psych leader

10 SERVANT LEADERSHIP

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Servant leadership is a paradox—an approach to leadership that runs counter to common sense. Our everyday images of leadership do not coincide with leaders being servants. Leaders influence, and servants follow. How can leadership be both service  and influence? How can a person be a leader  and a servant at the same time? Although servant leadership seems contradictory and challenges our traditional beliefs about leadership, it is an approach that offers a unique perspective.

Servant leadership, which originated in the writings of Greenleaf (1970, 1972, 1977), has been of interest to leadership scholars for more than 40 years. Until recently, little empirical research on servant leadership has appeared in established peer-reviewed journals. Most of the academic and nonacademic writing on the topic has been prescriptive, focusing on how servant leadership should ideally be, rather than descriptive, focusing on what servant leadership actually is in practice (van Dierendonck, 2011). However, in the past 10 years, multiple publications have helped to clarify servant leadership and substantiate its basic assumptions.

Similar to earlier leadership theories discussed in this book (e.g., skills approach and behavioral approach), servant leadership is an approach focusing on leadership from the point of view of leaders and their behaviors. Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Servant leaders put followers  first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal capacities.

In addition, like the authentic leadership approach, which is discussed in  Chapter 9, and ethical leadership, which is explored in  Chapter 15, servant leadership is viewed as a “moral” form of leadership. Servant leaders are ethical and lead in ways that serve the greater good of the organization, community, and society at large. What sets servant leadership apart from other moral leadership approaches is its focus on serving these multiple stakeholders (Lemoine, Hartnell, & Leroy, 2019).

Servant Leadership Defined

What is servant leadership? Scholars have addressed this approach from many different perspectives resulting in a variety of definitions of servant leadership. Greenleaf (1970) provides the most frequently referenced definition:

[Servant leadership] begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve  first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. . . . The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant—first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test . . . is: do those served grow as persons; do they,  while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived? (p. 15)

Although complex, this definition sets forth the basic ideas of servant leadership that have been highlighted by current scholars. Servant leaders place the good of followers over their own self-interests and emphasize follower development(Hale & Fields, 2007). They demonstrate strong moral behavior toward followers (Graham, 1991; Walumbwa, Hartnell, & Oke, 2010), the organization, and other stakeholders (Ehrhart, 2004). Practicing servant leadership comes more naturally for some than for others, but everyone can learn to be a servant leader (Spears, 2010). Although servant leadership is sometimes treated by others as a trait, in our discussion servant leadership is viewed as a set of behaviors.

Historical Basis of Servant Leadership

Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term  servant leadership and is the author of the seminal works on the subject. Greenleaf’s persona and writings have significantly influenced how servant leadership has developed on the practical and theoretical level. He founded the Center for Applied Ethics in 1964, now the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, which provides a clearinghouse and focal point for research and writing on servant leadership.

Greenleaf worked for 40 years at AT&T and, after retiring, began exploring how institutions function and how they could better serve society. He was intrigued by issues of power and authority and how individuals in organizations could creatively support each other. Decidedly against coercive leadership, Greenleaf advocated using communication to build consensus in groups.

Greenleaf credits his formulation of servant leadership to Hermann Hesse’s (1956) novel  The Journey to the East. It tells the story of a group of travelers on a mythical journey who are accompanied by a servant who does menial chores for the travelers but also sustains them with his spirits and song. The servant’s presence has an extraordinary impact on the group. When the servant becomes lost and disappears from the group, the travelers fall into disarray and abandon the journey. Without the servant, they are unable to carry on. It was the servant who was ultimately leading the group, emerging as a leader through his selfless care of the travelers.

In addition to serving, Greenleaf states that a servant leader has a social responsibility to be concerned about those who are marginalized and those less privileged. If inequalities and social injustices exist, a servant leader tries to remove them (Graham, 1991). In becoming a servant leader, a leader uses less institutional power and control while shifting authority to those who are being led. Servant leadership values community because it provides a face-to-face opportunity for individuals to experience interdependence, respect, trust, and individual growth (Greenleaf, 1970).

Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader

In an attempt to clarify servant leadership for practitioners, Spears (2002) identified 10 characteristics in Greenleaf’s writings that are central to the development of servant leadership. Together, these characteristics comprise the first model or conceptualization of servant leadership.

1. Listening.  Communication between leaders and followers is an interactive process that includes sending and receiving messages (i.e., talking and listening). Servant leaders communicate by listening first. They recognize that listening is a learned discipline that involves hearing and being receptive to what others have to say. Through listening, servant leaders acknowledge the viewpoint of followers and validate these perspectives.

2. Empathy.  Empathy is “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the world from that person’s point of view. Empathetic servant leaders demonstrate that they truly understand what followers are thinking and feeling. When a servant leader shows empathy, it is confirming and validating for the follower. It makes the follower feel unique.

3. Healing.  To heal means to make whole. Servant leaders care about the personal well-being of their followers. They support followers by helping them overcome personal problems. Greenleaf argues that the process of healing is a two-way street—in helping followers become whole, servant leaders themselves are healed.

4. Awareness.  For Greenleaf, awareness is a quality within servant leaders that makes them acutely attuned and receptive to their physical, social, and political environments. It includes understanding oneself and the impact one has on others. With awareness, servant leaders are able to step aside and view themselves and their own perspectives in the greater context of the situation.

5. Persuasion.  Persuasion is clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change. As opposed to coercion, which utilizes positional authority to force compliance, persuasion creates change through the use of gentle nonjudgmental argument. According to Spears (2002), Greenleaf’s emphasis on persuasion over coercion is perhaps related to his denominational affiliation with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

6. Conceptualization.  Conceptualization refers to an individual’s ability to be a visionary for an organization, providing a clear sense of its goals and direction. This characteristic goes beyond day-to-day operational thinking to focus on the “big picture.” Conceptualization also equips servant leaders to respond to complex organizational problems in creative ways, enabling them to deal with the intricacies of the organization in relationship to its long-term goals.

7. Foresight.  Foresight encompasses a servant leader’s ability to know the future. It is an ability to predict what is coming based on what is occurring in the present and what has happened in the past. For Greenleaf, foresight has an ethical dimension because he believes leaders should be held accountable for any failures to anticipate what reasonably could be foreseen and to act on that understanding.

8. Stewardship.  Stewardship is about taking responsibility for the leadership role entrusted to the leader. Servant leaders accept the responsibility to carefully manage the people and organization they have been given to lead. In addition, they hold the organization in trust for the greater good of society.

9. Commitment to the growth of people.  Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership places a premium on treating each follower as a unique person with intrinsic value that goes beyond the individual’s tangible contributions to the organization. Servant leaders are committed to helping each person in the organization grow personally and professionally. Commitment can take many forms, including providing followers with opportunities for career development, helping them develop new work skills, taking a personal interest in their ideas, and involving them in decision making (Spears, 2002).

