How do I lead ethically?

As a spiritual innovator, you’re stepping into a role that naturally comes with power. People will look to you for guidance, wisdom, and even a sense of belonging. That’s a sacred responsibility, and it’s essential to handle it with care. Whether you’re designing an app, building a community, or organizing spiritually rooted justice work, power imbalances can easily lead to harm if they’re not acknowledged and managed well. This can range from devastating abuses of power like sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement, to quieter but still damaging breaches of trust like favoritism or gossip. Ethical leadership means recognizing these dynamics and committing to do everything you can to protect the people you serve.

Tyler Sit is the founder of New City Church, a spiritual community focused on environmental justice based in Minneapolis but with a global digital community. The team explicitly tries to create a culture of consent in all they do. That looks like putting up signs that inform people that they can move around the space and the garden during gatherings, which can be helpful to new people who don’t usually feel welcome in religious spaces.

Leading ethically doesn’t mean you have to be perfect—but it does mean being self-aware, transparent, and willing to seek help when you need it. It’s about creating structures and cultures that prioritize accountability, respect, and mutuality, like clear boundaries, shared leadership, and external oversight when needed. One such ethical structure at Sacred Design Lab is the collective liberation commitment of reparational pay. This policy applies to all contractors and employees who are descended from African people who were enslaved in the United States and Caribbean, as one step toward reckoning with the history of slavery and its consequences.

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How can I reflect on ethics and power?

Understanding your shadow

Many successful spiritual leaders recommend exploring your shadow side, or repressed parts of yourself. This self-awareness can help you avoid common pitfalls of ethical violations and raise your awareness of where you are likely to fall short of your values and commitments. 

• Here’s a good introduction to the Jungian concept of the shadow and some introductory exercises. 
• Ken Wilbur, Terry Patton, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli’s Integral Life Practice provides a 3-2-1 Shadow Work Process of recognizing and integrating disowned parts of yourself, which is also introduced in this discussion and practiced in various courses and groups associated with Integral Life. 
• You can also dive deeper by seeking out a training experience from the Light Dark Institute, Mankind Project, or Diamond Approach, among others.

Creating structures of accountability

Personal accountability will only take you so far. It’s vital to have relational support structures that will help you stay aligned with your values and ethical commitments. 

• Learn about mapping a variety of accountability structures from Daria Garina in this podcast episode.
• The Spirit Rock community has a strong Ethics and Reconciliation Council model to learn from, and Upaya Zen Center has a similarly clear Ethics Code.
• The ManKind Project has long hosted weekly, peer-facilitated small groups for mutual accountability and support, which offer another model.
• Restorative Justice is a powerful model of repairing relationships after harm. Learn from Fania Davis, who founded Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth in this presentation and interview. 
• You can learn more about accountability in spiritual innovation here.