When scholars of organizational leadership discuss diversity in the workplace, they most often focus upon gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, ability–disability, and sexual orientation as principal categories. Religion does not receive prominent attention in this scholarship; many texts on leadership treat diversity without mentioning religion. In terms of practice, less than one in five human resource managers reported that their companies hold diversity training sessions in which religion is discussed. One leading book on diversity, used in classrooms and corporate training sessions, considers religion only as a subcategory within the experiences of workers who are immigrants to the United States. A Pakistani Muslim becomes the sole “voice” of religious diversity. The authors' decision to include only a Pakistani voice reinforces the view that Muslims are not Americans and Americans are not Muslims. Further, the text fails to address the challenges that many Americans who are religious – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, New Age, or otherwise – confront or create in the workplace.

Why do many scholars avoid religion in their analyses of diversity and organizational leadership? Many state that religion is an inappropriate topic altogether for the workplace (and for other spheres of public life), thus reinforcing the view of religion as a private matter. Some understand religion as a “nonrational” (often with the suggestion that it is a “primitive”) phenomenon that has no place in the modern or postmodern secular workplace.