10. Building community.  Servant leadership fosters the development of community. A community is a collection of individuals who have shared interests and pursuits and feel a sense of unity and relatedness. Community allows followers to identify with something greater than themselves that they value. Servant leaders build community to provide a place where people can feel safe and connected with others, but are still allowed to express their own individuality.

These 10 characteristics of servant leadership represent Greenleaf’s seminal work on the servant as leader. They provide a creative lens from which to view the complexities of servant leadership.

Building a Theory About Servant Leadership

For more than three decades after Greenleaf’s original writings, servant leadership remained a set of loosely defined characteristics and normative principles. In this form it was widely accepted as a leadership approach, rather than a theory, that has strong heuristic and practical value. Praise for servant leadership came from a wide range of well-known leadership writers, including Bennis (2002), Blanchard and Hodges (2003), Covey (2002), DePree (2002), Senge (2002), and Wheatley (2002). At the same time, servant leadership was adopted as a guiding philosophy in many well-known organizations such as The Toro Company, Herman Miller, Synovus Financial Corporation, ServiceMaster, Men’s Wearhouse, The Container Store, Southwest Airlines, and TDIndustries (Spears, 2002). Although novel and paradoxical, the basic ideas and prescriptions of servant leadership resonated with many as an ideal way to run an organization.

More recently, researchers have begun to examine the conceptual underpinnings of servant leadership in an effort to build a theory about it. This has resulted in a wide array of models that describe servant leadership that incorporate a multitude of variables. For example, Russell and Stone (2002) developed a practical model of servant leadership that contained 20 attributes, 9 functional characteristics (distinctive behaviors observed in the workplace), and 11 accompanying characteristics that augment these behaviors. Similarly, Patterson (2003) created a value-based model of servant leadership that distinguished 7 constructs that characterize the virtues and shape the behaviors of servant leaders.

Other conceptualizations of servant leadership have emerged from researchers’ efforts to develop and validate instruments to measure the core dimensions of the servant leadership process.  Table 10.1 provides a summary of some of these studies, illustrating clearly the extensiveness of characteristics related to servant leadership. This table demonstrates how servant leadership is treated as a trait phenomenon (e.g., courage, humility) in some studies while other researchers regard it as a behavioral process (e.g., serving and developing others).

Table 10.1 also exhibits the lack of agreement among researchers on what specific characteristics define servant leadership. While some of the studies include common characteristics, such as humility or empowerment, none of the studies conceptualize servant leadership in exactly the same way. Most recently, Coetzer, Bussin, and Geldenhuys (2017) analyzed the existing literature and created a framework that summarizes the functions of servant leadership to make it more practical in organizations. They highlight 8 servant leadership characteristics (authenticity, humility, integrity, listening, compassion, accountability, courage, and altruism) and 4 competencies, 10 measures, and 3 outcomes of servant leadership. Although scholars are not in agreement regarding the primary attributes of servant leadership, all these studies provide the groundwork necessary for the development of a refined model of servant leadership.

Table 10.1 Key Characteristics of Servant Leadership

Laub (1999)	Wong & Davey (2007)	Barbuto & Wheeler (2006)	Dennis & Bocarnea (2005)	Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora (2008)	van Dierendonck & Nuijten (2011)
· Developing people · Sharing leadership · Displaying authenticity · Valuing people · Providing leadership · Building community	· Serving and developing others · Consulting and involving others · Humility and selflessness · Modeling integrity and authenticity · Inspiring and influencing others	· Altruistic calling · Emotional healing · Persuasive mapping · Organizational stewardship · Wisdom	· Empowerment · Trust · Humility · Agapao love · Vision	· Transforming influence · Voluntary subordination · Authentic self · Transcendental spirituality · Covenantal relationship · Responsible morality	· Empowerment · Humility · Standing back · Authenticity · Forgiveness · Courage · Accountability · Stewardship

Source: Adapted from “Servant Leadership: A Review and Synthesis,” by D. van Dierendonck, 2011,  Journal of Management, 37(4), pp. 1228–1261.

MODEL OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP

This chapter presents a servant leadership model based on Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson (2008) and Liden, Panaccio, Hu, and Meuser (2014) that has three main components:  antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and  outcomes ( Figure 10.1). The model is intended to clarify the phenomenon of servant leadership and provide a framework for understanding its complexities.

Description

Figure 10.1 Model of Servant Leadership

Sources: Adapted from Liden, R. C., Panaccio, A., Hu, J., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership: Antecedents, consequences, and contextual moderators. In D. V. Day (Ed.),  The Oxford handbook of leadership and organizations.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; and van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and syntheses.  Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228–1261.

Antecedent Conditions

As shown on the left side of  Figure 10.1, three antecedent, or existing, conditions have an impact on servant leadership:  context and culture, leader attributes, and  follower receptivity. These conditions are not inclusive of all the conditions that affect servant leadership, but do represent some factors likely to influence the leadership process.

Context and Culture.

Servant leadership does not occur in a vacuum but occurs within a given organizational context and a particular culture. The nature of each of these affects the way servant leadership is carried out. For example, in health care and nonprofit settings, the norm of caring is more prevalent, while for Wall Street corporations it is more common to have competition as an operative norm. Because the norms differ, the ways servant leadership is performed may vary.

Dimensions of culture (see  Chapter 16, “Culture and Leadership”) will also influence servant leadership. For example, in cultures where power distance is low (e.g., Nordic Europe) and power is shared equally among people at all levels of society, servant leadership may be more common. In cultures with low humane orientation (e.g., Germanic Europe), servant leadership may present more of a challenge. The point is that cultures influence the way servant leadership is able to be achieved.

Leader Attributes.

As in any leadership situation, the qualities and disposition of the leader influence the servant leadership process. Individuals bring their own traits and ideas about leading to leadership situations. Some may feel a deep desire to serve or are strongly motivated to lead. Others may be driven by a sense of higher calling (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). These dispositions shape how individuals demonstrate servant leadership. In addition, people differ in areas such as moral development, emotional intelligence, and self-determinedness, and these traits interact with their ability to engage in servant leadership.

Recent research has attempted to determine if specific leader traits are important to servant leadership. Emotional intelligence, or the leader’s ability to monitor the feelings, beliefs, and internal states of the self and followers, has been identified as an important attribute for a leader implementing a servant leader ideology (Barbuto, Gottfredson, & Searle, 2014; Beck, 2014; Chiniara & Bentein, 2016). An empirical study by Hunter and colleagues (2013) concluded that “leaders scoring high in agreeableness and low in extraversion were more likely to be perceived as servant leaders by their followers” (p. 327). In addition, a study by Sousa and van Dierendonck (2017) determined that having humility can make servant leaders more impactful regardless of their hierarchical position in an organization.

Follower Receptivity.

