see below

239

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 15, 2016 pp. 239–245, ISSN 1841-2394, eISSN 2471-0881

EFFECTIVE SERVANT LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR

IN ORGANIZATIONS

DOINA POPESCU LJUNGHOLM [email protected]

University of Pitești

ABSTRACT. Scholarship about the multidimensional servant leadership behavior, the direct and mediating influences of servant leadership on job contentment, and the mechanisms via which servant leadership impacts outcomes has increased and con- solidated, especially in recent years. The purpose of this article is to gain a deeper understanding of the relevant consequence of servant leadership on group member performance evaluations, the antecedents of servant leadership, and beneficial influ- ences of servant leadership on main organizational results.

Keywords: servant leadership behavior; organization; follower; performance

How to cite: Popescu Ljungholm, Doina (2016), “Effective Servant Leadership Behavior in Organizations,” Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 15: 239–245.

Received 11 October 2015 • Received in revised form 8 February 2016 Accepted 9 February 2016 • Available online 20 May 2016

1. Introduction Leader behaviors that apply more significant influences on workers’ self- identity have more powerful effects on subordinate behaviors. On account of the inconstant, active, and people-oriented character of service sectors (Lăzăroiu, 2015a, b), servant leadership may associate relevantly to workers’ self-identity, and eventually to their operation: the former contributes more conspicuously than the latter in influencing frontline workers’ self-identity (Nica et al., 2016) and successively their service performance. An extremely competitive group atmosphere determines clear requirements regarding work roles and powerful stimulants for workers to provide better customer service if they are capable and disposed to do so. (Chen et al., 2015)

240

2. Beneficial Influences of Servant Leadership on Main Organizational Results Workers’ self-identity entrenched in the group, which comprises self-efficacy and group identification (Mihăilă et al., 2016), conveys the influences of servant leadership on employees’ performance behaviors. Group competition atmosphere improves frontline workers’ inclination to associate their service operation behaviors with their self-identity entrenched in the group. Recog- nizing that their own importance stems from their group belonging (Nica, 2016; 2013), people become institutionalized to their group and empathize with the other fellows. Servant leaders further frontline workers’ service operation through the latter’s self-identity, implied by their self-efficacy and group identification. Mediocre servant leaders are self-centered, being un- successful in showing a selfless and developmental predisposition that is significant in service contexts. (Chen et al., 2015) Effective leadership demands that followers be regarded before leaders. The latter should assist their followers so that these can develop into relevant actors who assist their organization (Popescu Ljungholm, 2015) and who can accomplish better outcomes than the leading participant would be able to create independently. Servant leadership tackles individuals who aim to be servant leaders as it demands them to annihilate their own inclinations, necessities, and/or inten- tions to foremost satisfy the topmost prime concern necessities of their followers. Servant leadership is established in a for-profit entity by a servant leader displaying managerial expertise and coherence in assisting followers work out the diverse issues that they tackle every day, by complying with followers’ workplace demands in order that the latter commit themselves thoroughly to their activities in the entity (Popescu and Ciurlău, 2016), and by generating an atmosphere where teamwork and synchronization are appreci- ated among followers when they accomplish their activities. (Ozyilmaz and Cicek, 2015)

Communication is an essential element that will interact with leadership features and workgroup results. Successful individual behavior in the work- place may be most highly accomplished by a powerful cognizance (Bondrea and Ștefănescu-Mihăilă, 2014a, b) and compliance to cultural standards and desirable communication approaches in the workplace. Leader–member man- nerliness of exchange is an indication of the culturally suitable interactive exchanges that take place between leaders and fellows. The social and cul- tural standard exchanges between leaders and their group fellows are essential to the servant leadership process within the workgroup. Servant leadership concerns to the level to which a leader performs as a role pattern for an individual’s followers and displays consideration for the followers’ advance- ment and development. (Bakar and McCann, 2016) Being a servant leader

