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Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the main goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader's main focus is the thriving of their company or organizations. A Servant Leader shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.^[1] Servant leadership inverts the norm, which puts the customer service associates as a main priority. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.^[2] As stated by its founder, Robert K. Greenleaf, a Servant Leader should be focused on "Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?"^[3] When leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they benefit as well as their employees in that. Their employees acquire personal growth, while the organization grows as well due to the employees growing commitment and engagement. Since this leadership style came about, a number of different organizations have adopted this style as their way of leadership. According to a study done by Sen Sendjaya and James C Sarros, Servant Leadership is being practiced in some of the top ranking companies today, and these companies are highly ranked because of their leadership style and following.^[1]

History

The phrase Servant Leadership was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf. Greenleaf first set forth the idea in "The Servant as Leader", an essay that he first published in 1970. In this essay, Greenleaf explains how and why he came up with the idea of Servant Leadership, as well as what a Servant Leader should be. Greenleaf gave this idea an extensive amount of thought before bringing it to life. Larry Spears, CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, stated in an interview:

"Greenleaf credited his reading of Hesse’s book, Journey to the East, as the personal source of inspiration in his coining the term, “servant-leader” in his 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader."^[4]

In this story, the main character named Leo is a servant just like all the others. They all work well together, until one day when Leo disappears. When the servants realize that things weren't the same without Leo, they came to the realization that Leo was far more than a servant, better yet he was actually their leader. In that same essay, Greenleaf quotes Hillary Clinton's 1969 commencement address.^[5][6]

Greenleaf came to the realization that a new found leader should be someone that servants or workers can relate to.^[2] Leo was seen as a servant, but when the other servants realized that things fell apart without him he became far more than just a servant to them. Hence Greenleaf's idea of what a Servant Leader should be.^[1] Greenleaf first put his idea of Servant Leadership to use in an organizational sense while he was working as an executive at AT&T.^[1]

Although Greenleaf first coined the phrase Servant Leadership, the idea came about years before in a religious context. In the bible, Jesus Christ presents the idea in his teachings to his disciples. According to Sendjaya and Sarros (2002), similar to Greenleaf's idea, Jesus Christ saw a leader as someone who was committed to serving his servants, and seeing his servants as equals.^[1] Jesus Christ not only teaches his disciples about what a servant leader should be, but he also demonstrated their characteristics by washing the feet of his disciples.^[1] This not only portrayed that he wasn't afraid to be seen as equal in the eyes of his servants but it also shows that he prioritized his servants first, as a servant leader should do, because foot washing wasn't a job for someone who was looked upon as he was.

The most important characteristic in being a Servant Leader, according to Greenleaf, is making your main priority to serve rather than lead. Ginny Boyum states that Greenleaf proposed that a servant leader should serve first, the needs of others are their main priority, they find success and "power" in the growth of other, and "A servant can only become a leader if a leader remains a servant".^[3] In simpler terms, a Servant Leader should seek to be a servant first and care for the needs of all others around them. In possessing these traits, an individual would be classified as a servant leader because, overall, they are causing the servants to become healthier, wiser, achieve self-improvement, and eventually possess the traits of a Servant Leader as well.^[3]

Greenleaf believed this to be the true intention of a servant leader. "I serve" in opposition of the traditional "I lead" mentality. The "I serve" mentality is evident in politicians who define their role through public service. From the "I serve" mentality comes two premises, I serve because I am the leader, and I am the leader because I serve. The first premise signifies the act of altruism. Altruism is defined as the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Jesus declares himself among them who serve. Greenleaf declares that servant leadership begins with the natural feeling of wanting to serve first. Only through the act of serving does the leader lead other people to be what they are capable of. The second premise of servant leadership is I am the leader because I serve. In other words, this begins with a rooted ambition to be leader or personal ambitions of a leader.^[7]

Greenleaf's definition left much room for speculation because it lacks specifics. Servant leadership is handled throughout the literature by many different dimensions. Servant leadership represents a model of leadership that is both inspirational and contains moral safeguards. Most of the literature on servant leadership have standalone quality. Several scholars have tackled the construct presented by Greenleaf. Academic research efforts often focus on altruism, self-sacrifice, charismatic, transforming, authentic, spiritual, and transformational and leader-member exchange. Despite several conceptual papers on the topic of servant leadership, there is no consensus on empirical research for the servant leadership construct.^[7]