The receptivity of followers is a factor that appears to influence the impact of servant leadership on outcomes such as personal and organizational job performance. Follower receptivity concerns the question “Do all followers show a desire for servant leadership?” Research suggests the answer may be no. Some followers do not want to work with servant leaders. They equate servant leadership with micromanagement, and report that they do not want their leader to get to know them or try to help, develop, or guide them (Liden et al., 2008). Similarly, empirical studies have shown that when servant leadership was matched with followers who desired it, this type of leadership had a positive impact on performance and organizational citizenship behavior (Meuser, Liden, Wayne, & Henderson, 2011; Otero-Neira, Varela-Neira, & Bande, 2016; Ozyilmaz & Cicek, 2015). The opposite was seen when there was no match between servant leadership and the desire of followers for it. It appears that, for some followers, servant leadership has a positive impact and, for others, servant leadership is not effective. A recent experiment found that servant leadership benefits followers who have higher levels of self-interest. Followers who are inclined to care only about themselves were more likely to improve their helping behaviors after exposure to a manager who supports helping behaviors (Wu, Liden, Liao, & Wayne, 2020).

Servant Leader Behaviors

The middle component of  Figure 10.1 identifies seven  servant leader behaviors that are the core of the servant leadership process. These behaviors emerged from Liden et al.’s (2008) vigorous efforts to develop and validate a measure of servant leadership. The findings from their research provide evidence for the soundness of viewing servant leadership as a multidimensional process. Collectively, these behaviors are the central focus of servant leadership. Individually, each behavior makes a unique contribution.

Conceptualizing.

Conceptualizing refers to the servant leader’s thorough understanding of the organization—its purposes, complexities, and mission. This capacity allows servant leaders to think through multifaceted problems, to know if something is going wrong, and to address problems creatively in accordance with the overall goals of the organization.

For example, Kate Simpson, a senior nursing supervisor in the emergency room of a large hospital, uses conceptualizing to lead her department. She fully understands the mission of the hospital and, at the same time, knows how to effectively manage staff on a day-to-day basis. Her staff members say Simpson has a sixth sense about what is best for people. She is known for her wisdom in dealing with difficult patients and helping staff diagnose complex medical problems. Her abilities, competency, and value as a servant leader earned her the hospital’s Caregiver of the Year Award.

Emotional Healing.

Emotional healing involves being sensitive to the personal concerns and well-being of others. It includes recognizing others’ problems and being willing to take the time to address them. Servant leaders who exhibit emotional healing make themselves available to others, stand by them, and provide them with support.

Emotional healing is apparent in the work of Father John, a much sought-after hospice priest on Chicago’s South Side. Father John has a unique approach to hospice patients: He doesn’t encourage, give advice, or read Scripture. Instead he simply listens to them. “When you face death, the only important thing in life is relationships,” he said. “I practice the art of standing by. I think it is more important to come just to be there than to do anything else.”

Putting Followers First.

Putting others first is the sine qua non of servant leadership—the defining characteristic. It means using actions and words that clearly demonstrate to followers that their concerns are a priority, including placing followers’ interests and success ahead of those of the leader. It may mean leaders break from their own tasks to assist followers with theirs.

Dr. Autumn Klein, a widely published health education professor at a major research university, is responsible for several ongoing large interdisciplinary public health studies. Although she is the principal investigator on these studies, when multiauthored articles are submitted for publication, Dr. Klein puts the names of other researchers before her own. She chooses to let others be recognized because she knows it will benefit them in their annual performance reviews. She puts the success of her colleagues ahead of her own interests.

Helping Followers Grow and Succeed.

This behavior refers to knowing followers’ professional or personal goals and helping them to accomplish those aspirations. Servant leaders make followers’ career development a priority, including mentoring followers and providing them with support. At its core, helping followers grow and succeed is about aiding these individuals to become self-actualized, reaching their fullest human potential.

An example of how a leader helps others grow and succeed is Mr. Yon Kim, a high school orchestra teacher who consistently receives praise from parents for his outstanding work with students. Mr. Kim is a skilled violinist with high musical standards, but he does not let that get in the way of helping each student, from the most highly accomplished to the least capable. Students like Mr. Kim because he listens to them and treats them as adults. He gives feedback without being judgmental. Many of his former students have gone on to become music majors. They often visit Mr. Kim to let him know how important he was to them. Yon Kim is a servant leader who helps students grow through his teaching and guidance.

Behaving Ethically.

Behaving ethically is doing the right thing in the right way. It is holding to strong ethical standards, including being open, honest, and fair with followers. Servant leaders do not compromise their ethical principles in order to achieve success.

An example of ethical behavior is how CEO Elizabeth Angliss responded when one of her employees brought her a copy of a leaked document from their company’s chief competitor, outlining its plans to go after some of Angliss’s largest customers. Although she knew the document undoubtedly had valuable information, she shredded it instead of reading it. She then called the rival CEO and told him she had received the document and wanted him to be aware that he might have a security issue within his company. “I didn’t know if what I received was real or not,” she explains. “But it didn’t matter. If it was the real thing, someone on his end did something wrong, and my company wasn’t going to capitalize on that.”

Empowering.

Empowering refers to allowing followers the freedom to be independent, make decisions on their own, and be self-sufficient. It is a way for leaders to share power with followers by allowing them to have control. Empowerment builds followers’ confidence in their own capacities to think and act on their own because they are given the freedom to handle difficult situations in the way they feel is best.

For example, a college professor teaching a large lecture class empowers two teaching assistants assigned to him by letting them set their own office hours, independently grade student papers, and practice teaching by giving one of the weekly class lectures. They become confident in their teaching abilities and bring new ideas to the professor to try in the classroom.

Creating Value for the Community.

Servant leaders create value for the community by consciously and intentionally giving back to the community. They are involved in local activities and encourage followers to also volunteer for community service. Creating value for the community is one way for leaders to link the purposes and goals of an organization with the broader purposes of the community.

An example of creating value for the community can be seen in the leadership of Mercedes Urbanez, principal of Alger High School. Alger is an alternative high school in a midsize community with three other high schools. Urbanez’s care and concern for students at Alger is remarkable. Ten percent of Alger’s students have children, so the school provides on-site day care. Fifteen percent of the students are on probation, and Alger is often their last stop before dropping out and becoming further entangled with the criminal justice system. While the other schools in town foster competition and push Advanced Placement courses, Alger focuses on removing the barriers that keep its students from excelling and offers courses that provide what its students need, including multimedia skills, reading remediation, and parenting.

Under Urbanez, Alger High School is a model alternative school appreciated at every level in the community. Students, who have failed in other schools, find they have a safe place to go where they are accepted and adults try to help them solve their problems. Law enforcement supports the school’s efforts to help these students get back into the mainstream of society and away from crime. The other high schools in the community know that Alger provides services they find difficult to provide. Urbanez serves those who are marginalized in the community, and the whole community reaps the benefits.