241

incurs dedication to make personal renunciations to develop other individuals to their greatest capacity. In servant leadership connections the leaders function as stewards: their followers are individuals who have been assigned to them to be lifted to their superior selves (Popescu and Predescu, 2016) and to be what they are qualified of becoming. Followers are likely to react well to servant leaders as they have established themselves reliable as ser- vants. The authentication of servant leaders is their intentional option to assist individuals. Servant leadership is an integrative and value-laden leadership pattern that enables individuals to be both successful and ethical, providing a ground-breaking leadership fabric around which entities can establish benefi- cial work settings that regard profit as an essential means. (Sendjaya, 2015)

3. The Mechanisms via which Servant Leadership Impacts Outcomes Servant leaders tend to regard their followers to be supportive and responsible fellows and consider them in an egalitarian manner, encouraging followers’ communion aim and stimulating them to become more uncompelled and caring to their customers (Popescu, 2016; 2014; 2013), and influencing frontline workers to manifest more citizenship behaviors. Servant leaders’ developmental, self-reflective, and selfless predisposition makes them success- ful in altering all features of workers’ service operation. Servant leaders dis- play consideration and recognition toward their followers. From the latter’s view, servant leaders regard them as proficient and trustable service suppliers. (Chen et al., 2015) As servant leaders do not employ coercive power in their interplays with followers, a social exchange link in the type of services supplied to followers (Popescu, 2015a, b) is utilized by servant leaders to compel their followers to perform well. After the followers obtain services from their servant leaders, they feel constrained to return them by using servant leadership behaviors that serve their followers: the social interplay between a servant leader and her followers generates a psychological atmos- phere as grasped by followers that is advantageous to their professional advancement. (Ozyilmaz and Cicek, 2015)

Servant leadership and dyadic mannerliness of exchange influence perfor- mance evaluations when team fellows perform in accordance with culturally suitable interactive exchanges (Devine, 2015): a leader who can stimulate team fellows’ association and dedication to the activity and objectives of the workgroup is well balanced to accomplish better outcomes. Servant leader- ship is appropriate to advance workgroup fellows’ operation, particularly when leader and fellows interplays within the workgroup are compatible with cultural arrangements: the servant leader, instead of participating in time- serving behaviors, is involved in the separate group fellow’s growth and career improvement. (Bakar and McCann, 2016) Because servant leaders

242

maintain their prime concerns on the followers, they persistently inquire themselves whether they accurately configure individuals (Mircică, 2014), or shape their personal intentions and employ the latter to accomplish them. Servant leaders are moral participants who strive to take part in moral undertakings and their followers, while being assisted, are reconstructed into moral participants and finally servant leaders themselves. Servant leadership demands that leaders guide followers for the latter’s own eventual advantage. The precondition of servant leadership is followers’ holistic moral and ethical advancement. The genuineness of servant leaders arises out of a spiritual and moral source of inspiration (Nicolaescu, 2015) moderated with an unselfish inclination to assist other individuals. Servant leaders depend on unbiased moral values external to themselves to obtain their assessment regarding what is right and wrong: they would not establish their decisions and undertakings exclusively on their presumed idea of morality. Team fellows’ affect-based trust in the servant leader stimulates them to characterize themselves regard- ing their link with the leader. (Sendjaya, 2015)

4. The Direct and Mediating Influences of Servant Leadership on Job Contentment Servant leadership has a developmental, self-reflective, and considerate inclination: servant leaders show a powerful developmental and selfless predisposition (Mihăilă, 2011), which may encourage workers’ irregular subsequent thinking and make it more probable that the latter perceive each other as fellows, and not autonomous, distinctive persons. Self-efficacy and group identification moderate the link between servant leadership and the measures of workers’ service operation. Individuals tend to associate their behaviors with their identity if they think it significant to preserve and support those identities. (Chen et al., 2015) When the topmost prime concern requirements of workers are satisfied via servant leadership, separate workers grasp the work setting as a place where leaders are proficient and consonant (Petcu, 2015), workers pursue fully on commitments, and every- one collaborates to accomplish the organizational goals. Followers return the services that they acquire from their servant leaders by displaying and expressing their contentment with the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of their responsibilities. The more workers are psychologically accomplished by the practice of assisting other individuals and the more persons gain from the undertakings of their servant leaders, the more the followers will be pleased with the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of their responsibilities. (Ozyilmaz and Cicek, 2015)