Formulations after Greenleaf

Scales and servant leadership extensions

Numerous different researchers and leadership experts have created scales and dimensions in order to differentiate between the levels of Servant Leadership practices as well as evaluate Servant Leadership behaviors. One major extension was Larry Spear's 10 characteristics of the Servant Leader. Similar to other leadership experts, Spears believed that Servant Leaders should have these 10 traits: empathy, listening, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Leadership experts such as Bolman, Deal, Covey, Fullan, Sergiovanni, and Heifitz also reference these characteristics as essential components of effective leadership. Likewise, Joe Iarocci, author of Servant Leadership in the Workplace, identifies three key priorities (developing people, building a trusting team, achieving results), three key principles (serve first, persuasion, empowerment) and three key practices (listening, delegating, connecting followers to mission) that distinguish servant leadership in the workplace context.^[8] Researchers Barbuto and Wheeler created a dimension called "the natural desire to serve others," by combining the 10 characteristics of Spears. These researchers developed operational definitions and scales to measure 11 potential characteristics of servant leadership. Factor analyses reduced this scale to five unique dimensions: altruistic calling (four items), emotional healing (four items), wisdom (five items), persuasive mapping (five items), and organizational stewardship (five items). This framework specified the fundamentals to servant leadership and consisted with Greenleaf's original message. Among these five dimensions, altruistic calling is most aligned with ethics. There are also researchers such as Russell and Stone who reviewed the literature and proposed nine 'functional' attributes of servant leadership (vision, honesty, integrity, trust, service, modeling, pioneering, appreciation of others, and empowerment) and eleven 'accompanying' attributes (communication, credibility, competence, stewardship, visibility, influence, persuasion, listening, encouragement, teaching, and delegation). They also argued that the servant leader must be a teacher in order to develop their followers, and that values and core personal beliefs were the antecedents to servant leadership.^[7] Researcher Patterson also developed a more spiritual conceptualization of servant leadership around leader values including: agapé love, humility, altruism, creating 21 visions for followers, being trusting, serving, and empowering their followers. This work was exploratory in nature. No confirmatory analysis was performed, no criterion was posited to establish validity, and convergent/divergent validity was not established.^[7]

Thoughts on servant leadership and further definitions

In addition to early definitions and distinct characteristics of Servant Leaders, researchers and leadership experts have used research to add on to these. James Sipe and Don Frick, in their book The Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership, state that servant-leaders are individuals of character, those who put people first, are skilled communicators, are compassionate collaborators, use foresight, are systems thinkers, and exercise moral authority. Similarly, researcher Akuchie explored the religious and spiritual articulations of the servant leadership construct. Akuchie examined a single Bible passages related to servant leadership. A passage just like the one mentioned in the opening of the essay. Akuchie suggested that the application of this lesson is for daily life. However, Akuchie did not in any way clarify servant leadership as distinct from other forms of leadership or articulate a framework for understanding servant leadership.^[7] By the same token, researchers Sendjaya and Sarros used the same Bible account as Akuchie and made the claim that Jesus Christ, not Greenleaf, introduced the notion of servant leadership to everyday human endeavor. They argued that this leadership principle was so important to Christianity that it was captured by all four gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). The researchers argued that servant leaders have a particular view of themselves as stewards who are entrusted to develop and empower followers to reach their fullest potential. However, Sendjaya and Sarros research work did not propose a testable framework nor did this work distinguish between this and other leadership styles.^[7] Researchers Farling, Stone, and Winston noted the lack of empirical evidence for servant leadership. The researchers presented servant leadership as a hierarchical model in a cyclical process. This consisted of behavioral (vision, service) and relational (influence, credibility, trust) components. However, this conceptualization made by these researchers did not differ from leadership theories such as transformational leadership. Researcher Polleys distinguished servant leadership from three predominant leadership paradigms the trait, the behavioral, and the contingency approaches to leadership. Polleys's views aligned with transforming leadership but once again made no distinctions among charismatic, transformational, and servant leadership.^[7]

Experimental research and theory

Employee organization commitment

While organizations thrive based on the work produced by the employees, the commitment of the employees to the organization is a major contributor to how well an organization functions. Research shows that management style is a main factor in sales person turnover.^[1] Servant leadership being practiced has a positive effect on sales person's turnover intentions because turnover is mainly associated with "the quality of the salesperson–supervisor relationship."^[1] Due to servant leaders making their employees their main priority and placing their well-being above everything else, including the organization, the employees feel a sense of trust and a need to return the commitment and obligation that their employer has for them to the organization.^[1] Likewise, Servant Leadership has a direct effect on employer brand perception, which in turn reduces employee job turnover.^[2] According to Kashyap and Rangnekar, Servant Leadership molds organizations and builds a positive image for the organization.^[2] This leads to turnover intention reduction in that the employees "... take pride in what they do and enjoy the company of people they work with".^[2] Servant Leaders are also seen as good role models in the eyes of their employees.^[2] Because of this, employees begin to act as Servant Leaders themselves, and portray great commitment to the organizations where they see these behaviors and how they affect others around them.^[2] The employees also stay at the organization so that they can see and learn more from their employer.