Different researchers have used the servant leadership behaviors as identified by Liden et al.’s (2008) work as well as the work of Page and Wong (2000), Sendjaya and Sarros (2002), Dennis and Bocarnea (2005), and Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) as the foundation to understand servant leadership and how it is established in an organization. For example, Winston and Fields (2015) developed and validated a scale that identifies 10 leader behaviors that are essential to developing servant leadership in an organization.

Outcomes

Although servant leadership focuses primarily on leader behaviors, it is also important to examine the potential outcomes of servant leadership. The outcomes of servant leadership are  follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and  societal impact (see  Figure 10.1). As Greenleaf highlighted in his original work (1970), the central goal of servant leadership is to create healthy organizations that nurture individual growth, strengthen organizational performance, and, in the end, produce a positive impact on society.

Follower Performance and Growth.

In the model of servant leadership, most of the servant leader behaviors focus directly on recognizing followers’ contributions and helping them realize their human potential. The expected outcome for followers is greater self-actualization. That is, followers will realize their full capabilities when leaders nurture them, help them with their personal goals, and give them control.

Another outcome of servant leadership, suggested by Meuser et al. (2011), is that it will have a favorable impact on followers’ in-role performance—the way followers do their assigned work. When servant leaders were matched with followers who were open to this type of leadership, the results were positive. Followers became more effective at accomplishing their jobs and fulfilling their job descriptions. For example, Bauer, Perrot, Liden, and Erdogan (2019) found that when servant leaders helped new employees “learn the ropes” in a new job, those employees’ proactivity increased.

Another example is a study of servant leadership in a sales setting in Spain that found sales managers’ servant leadership was directly related to salespeople’s performance within the organization and indirectly related to salespeople’s identification with the organization. In addition, it enhanced the salespeople’s adaptability and proactivity by positively affecting their self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation (Bande, Fernández-Ferrín, Varela-Neira, & Otero-Neira, 2016; Otero-Neira et al., 2016). Hunter et al. (2013) found that servant leadership fosters a positive service climate, induces followers to help coworkers and sell products, and reduces turnover and disengagement behaviors. In addition, Chiniara and Bentein (2016) found that when servant leaders attended to followers’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, it had a positive impact on followers’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior.

Finally, another expected result of servant leadership is that followers themselves may become servant leaders. Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership hypothesizes that when followers receive care and empowerment from ethical leaders, they, in turn, will likely begin treating others in this way. Servant leadership would produce a ripple effect in which servant leaders create more servant leaders. For example, Hunter et al. (2013) report that employees who perceived their leaders as having servant qualities were more likely to help their coworkers with task and interpersonal matters, as well as less likely to disengage.

Organizational Performance.

Initial research has shown that, in addition to positively affecting followers and their performance, servant leadership has an influence on organizational performance. Several studies have found a positive relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors, which are follower behaviors that go beyond the basic requirements of the follower’s duties and help the overall functioning of the organization (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden et al., 2008; Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts, 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010).

Servant leadership also affects the way organizational teams function. Hu and Liden (2011) found that servant leadership enhanced team effectiveness by increasing the shared confidence among team members that they could be effective as a work group. Furthermore, their results showed that servant leadership contributed positively to team potency by enhancing group process and clarity. However, when servant leadership was absent, team potency decreased, despite clearer goals. In essence, it frustrates people to know exactly what the goal is, but not get the support needed to accomplish the goal.

While research on the organizational outcomes of servant leadership is in its initial stages, more and more studies are being undertaken to substantiate the direct and indirect ways that servant leadership is related to organizational performance.

Societal Impact.

Another outcome expected of servant leadership is that it is likely to have a positive impact on society. Although societal impact is not commonly measured in studies of servant leadership, several examples of servant leadership’s impact are highly visible. One example we are all familiar with is the work of Mother Teresa, whose years of service for those who are hungry, homeless, and rejected resulted in the creation of a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity. This order now has more than 1 million workers in over 40 countries that operate hospitals, schools, and hospices for people living in poverty. Mother Teresa’s servant leadership has had an extraordinary impact on society throughout the world.

In the business world, an example of the societal impact of servant leadership can be observed at Southwest Airlines (see  Case 10.2). Leaders at Southwest instituted an “others first” organizational philosophy in the management of the company, which starts with how it treats its employees. This philosophy is adhered to by those employees who themselves become servant leaders in regards to the airline’s customers. Because the company thrives, it impacts society by providing jobs in the communities it serves and, to a lesser extent, by providing the customers who rely on it with transportation.

In his conceptualization of servant leadership, Greenleaf did not frame the process as one that was intended to directly change society. Rather, he visualized leaders who become servants first and listen to others and help them grow. As a result, their organizations are healthier, ultimately benefiting society. In this way, the long-term outcomes of putting others first include positive social change and helping society flourish.

Summary of the Model of Servant Leadership

In summary, the model of servant leadership consists of three components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and outcomes. The central focus of the model is the seven behaviors of leaders that foster servant leadership: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. These behaviors are influenced by context and culture, the leader’s attributes, and the followers’ receptivity to this kind of leadership. When individuals engage in servant leadership, it is likely to improve outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.

HOW DOES SERVANT LEADERSHIP WORK?

The servant leadership approach works differently than many of the prior theories we have discussed in this book. For example, it is unlike the trait approach ( Chapter 2), which emphasizes that leaders should have certain specific traits. It is also unlike path–goal theory ( Chapter 6), which lays out principles regarding what style of leadership is needed in various situations. Instead, servant leadership focuses on the behaviors leaders should exhibit to put followers first and to support followers’ personal development. It is concerned with how leaders treat followers and the outcomes that are likely to emerge.

So what is the mechanism that explains how servant leadership works? It begins when leaders commit themselves to putting their followers first, being honest with them, and treating them fairly. Servant leaders make it a priority to listen to their followers and develop strong long-term relationships with them. This allows leaders to understand the abilities, needs, and goals of followers, which, in turn, allows these followers to achieve their full potential. When many leaders in an organization adopt a servant leadership orientation, a culture of serving others within and outside the organization is created (Liden et al., 2008).

Servant leadership works best when leaders are altruistic and have a strong motivation and deep-seated interest in helping others. In addition, for successful servant leadership to occur, it is important that followers are open and receptive to servant leaders who want to empower them and help them grow.

It should be noted that in much of the writing on servant leadership there is an underlying philosophical position, originally set forth by Greenleaf (1970), that leaders should be altruistic and humanistic. Rather than using their power to dominate others, leaders should make every attempt to share their power and enable others to grow and become autonomous. Leadership framed from this perspective downplays competition in the organization and promotes egalitarianism.

Finally, in an ideal world, servant leadership results in community and societal change. Individuals within an organization who care for each other become committed to developing an organization that cares for the community. Organizations that adopt a servant leadership culture are committed to helping those in need who operate outside of the organization. Servant leadership extends to serving those who are marginalized in society (Graham, 1991).  Case 10.1in this chapter provides a striking example of how one servant leader’s work led to positive outcomes for many throughout the world.