The worker-oriented focal point of servant leadership is revealed in a greater recognition of leader–member dyadic mannerliness of exchange within

243

the workgroup: the servant leader’s “subordinate first” stress assists the leader in accomplishing better operation of workgroup fellows. When the latter are aware that the leader is interested in their advancement, they are likely to more thoroughly accept group objectives (Nica, 2015a, b) and mechanisms via their interplays with the workgroup leader. The effective link between servant leadership and group member operation is more noticeable when leaders and fellows in workgroups are relevant in mannerliness of ex- change in their interplays. Leader–member dyadic mannerliness of exchange generates the exchange of culturally accepted duties. (Bakar and McCann, 2016) Leader’s decision making process and organizational structure function as barrier requirements for servant leadership to influence worker job satisfaction. Psychological capital is the process via which servant leadership affects employee participation (Lăzăroiu, 2013; 2012; 2011) and workplace abnormal behaviors. Servant leadership arises from a personal belief to alter other individuals with moral boldness and spiritual comprehension into what they are competent of becoming. Followers are likely to react positively to servant leaders as they have confirmed themselves reliable as servants. Whereas servant leaders attempt to alter other individuals to be more servant-like (Pera, 2015), there is a more relevant goal that both the leaders and servants reciprocally strive to carry out. Instead of employing power to assist their demands, servant leaders abandon personal rights so they can successfully assist other individuals. Being a servant represents the self-notion of the servant leader: servant leaders’ main purpose to assist may emerge from their self-notion as selfless people. The self-sacrificial character of ser- vant leaders supplies a foundation for their behaviors to be readily mirrored by their followers. (Sendjaya, 2015)

5. Conclusions Followers return their servant leaders’ behaviors by evidencing comparable serving behaviors, generating intended employee behaviors (Bratu, 2015) that further a psychological and social setting in which significant organizational duties can be carried out. Reciprocation arises from a series of exchange processes that take place at a distinct level of the managerial pecking order (Nica and Potcovaru, 2015a, b, c) in which each servant leader assists to stimulate her followers to become servant leaders. Acquiring servant lead- ership furthers valuable employee positions, behaviors, and psychological atmospheres at work. (Ozyilmaz and Cicek, 2015)

244

REFERENCES Bakar, Hassan Abu, and Robert M. McCann (2016), “An Examination of Leader–

Member Dyadic Politeness of Exchange and Servant Leadership on Group Member Performance,” International Journal of Business Communication 53. Forthcoming

Bondrea, Aurelian A., and Ramona Olivia Ștefănescu-Mihăilă (2014a), “The Twilight Zone of Consumers’ Brains. The Relevance of Expenditure on Advertising on Micro and Macro Levels,” Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 6(1): 491–500.

Bondrea, Aurelian A., and Ramona Olivia Ștefănescu-Mihăilă (2014b), “Advertising Psychology versus Lifelong Learning,” Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 6(1): 340–349.

Bratu, Sofia (2015), “Are Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBS) Really Positively Associated with Measures of Organizational Effectiveness?,” Analysis and Metaphysics 14: 87–93.

Chen, Zhijun, Jing Zhu, and Mingjian Zhou (2015), “How Does a Servant Leader Fuel the Service Fire? A Multilevel Model of Servant Leadership, Individual Self Identity, Group Competition Climate, and Customer Service Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology 100(2): 511–521.

Devine, Nesta (2015), “Community, Partnership, and Collaboration,” Knowledge Cultures 3(5): 34–41.

Lăzăroiu, George (2015a), “Employee Motivation and Job Performance,” Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 14: 97–102.

Lăzăroiu, George (2015b), “Work Motivation and Organizational Behavior,” Con- temporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 7(2): 66–75.

Lăzăroiu, George (2013), “Besley on Foucault’s Discourse of Education,” Educa- tional Philosophy and Theory 45(8): 821–832.

Lăzăroiu, George (2012), “Democratic Responsibilities of News Media,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 7(3): 145–153.

