89 the “conscious experience as interpreted by first-person point-ofview.”14 Since experience is a conscious process, the common shared experience was the event of receiving or giving forgiveness by the leader in the workplace. The essence of what leaders experienced when forgiveness was received from a supervisor or given to a team member was studied. This lived experience of the leader in the corporate world was studied to understand the nature and significance of the experience. A 21-item questionnaire was developed for the research, and about one hour was expected from each participant for the completion of the survey. Data collection for this research began by identifying the individual leader through purposive convenience sampling. For homogeneity in population, only leaders from American companies with American management philosophies were chosen. Cultural homogeneity was maintained by selecting participants from North America. Gender homogeneity was maintained by selecting male participants. Organizational homogeneity was maintained by enlisting participants from large global organizations. To ensure that participants had experienced forgiveness in their work-life and had offered forgiveness in their supervisory capacity, only leaders with ten or more years of work experience were chosen for the study. Because of the homogeneity of the sample population, five participants were identified and approached for the study.15 (Unfortunately, one of the participants could not take part.) The participants were chosen from different companies—except for two, who were from the same company. Three different industry sectors, namely e-commerce, electronics design, and structural engineering, were chosen. At the time of the study, all three companies had a global presence, with the smallest company having offices in 20 other countries, and the largest had a global presence in 13 countries. Three of the participants were known to the researcher. The participants were in three cities—Austin, Dallas, and Seattle. Two of the leaders in the Dallas area were met by the researcher for a personal interview. Since the study focused on the leaders’ experience of forgiveness, the participants were encouraged to recall forgiveness in the entirety of THE ROLE OF FORGIVENESS IN LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL WELL-BEING
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODc4ODgx