STRENGTHS

In its current stage of development, research on servant leadership has made several positive contributions to the field of leadership. First, while there are other leadership approaches such as transformational and authentic leadership that include an ethical dimension, servant leadership is unique in the way it makes altruism the central component of the leadership process. Servant leadership argues unabashedly that leaders should put followers first, share control with followers, and embrace their growth. It is the only leadership approach that frames the leadership process around the principle of caring for others.

In comparing servant leadership to transformational leadership, a meta-analysis found servant leadership was better at predicting employee performance and attitudes, showing promise as a stand-alone theory that can help leadership researchers and practitioners better explain employee performance and attitudes than other recent approaches (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018). Servant leadership is recognized as a viable approach that makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the leadership process.

Third, servant leadership provides a counterintuitive and provocative approach to the use of influence, or power, in leadership. Nearly all other theories of leadership treat influence as a positive factor in the leadership process, but servant leadership does just the opposite. It argues that leaders should not dominate, direct, or control; rather, leaders should share control and influence. To give up control rather than seek control is the goal of servant leadership.Servant leadership is an influence process that does not incorporate influence in a traditional way. This difference has resulted in servant leadership being conceptually and empirically distinct from other leadership approaches, which are leader-centric rather than follower-centric.

Another key distinction in servant leadership research is the consideration of multiple stakeholders, including followers, organizations, customers, communities, and societies, and the outcomes that result. Most notably, followers are recognized as being served by the actions and decisions of leaders. Outcomes such as work–family balance have been linked to servant leadership (Wang, Kwan, & Zhou, 2017). Also, servant leaders create more awareness of spirituality at work (Williams, Randolph-Seng, Hayek, Haden, & Atinc, 2017). Studies have included customer service behaviors, such as putting the customer first, and customer-helping behaviors as outcome variables as well (Chen, Zhu, & Zhou, 2015). Stakeholders also extend beyond the organization’s followers and customers to the broader community (Lemoine et al., 2019).

Fifth, rather than imply that servant leadership is a panacea, research on servant leadership has shown there are conditions under which servant leadership is not a preferred kind of leadership. Findings indicate that servant leadership may not be effective in contexts where followers are not open to being guided, supported, and empowered. Followers’ readiness to receive servant leadership moderates the potential usefulness of leading from this approach (Liden et al., 2008). In addition, Sousa and van Dierendonck (2017) found that servant leadership may be more effective for those at higher ranks in the organization. When expressed by executive- and board-level leaders, the combination of humility and action predicts engagement. However, for managers at lower ranks, a focus on the actions relating to operations results in more engagement.

Finally, there are multiple ways to assess servant leadership. A review of servant leadership research identified 16 different measures of servant leadership (Eva, Robin, Sendjaya, van Dierendonck, & Liden, 2019). The measure we have selected to highlight at the end of this chapter—the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ)—was developed and validated by Liden et al. (2008). It is comprised of 28 items that identify 7 distinct dimensions of servant leadership. Studies show that the SLQ is unique and measures aspects of leadership that are different from those measured by the transformational and leader–member exchange theories (Liden et al., 2008; Schaubroeck, Lam, & Peng, 2011). While the SLQ has proved to be a suitable instrument for use in research on servant leadership, Liden and his colleagues have also validated a short 7-item measure of servant leadership (Liden et al., 2015).

CRITICISMS

In addition to the positive features of servant leadership, this approach has several limitations. First, the paradoxical nature of the title “servant leadership” creates semantic noise that diminishes the potential value of the approach. Because the name appears contradictory, servant leadership is prone to be perceived as fanciful or whimsical. In addition, being a servant leader implies following, and following is viewed as the opposite of leading. Although servant leadership incorporates influence, the mechanism of how influence functions as a part of servant leadership is not fully explicated in the approach.

Second, it is not clear how servant leadership leads to organizational change. For example, Newman, Schwarz, Cooper, and Sendjaya (2017) found that servant leadership was positively related to psychological empowerment, but it did not result in followers engaging in extra-role performance (organizational citizenship) above and beyond that accounted for by leader–member exchange (LMX). Similar findings were found for work engagement; LMX explained the influence of servant leadership (Bao, Li, & Zhao, 2018). Therefore, an explanatory mechanism for the relationship between servant leadership and outcomes may be the quality of the working relationship between leaders and followers. Followers view their servant leaders positively and respond with higher performance if they have a good relationship with those leaders.

Third, there is debate among servant leadership scholars regarding the core dimensions of the process. As illustrated in  Table 10.1, servant leadership is hypothesized to include a multitude of abilities, traits, and behaviors. To date, researchers have been unable to reach consensus on a common definition or theoretical framework for servant leadership (van Dierendonck, 2011). Some conceptualizations of servant leadership included outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior and even antecedents such as personality traits. Some authors defined servant leadership in terms of examples such as self-sacrifice. This resulted in definitions that were confusing to both scholars and leaders (Eva et al., 2019). Despite 20 years of research on servant leadership, questions remain regarding the robustness of its theoretical formulations.

Fourth, a large segment of the writing on servant leadership has a prescriptive overtone that implies that good leaders “put others first.” While advocating an altruistic approach to leadership is commendable, it has a utopian ring because it conflicts with individual autonomy and other principles of leadership such as directing, concern for production, goal setting, and creating a vision (Gergen, 2006). Furthermore, along with the “value-push” prescriptive quality, there is a moralistic nature that surrounds servant leadership. For example, some literature characterizes servant leaders as courageous heroes who work for the common good (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). This premise, that leadership is about serving a higher purpose, is not always seen by researchers as one of the central features of servant leadership.

Finally, it is unclear why “conceptualizing” is included as one of the servant leadership behaviors in the model of servant leadership (see  Figure 10.1). Is conceptualizing actually a behavior, or is it a cognitive ability? Is it a skill? Furthermore, what is the rationale for identifying conceptualizing as a determinant of servant leadership? Being able to conceptualize is undoubtedly an important cognitive capacity in all kinds of leadership, but why is it a defining characteristic of servant leadership? In the revised 7-item SLQ developed by Liden et al. (2015), only one item to measure conceptual skills was retained. The authors note that the item for conceptualization was changed by adding the word  work-related to more closely relate it to conceptual skills rather than an emotional or personal item. But no explanation was offered for why this apparent skill is included in the servant leadership concept. A clearer explanation for its central role in servant leadership needs to be addressed in future research.

APPLICATION

Servant leadership can be applied at all levels of management and in all types of organizations. Within a philosophical framework of caring for others, servant leadership sets forth a list of behaviors that individuals can engage in if they want to be servant leaders. Most of the prescribed behaviors of servant leadership are not esoteric; they are easily understood and generally applicable to a variety of leadership situations.