Lăzăroiu, George (2011), “The Role of Communication in Shaping the Conduct of Politics and the Interactive Production of Personalized Information,” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 3(2): 241–247.

Mihăilă, Ramona, Gheorghe H. Popescu, and Elvira Nica (2016), “Educational Con- servatism and Democratic Citizenship in Hannah Arendt,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 48. Forthcoming

Mihăilă, Ramona (2011), “(Un)Gendered Private Space in Nineteenth -Century Romanian Society,” Journal of Research in Gender Studies 1(1): 147–163.

Mircică, Nela (2014), “Constructive Communication in Effective Negotiation,” Analysis and Metaphysics 13: 64–72.

Nicolaescu, Cristina (2015), “The Voice of Subaltern in Margaret Atwood’s Sur - facing: An Anticolonialist Approach to the Novel,” Journal of Research in Gender Studies 5(2): 350–355.

Nica, Elvira, Cristina Manole, and Roxana Briscariu (2016), “The Detrimental Con- sequences of Perceived Job Insecurity on Health and Psychological Well-being,” Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management 4(1): 175–181.

245

Nica, Elvira, and Ana-Mădălina Potcovaru (2015a), “Labor Management and Dress Culture in the Victorian Textile Industry,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 10(2): 96–101.

Nica, Elvira, and Ana-Mădălina Potcovaru (2015b), “Effective M-Government Services and Increased Citizen Participation,” Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics 3(2): 92–97.

Nica, Elvira, and Ana-Mădălina Potcovaru (2015c), “Gender-typical Responses to Stress and Illness,” Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management 3(2): 65–70.

Nica, Elvira (2016), “Energy Security and Sustainable Growth: Evidence from China,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 11(1): 59–65.

Nica, Elvira (2015a), “Moral Leadership in Health Care Organizations,” American Journal of Medical Research 2(2): 118–123.

Nica, Elvira (2015b), “ICT Innovation, Internet Sustainability, and Economic Devel- opment,” Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics 3(3): 24–29.

Nica, Elvira (2013), “Organizational Culture in the Public Sector,” Economics, Man- agement, and Financial Markets 8(2): 179–184.

Ozyilmaz, Adnan, and Serpil S. Cicek (2015), “How Does Servant Leadership Affect Employee Attitudes, Behaviors, and Psychological Climates in a For-profit Or- ganizational Context?,” Journal of Management & Organization 21(3): 263–290.

Pera, Aurel (2015), “Heuristic Reasoning in the Psychology of Mathematics Edu- cation,” Review of Contemporary Philosophy 14: 132–137.

Petcu, Radu (2015), “Government Surveillance, Neoliberal Citizenship, and Social Identity,” Review of Contemporary Philosophy 14: 126–131.

Popescu Ljungholm, Doina (2015), “The Practice of Performance Management in Public Sector Organizations,” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 7(2): 190–196.

Popescu, Gheorghe H., and Florin Cristian Ciurlău (2016), “The Dynamics of China’s Sustainable Economic Growth,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 11(1): 52–58.

Popescu, Gheorghe H., and Vlad Predescu (2016), “The Role of Leadership in Public Health,” American Journal of Medical Research 3(1): 273–279.

Popescu, Gheorghe H. (2016), “Gender, Work, and Wages: Patterns of Female Par- ticipation in the Labor Market,” Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics 4(1): 128–134.

Popescu, Gheorghe H. (2015a), “Sustainable Development and the Implementation of Citizen-oriented Services,” Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics 3(4): 70–78.

Popescu, Gheorghe H. (2015b), “The Economic Value of the Industrial Internet of Things,” Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics 3(2): 86–91.

Popescu, Gheorghe H. (2014), “The Economic Implications of EHealth and MHealth Technologies,” American Journal of Medical Research 1(2): 31–37.

Popescu, Gheorghe H. (2013), “Partisan Differences in Evaluations of the Economy,” Economics, Management, and Financial Markets 8(1): 130–135.

Sendjaya, Sen (2015), Personal and Organizational Excellence through Servant Leadership. Dordrecht: Springer.

Copyright of Linguistic & Philosophical Investigations is the property of Addleton Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.