Employee life

Servant leadership practices also seem to have an effect on the life of the employee outside of the organizations that they are affiliated with. In fact, it has been concluded that employee perceptions of servant leadership practices as well as the support of their employers and co-workers has a positive effect on employee's family life by supervisors and job social support from both supervisors and co-workers helps to enrich the employee's family life.^[3] This is because having their employer cater to their needs as well as supportive co-workers and staff aids in lowering stress levels, thus they go home to their families with the intent to cater to their needs.^[3] In addition, Servant Leadership being the foundation of organizations is said to lead to employees having positive experiences and satisfaction in the work place, which in turn leads to " a transfer of positive experiences from the work role to the family role".^[1] Servant Leadership being practiced is said to decrease emotional exhaustion, which is the leading cause of employee burnout.^[9] Servant Leadership lessens the feeling of being "drained of inner resources", so employees experience an increase in Work-to-family positive spillover (WFPS).^[9] This decreased emotional exhaustion also leads to stronger marital relationships^[10] Moreover, employees feeling that their needs are made a priority in the work place, as well as the feeling of being satisfied with their interactions at work on a daily bases, has an impact on their family's experience with them as they shift from the work role to the family role.^{[10][3][1][9]}

Job performance

Servant leadership also contributes to employees' goal achievement and success. As defined before, a servant leader's goal is to build upon the skills of their employees and make them better people.^[11] With this trait, studies have shown that servant leaders have the ability to influence their employees to achieve their own goals as well as their work goals due to their leaders empowerment, and this plays a major role in their continued success and growth.^[11] This outcome is expected because of the Servant Leaders main concern being the well being of their employees.^[10] Likewise, Servant Leaders managing the work environment an things such as "rewards, deadlines, work allocation and performance evaluations"^[10] have a positive effect on the well being and satisfaction of employees because the practices of a Servant Leader deals with these aspects in a way that benefits the employees in every way possible.^[10] Studies have also shown that leadership as a whole has an effect on employee's psychological health.^[12] Thus, studies have shown that Servant Leadership has a positive effect on employee's psychological health in that the less strain on the employee and the more they assimilate at the organization, the better their psychological health.^[12] Research has shown that although many organizations are used to the belief that the "top-down" way, or the leader prioritizing themselves and the organizations and then the employees, is the best way to engage employees in their work.^[13] However, studies have shown that Servant Leadership's "bottom-up" style, or prioritizing the needs of the employees first, causes employees to be more engaged in their work in that they feel like they have social support from their leader as well as their colleagues.^[13] Overall, employees feeling a sense of support, as well as having a leader who are doing everything in their power to do things that are beneficial for the employees contributes to heightened job performance from the employees.^{[11][10][13][12]}

Community citizenship behavior

Similar to servant leadership having an effect on employees' stress levels, it also affects them emotionally as well. According to previous research, servant leadership seems to have an effect on the emotional health of the employees because the servant leaders' reliance on "one-on-one communication to understand the abilities, needs, desires, goals, and potential of those individuals"^[14] aids in the employees' ability to express themselves in the work place. In turn, this nurturing from their employer leads to them returning this same nurturing towards their co-workers and making the work place a suitable environment for the growth of the employees, as well as the production of good quality work to grow the organization.^[14] Organizations that don't practice servant leadership may discourage employees expressing their feelings in the work place, but servant leaders encourage this expression to prevent any conflict within the workplace.^[14] Servant leaders also make a safe emotional work environment for employees by making acceptance a major goal.^[15] Acceptance in this case is the leader being okay with having different personalities, personal views, and values as their employees, and understanding that their employees aren't "perfect".^[15] By doing this, Servant Leaders create a safe space where employees are able to be themselves and express how they are feeling, knowing that they can trust their leader to be non judgmental.^[15] Lastly, Servant Leaders are able to manage the behaviors of their employees by being forgiving.^[15] Some employees may have personalities and/or characteristics that may lead to them doing or saying things to their leader that is unacceptable. However, Servant Leaders being forgiving, and more importantly understanding, their employees are able to learn from their mistakes, hence their personal growth and changed behavior within the organization.^[15]