Unlike leader–member exchange theory ( Chapter 7) or authentic leadership ( Chapter 9), which are not widely used in training and development, servant leadership has been used extensively in a variety of organizations for more than 30 years. Many organizations in the Fortune 500 (e.g., Starbucks, AT&T, Southwest Airlines, and Vanguard Group) employ ideas from servant leadership. Training in servant leadership typically involves self-assessment exercises, educational sessions, and goal setting. The content of servant leadership is straightforward and accessible to followers at every level within the organization.

Liden et al. (2008) suggest that organizations that want to build a culture of servant leadership should be careful to select people who are interested in and capable of building long-term relationships with followers. Furthermore, because “behaving ethically” is positively related to job performance, organizations should focus on selecting people who have high integrity and strong ethics. In addition, organizations should develop training programs that spend time helping leaders develop their emotional intelligence, ethical decision making, and skills for empowering others. Behaviors such as these will help leaders nurture followers to their full potential.

Servant leadership is taught at many colleges and universities around the world and is the focus of numerous independent coaches, trainers, and consultants. In the United States, Gonzaga University and Regent University are recognized as prominent leaders in this area because of the academic attention they have given to servant leadership. Overall, the most recognized and comprehensive center for training in servant leadership is the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership ( www.greenleaf.org).

In summary, servant leadership provides a philosophy and set of behaviors that individuals in the organizational setting can learn and develop. The following section features cases illustrating how servant leadership has been manifested in different ways.

CASE STUDIES AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

This section provides three case studies ( Cases 10.1,  10.2, and  10.3) that illustrate different facets of servant leadership. The first case is about Dr. Paul Farmer and his efforts to stop disease in Haiti and other parts of the world. The second case is about the leaders of Southwest Airlines who created a servant leadership culture that permeates the company. The third case discusses the culture and leadership of Italian energy corporation Snam. At the end of each case, several questions are provided to help analyze the case from the perspective of servant leadership.

Case 10.1 Global Health Care

“Education wasn’t what he wanted to perform on the world. . . . He was after transformation.”

—Kidder (2003, p. 44)

When Paul Farmer graduated from Duke University at 22, he was unsure whether he wanted to be an anthropologist or a doctor. So he went to Haiti. As a student, Paul had become obsessed with the island nation after meeting many Haitians at local migrant camps. Paul was used to the grittier side of life; he had grown up in a family of eight that lived in a converted school bus and later on a houseboat moored in a bayou. But what he observed at the migrant camps and learned from his discussions with Haitian immigrants made his childhood seem idyllic.

In Haiti, he volunteered for a small charity called Eye Care Haiti, which conducted outreach clinics in rural areas. He was drawn in by the lives of the Haitian people and the deplorable conditions so many of them endured and determined to use his time there to learn everything he could about illness and disease afflicting people living in poverty. Before long, Paul realized that he had found his life’s purpose: He’d be a doctor to people living in poverty, and he’d start in Haiti.

Paul entered Harvard University in 1984 and, for the first two years, traveled back and forth to Haiti where he conducted a health census in the village of Cange. During that time he conceived of a plan to fight disease in Haiti by developing a public health system that included vaccination programs and clean water and sanitation. The heart of this program, however, would be a cadre of people from the villages who were trained to administer medicines, teach health classes, treat minor ailments, and recognize the symptoms of grave illnesses such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.

His vision became reality in 1987, thanks to a wealthy donor who gave $1 million to help Paul create Partners In Health (PIH). At first it wasn’t much of an organization—no staff, a small advisory board, and three committed volunteers. But its work was impressive: PIH began building schools and clinics in and around Cange. Soon PIH established a training program for health outreach workers and organized a mobile unit to screen residents of area villages for preventable diseases.

In 1990, Paul finished his medical studies and became a fellow in infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was able to remain in Haiti for most of each year, returning to Boston to work at Brigham for a few months at a time, sleeping in the basement of PIH headquarters.

It wasn’t long before PIH’s successes started gaining attention outside of Haiti. Because of its success treating the disease in Haiti, the World Health Organization appointed Paul and PIH staffer Jim Yong Kim to spearhead pilot treatment programs for multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Paul’s attention was now diverted to the slums of Peru and Russia where cases of MDR-TB were on the rise. In Peru, Paul and PIH encountered barriers in treating MDR-TB that had nothing to do with the disease. They ran headlong into governmental resistance and had to battle to obtain expensive medications. Paul learned to gently navigate governmental obstacles, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stepped in with a $44.7 million grant to help fund the program.

In 2005, PIH turned its attention to another part of the world: Africa, the epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic. Beginning its efforts in Rwanda, where few people had been tested or were receiving treatment, PIH tested 30,000 people in eight months and enrolled nearly 700 in drug therapy to treat the disease. Soon, the organization expanded its efforts to the African nations of Lesotho and Malawi (Partners In Health, 2011).

But Paul’s efforts weren’t just in far-flung reaches of the world. From his work with patients at Brigham, Paul observed the needs of low-income communities in Boston. The Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT) project was created to offer drug therapy for HIV and diabetes for residents living in poverty of the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods. PIH has since sent PACT project teams across the United States to provide support to other community health programs.

By 2020, PIH had grown to 18,000 employees working in health centers and hospitals in throughout the world, including the Dominican Republic, Peru, Mexico, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, the Navajo Nation (U.S.), and Russia. Each year the organization increases the number of facilities and personnel that provide health care to those most in need around the world. Paul continues to travel around the world, monitoring programs and raising funds for PIH in addition to leading the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Questions

1. Would you characterize Paul Farmer as a servant leader? Explain your answer.

2. Putting others first is the essence of servant leadership. In what way does Paul Farmer put others first?

3. Another characteristic of a servant leader is getting followers to serve. Who are Paul Farmer’s followers, and how did they become servants to his vision?

4. What role do you think Paul Farmer’s childhood had in his development as a servant leader?

Case 10.2 Servant Leadership Takes Flight

A young mother traveling with a toddler on a long cross-country flight approached the flight attendant looking rather frantic. Because of weather and an hour-and-a-half wait on the runway to take off, the plane would arrive at its destination several hours late. The plane had made an intermediate stop in Denver to pick up passengers but not long enough for travelers to disembark. The mother told the attendant that with the delays and the long flight, her child had already eaten all the food she brought and if she didn’t feed him soon he was bound to have a total meltdown. “Can I get off for five minutes just to run and get something for him to eat?” she pleaded.

“I have to recommend strongly that you stay on the plane,” the attendant said, sternly. But then, with a smile, she added, “But I can get off. The plane won’t leave without me. What can I get your son to eat?”

Turns out that flight attendant not only got the little boy a meal, but brought four other children on board meals as well. Anyone who has traveled in a plane with screaming children knows that this flight attendant not only took care of some hungry children and frantic parents, but also indirectly saw to the comfort of a planeload of other passengers.

