long-term resilience, ethical leadership, and peak performance, individuals must develop their own guiding spiritual anchors. Below is a practical framework for identifying and applying each of the Nine Spiritual Anchors to leadership, productivity, and workplace culture.
1️⃣ Perfection: Striving for Excellence Without Burnout
Key Focus: Sustainable high-performance, productivity optimization
✔ Identify areas where you strive for excellence vs. perfectionism.
✔ Ask: Am I pursuing perfection constructively, or is it causing unnecessary stress?
✔ Shift toward progress-based goals that promote consistent improvement over perfectionism.
2️⃣ Compassion: Building Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
Key Focus: Leadership empathy, workplace well-being, psychological safety
✔ Develop active listening skills to foster deeper workplace connections.
✔ Establish a habit of gratitude and employee recognition to strengthen team morale.
✔ Lead with emotional intelligence and kindness to build a resilient, people-centred workplace.
3️⃣ Passion: Aligning Career with Purpose and Motivation
Key Focus: Intrinsic motivation, personal fulfillment, career satisfaction
✔ Identify what excites and energizes you in your work.
✔ If passion is lacking, seek projects aligned with your interests and long-term goals.
✔ Leaders should encourage employees to engage in tasks that fuel their intrinsic motivation.
4️⃣ Inspiration: Unlocking Creativity and Visionary Thinking
Key Focus: Innovation, creative leadership, future-forward decision-making
✔ Expose yourself to new ideas, industries, and cutting-edge trends.
✔ Attend thought leadership events, executive summits, and workshops.
✔ Surround yourself with forward-thinking individuals who challenge your perspective.
5️⃣ Investigation: Developing a Growth-Oriented Leadership Mindset
Key Focus: Continuous learning, adaptability, high-performance growth strategies
✔ Commit to lifelong learning through reading, mentorship, and strategic networking.
✔ Set professional goals to acquire new skills and stay ahead in your industry.
✔ Challenge assumptions to maintain adaptability and long-term leadership success.
6️⃣ Dedication: Strengthening Resilience and Mission-Driven Work
Key Focus: Career longevity, strategic resilience, executive leadership effectiveness
✔ Develop a personal mission statement that aligns with your long-term career vision.
✔ Ensure that daily tasks connect to a broader purpose, improving workplace engagement.
✔ Leaders should help employees find meaning in their work to prevent disengagement and burnout.
7️⃣ Appreciation: Creating a Culture of Gratitude and Acknowledgment
Key Focus: Employee engagement, workplace satisfaction, leadership retention strategies
✔ Recognize both your own contributions and those of your team members.
✔ Leaders should implement formal recognition programs that reinforce employee value.
✔ A culture of appreciation improves retention, trust, and long-term performance.
8️⃣ Determination: Cultivating Grit and Executive-Level Perseverance
Key Focus: Resilient leadership, executive mindset, overcoming workplace challenges
✔ Reframe challenges as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks.
✔ Strengthen perseverance by focusing on long-term rewards over short-term failures.
✔ Encourage a high-performance mindset that views obstacles as part of professional evolution.
9️⃣ Cooperation: Fostering Collaboration and Leadership Unity
Key Focus: Team development, psychological safety, high-trust work environments
✔ Build a culture of collaboration and psychological safety.
✔ Ensure that employees feel comfortable voicing challenges and new ideas.
✔ Promote team-driven success over individual competition.
Why Spiritual Anchors Are the Future of Sustainable Leadership
By integrating these Nine Spiritual Anchors into both personal growth and workplace leadership, individuals and organizations can:
✔ Shift from overwork culture to sustainable high performance.
✔ Foster resilience, ethical leadership, and long-term career success.
✔ Replace stimulant-driven productivity with internal motivation and strategic effectiveness.
The future of executive leadership and workplace productivity is not about input-based performance but rather output-based, purpose-driven leadership.
Further Reading & References
For those interested in exploring the research and sources behind this discussion, here are key articles and studies referenced in this piece:
Wall Street Journal (Dec 2024) – "The Drugs Young Bankers Use to Get Through the Day—and Night"
Financial Times (Nov 2024) – "Curbs on Long Hours Spur Japanese Companies to Tackle Productivity"
Wall Street Journal (June 2024) – "Finance Bro Culture and the Glorification of Overwork"
Harvard Business Review – "Sustainable Leadership & Cognitive Resilience"
Sloan School of Management (MIT) – Research by Edgar Schein & F. Karakas on Career Anchors & Spiritual Leadership
These resources provide deeper insights into the effects of burnout, the role of workplace spirituality, and strategies for sustainable leadership.
The Future of Leadership is Sustainable
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✔ Boost resilience and prevent burnout.
✔ Make smarter, high-impact decisions.
✔ Sustain high performance—without overwork.
📌 Book Your High-Performance Coaching Session Today! and take the first step toward resilient, ethical, and sustainable leadership.
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