Implications

To date, the more prevalent research being done on servant leadership is in regards to ethics. Apart from realizing how servant leadership can have different effects on organizations and its employees, ethics has become a major concern. From the many studies done on the topic of Servant Leadership, researchers have realized that Servant Leaders implementing their practices in an ethical way should be a main focus. A number of scales have been created to measure servant leadership and ethics throughout organizations.^[16] One reason why these scales came about is because researchers found that, despite the fact that Servant Leadership practices have many positive affects on employees and organizations, it could have a negative affect if the leader seems to be being unethical.^[16] An example of a negative affect is that an unethical leader can lower employee job satisfaction.^[16]

Servant leadership is still going through the process of being accepted as a leadership theory because of Greenleaf's belief that Servant Leadership is a way of life rather than a systematized technique with a specific outline.^[17] In fact, this is the main reason why these many different scales are being created by different researchers to test for the level of ethical means in the practice of Servant Leadership within organizations.^[17] Although Servant Leadership was proposed many years ago, it is still considered a "newer" theory among many other theories because of the switch in focus from the traditional leadership theories.^[18] Granted organizations have implemented Servant Leadership as their main way of managing their organizations, but It was not until about 2004 that Servant Leadership began to be studied in an empirical manner, thus Servant Leadership as a leadership theory may still go through major changes in the years to come.^[18] This is due to all the focus being put into justifying whether the "newer" leadership theories should be acceptable in society, as well as in academia.^[17]

Criticisms

Past Servant Leadership literature largely ignores the influence of gendered power dynamics on servant leadership. Attempts to fill that gap by presenting a discussion of servant-leadership that is informed through feminist scholarship.^[19]

See also

• John Adair (author)


• Three Levels of Leadership model


• Authentic leadership

References

Further reading

• James Autry. The Servant Leader
  ISBN 1-4000-5473-7
  


• Art Barter. Farmer Able
  ISBN 1-6278-7235-3
  


• Art Barter. The Servant Leadership Journal: An 18 Week Journey to Transform You and Your Organization
  ISBN 978-0-998-67110-9
  


• Ken Blanchard, Leading at a Higher Level (Chapter 12),
  ISBN 0-13-234772-5
  


• Peter Block. Stewardship
  ISBN 1-881052-86-9
  


• Jim Boyd, A Servant Leader’s Journey,
  ISBN 978-0-8091-4568-3
  


• Max DePree, Leadership is an Art
  ISBN 0-440-50324-8
  


• Jerry Glashagel, Servant-Institutions in Business,
  ISBN 978-0-9822012-3-7
  


• Robert Greenleaf. Servant Leadership
  ISBN 0-8091-0554-3
  


• Denny Gunderson, The Leadership Paradox: A Challenge to Servant Leadership in a Power-Hungry World
  ISBN 978-1-57658-379-1
  


• Trevor M. Hall, ed. Becoming Authentic: The Search for Wholeness and Calling as a Servant Leader (2007)
  ISBN 978-1-929569-36-6
  


• Kent Halstead, Servant Leadership for Congregations
  


• James Hunter. the Servant
  ISBN 0-7615-1369-8
  


• James Hunter. The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle ISBN 1-57856-975-38


• Joseph J. Iarocci. Servant Leadership in the Workplace: A Brief Introduction
  ISBN 978-0-692-86126-4
  


• Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert, The Serving Leader,
  ISBN 1-57675-265-8
  


• Kent M. Keith. The Case For Servant Leadership
  


• Michael Parsons & David J. Cohen, eds. On Eagles' Wings. An Exploration of Strength in the Midst of Weakness (2008)
  ISBN 978-0-7188-9195-4
  


• George SanFacon, A Conscious Person’s Guide to the Workplace,
  ISBN 978-1-4251-6680-9
  


• James W. Sipe & Don M. Frick. Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership
  ISBN 978-0-8091-4560-7
  


• Larry Spears, ed. Reflections on Leadership
  ISBN 0-471-03686-2
  


• Larry Spears, ed. Insights on Leadership
  ISBN 0-471-17634-6
  


• Larry Spears, ed. Focus on Leadership
  ISBN 0-471-41162-0
  


• Larry Spears & Michele Lawrence, ed. Practicing Servant-Leadership
  ISBN 0-7879-7455-2
  


• John J. Sullivan, Servant First! Leadership for the New Millennium
  ISBN 1-59467-227-X
  


• Scott Ward, Servant Leadership Practice: 40 Days to Transform Your Leadership and Your Organization, BNID 2940012590022, ASIN B005KLY8SY *

External links

• Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership


• International Journal of Servant-Leadership


• Servant Leadership Institute


• Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice


• Ken Jennings, PhD for The Serving Leader


• Servant Leaders World


• Cairnway Center for Servant Leadership Excellence


• ServantLeader Ministries