This story doesn’t surprise anyone familiar with Southwest Airlines. The airline’s mission statement is posted every 3 feet at all Southwest locations: Follow the Golden Rule—treat people the way you want to be treated.

It’s a philosophy that the company takes to heart, beginning with how it treats employees. Colleen Barrett, the president emeritus of Southwest Airlines, said the company’s cofounder and her mentor, Herb Kelleher, was adamant that “a happy and motivated workforce will essentially extend that goodwill to Southwest’s customers” (Knowledge@Wharton, 2008). If the airline took care of its employees, the employees would take care of the customers, and the shareholders would win, too.

From the first days of Southwest Airlines, Herb resisted establishing traditional hierarchies within the company. He focused on finding employees with substance, willing to say what they thought and committed to doing things differently. Described as “an egalitarian spirit,” he employed a collaborative approach to management that involved his associates at every step.

Colleen, who went from working as Herb’s legal secretary to being the president of the airline, is living proof of his philosophy. A woman with little money from rural Vermont who got the opportunity of a lifetime to work for Herb when he was still just a lawyer, she rose from his aide to become vice president of administration, then executive vice president of customers, and then president and chief operating officer in 2001 (which she stepped down from in 2008). She had no formal training in aviation, but that didn’t matter. Herb “always treated me as a complete equal to him,” she said.

It was Colleen who instituted the Golden Rule as the company motto and developed a model that focuses on employee satisfaction and issues first, followed by the needs of the passengers. The company hired employees for their touchy-feely attitudes and trained them for skill. Southwest Airlines developed a culture that celebrated and encouraged humor. The example of being themselves on the job started at the top with Herb and Colleen.

This attitude has paid off. Southwest Airlines posted a profit for 35 consecutive years and continues to make money while other airlines’ profits are crashing. Colleen said the most important numbers on the balance sheet, however, are those that indicate how many millions of people have become frequent flyers of the airline, a number that grows every year.

Questions

1. What type of servant leader behaviors did Herb Kelleher exhibit in starting the airline? What about Colleen Barrett?

2. How do the leaders of Southwest Airlines serve others? What others are they serving?

3. Southwest Airlines emphasizes the Golden Rule. What role does the Golden Rule play in servant leadership? Is it always a part of servant leadership? Discuss.

4. Based on  Figure 10.1, describe the outcomes of servant leadership at Southwest Airlines, and how follower receptivity may have influenced those outcomes.

Case 10.3 Energy to Inspire the World

Marco Alverà has found the secret ingredient in making a business be best. Fairness.

Marco is the CEO of Snam, an independent energy company based in Italy whose largest shareholder is a holding company controlled by the Italian state. Historically, Italy had been dependent on its neighbors to the north to supply the country with natural gas. Snam’s mission has been to reverse the flow of natural gas, and it has succeeded. By “reducing bottlenecks” and “harmonizing prices in the European market,” Snam has made Italy a natural gas hub in Europe and is now Europe’s second-largest network operator in terms of extension of pipeline, providing gas to countries like Russia, Algeria, Libya, Norway, Holland, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom (Elliott, 2018).

Marco came to the energy industry from big banking—Goldman Sachs, to be specific—where competition created by big bonuses and large salaries was used to motivate people and cull the high performers from the low. He quickly realized that this motivational tool kit was effectively useless at Snam, which offered fixed salaries and lifelong jobs. How, then, to inspire 3,000 employees to strive for excellence and motivate them to bring their best to work every day?

To Marco’s surprise, he found areas of unmitigated excellence in the company. Snam was beating its competition in tough and highly competitive business sectors like trading, project management, and exploration. “Our exploration team was finding more oil and gas than any other company in the world. It was a phenomenon,” he said (Alverà, 2017). At first, Marco attributed this to luck, but when it continued to happen, he dug a little deeper to figure out why. The secret? Fairness.

Marco notes that unfairness is the “root cause of polarization” and “makes people defensive and disengaged” at work. Unfairness causes us pain. Fairness, on the other hand, brings us satisfaction. Behavioral research has shown that people sense fairness (or unfairness) even before they begin to analyze a situation and reach logical conclusions (Ronen, 2018).

Marco said Snam employees worked for a company where they didn’t have to worry about short-term results or about being penalized for making mistakes. They knew they would be rewarded for their overall performance and not on individual success. “They knew they were valued for what they were trying to do, not the outcome. They were valued as human beings. They were part of a community. Whatever happened, the company would stand by them . . . These guys could be true to their purpose, which was finding oil and gas. They didn’t have to worry about company politics or greed or fear. They could be good risk-takers . . . and they were excellent team workers. They could trust their colleagues. They didn’t need to look behind their backs” (Alverà, 2017).

For example, Marco shared the story of his friend and employee who drilled seven dry wells at the cost of $1 billion to the company. Marco was worried for him, but his friend didn’t seem to be concerned, and on the eighth drill he successfully found gas.

Giving employees the latitude to do what they did best was key. Having freedom to do what they feel is right is a motivator “in a way that no bonus can buy” that works at every level of the company, he said. For example, an employee asked Marco for the budget to build a cheese factory next to Snam’s plant in a village in Ecuador.

“It didn’t make any sense: no one ever built a cheese factory. But this is what the village wanted, because the milk they had would spoil before they could sell it, so that’s what they needed. And so we built it” (Alverà, 2017).

This kind of culture comes from what Marco calls a “company psychoanalysis,” a top-down analysis of every aspect of the company. “We went back to something that Aristotle said: ‘A human being with a purpose is much more motivated’ and that purpose is in the intersection of what someone is really good at doing, what his talents are and what the world needs. So we went through a long journey, a lot of introspective work, and we really came up with what our strengths were and what we think the world needs” (Alverà, 2017).

Marco and his team took a hard look at how decisions were made and how company resources were allocated. They scrutinized the existing processes, systems, and rules. From those analyses they removed anything that wasn’t clear, wasn’t rational, or limited the flow of information within the company. Company culture and how people were motivated were given the same type of evaluation.

To allow this to happen, Marco said he had to take himself “out of the equation” and “that means being aware of my own biases . . . to actively promote a culture of diversity of opinions and diversity of character” (UniBocconi, 2019).

Marco, who has degrees in philosophy and economics from the London School of Economics, found his philosophy background particularly useful. “It teaches you about having different opinions of the same topic . . . And I find that very helpful in negotiating and managing people to be able to look at different perspectives” (Alverà, 2017).

This process resulted in the company defining its purpose as “Energy to Inspire the World.” “The purpose is on top, the purpose said, ‘What you are for, why you exist,’” he said. “But it’s not enough just to have a purpose. Then you need to have the mission, the vision, the strategy, the values, the competencies, so that it’s an entire framework” (Alverà, 2017).

Marco said the definition of ideal fairness is “when you can fold down your antenna in your search for unfairness.” He admits the last element of fairness is the hardest, because it is not something that is easily analyzed and requires something altogether different from the norm in the business world. “It’s about what people’s emotions are, what their needs are, what’s going on in their private lives, what society needs” (Alverà, 2017).

This requires judgment and risk, he said.

“And if we turn on our hearts, that’s the key to getting the real best out of people, because they can smell it if you care, and only when you really care will they leave their fears behind and bring their true selves to work” (Alverà, 2017).

Questions

1. The text suggests that for servant leadership to be effective, three antecedent (or existing) conditions must exist—context and culture, leader attributes, and follower receptivity. Discuss how each of these antecedents plays a role at Snam.

2. The servant leadership model identifies seven leader behaviors core to the servant leadership process. How do each of these relate to Marco Alverà and Snam? Which of these behaviors are most relevant to Marco’s leadership success?

3. Servant leadership is unique in that it considers multiple stakeholders. Who are the stakeholders in this case? How do Marco Alverà and Snam exhibit consideration to these stakeholders?

4. The text identifies the potential outcomes of servant leadership as follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and societal impact. How is each of these outcomes evident in the approach Marco Alverà and Snam take toward leadership? Provide examples from the case to support your answers.

5. According to Greenleaf, the servant leader has a social responsibility to be concerned about those who are marginalized and those less privileged. If inequalities and social injustices exist, a servant leader tries to remove them.

a. How would you apply this statement to Marco Alverà and his role as a servant leader?

b. Do you view Marco Alverà as a servant leader? Why or why not?

. —Barbara Russell, MBA, BSCS, BBA, Chemeketa Community College

Leadership Instrument

Many questionnaires have been used to measure servant leadership (see  Table 10.1). Because of its relevance to the content, the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ) by Liden et al. (2008) was chosen for inclusion in this chapter. It is a 28-item scale that measures 7 major dimensions of servant leadership: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Liden et al. established the multiple dimensions of this scale and described how it is uniquely different from other leadership measures. In addition, Liden et al. (2015) have developed and validated a 7-item scale that measures global servant leadership, which correlates strongly with the 28-item measure used in this section.

By completing the SLQ you will gain an understanding of how servant leadership is measured and explore where you stand on the different dimensions of servant leadership. Servant leadership is a complex process, and taking the SLQ is one way to discover the dynamics of how it works.

Servant Leadership Questionnaire

Purpose: The purpose of this questionnaire is to examine the servant leadership behaviors you exhibit.

Instructions: Have a friend, colleague, or classmate read each item carefully and use the following 7-point scale to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the following statements as they pertain to your leadership. In these statements, “the leader” is referring to you in a leadership capacity.

Key: 1 = Strongly disagree 2 = Disagree 3 = Disagree somewhat 4 = Undecided 5 = Agree somewhat 6 = Agree 7 = Strongly agree

1.	Others would seek help from the leader if they had a personal problem.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
2.	The leader emphasizes the importance of giving back to the community.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
3.	The leader can tell if something work-related is going wrong.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
4.	The leader gives others the responsibility to make important decisions about their own jobs.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
5.	The leader makes others’ career development a priority.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
6.	The leader cares more about others’ success than their own.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
7.	The leader holds high ethical standards.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8.	The leader cares about others’ personal well-being.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
9.	The leader is always interested in helping people in the community.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
10.	The leader is able to think through complex problems.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
11.	The leader encourages others to handle important work decisions on their own.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
12.	The leader is interested in making sure others reach their career goals.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
13.	The leader puts others’ best interests above their own.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
14.	The leader is always honest.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
15.	The leader takes time to talk to others on a personal level.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
16.	The leader is involved in community activities.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
17.	The leader has a thorough understanding of the organization and its goals.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
18.	The leader gives others the freedom to handle difficult situations in the way they feel(s) is best.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
19.	The leader provides others with work experiences that enable them to develop new skills.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
20.	The leader sacrifices their own interests to meet others’ needs.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
21.	The leader would not compromise ethical principles in order to meet success.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
22.	The leader can recognize when others are feeling down without asking them.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
23.	The leader encourages others to volunteer in the community.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
24.	The leader can solve work problems with new or creative ideas.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
25.	If others need to make important decisions at work, they do not need to consult the leader.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
26.	The leader wants to know about others’ career goals.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
27.	The leader does what they can to make others’ jobs easier.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
28.	The leader values honesty more than profits.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Source: Adapted from  The Leadership Quarterly, 19, by R. C. Liden, S. J. Wayne, H. Zhao, and D. Henderson, “Servant Leadership: Development of a Multidimensional Measure and Multi-Level Assessment,” pp. 161–177, Copyright (2008).

Scoring

1. Add up the scores for 1, 8, 15, and 22. This is your score for emotional healing.

2. Add up the scores for 2, 9, 16, and 23. This is your score for creating value for the community.

3. Add up the scores for 3, 10, 17, and 24. This is your score for conceptual skills.

4. Add up the scores for 4, 11, 18, and 25. This is your score for empowering.

5. Add up the scores for 5, 12, 19, and 26. This is your score for helping followers grow and succeed.

6. Add up the scores for 6, 13, 20, and 27. This is your score for putting followers first.

7. Add up the scores for 7, 14, 21, and 28. This is your score for behaving ethically.

Scoring Interpretation

The scores you received on the SLQ indicate the degree to which you exhibit the seven behaviors characteristic of a servant leader. You can use the results to assess areas in which you have strong servant leadership behaviors and areas in which you may strive to improve. Based on the responses of the person who filled out this questionnaire on your leadership, the following scores for each category can be broken down as follows:

· High range: A score between 23 and 28 means others believe you strongly exhibit this servant leadership behavior.

· Moderate range: A score between 14 and 22 means others believe you tend to exhibit this behavior in an average way.

· Low range: A score between 4 and 13 means others believe you exhibit this leadership behavior below the average or expected degree.

Summary

Originating in the seminal work of Greenleaf (1970), servant leadership is a paradoxical approach to leadership that challenges our traditional beliefs about leadership and influence. Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders should be attentive to the needs of followers, empower them, and help them develop their full human capacities.

Servant leaders make a conscious choice to  serve first—to place the good of followers over the leaders’ self-interests. They build strong relationships with others, are empathic and ethical, and lead in ways that serve the greater good of followers, the organization, the community, and society at large.

Based on an idea from Hermann Hesse’s (1956) novel  The Journey to the East, Greenleaf argued that the selfless servant in a group has an extraordinary impact on the other members. Servant leaders attend fully to the needs of followers, are concerned with those with less privilege, and aim to remove inequalities and social injustices. Because servant leaders shift authority to those who are being led, they exercise less institutional power and control.

Scholars have conceptualized servant leadership in multiple ways. According to Spears (2002), there are 10 major characteristics of servant leadership: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Additional efforts by social science researchers to develop and validate measures of servant leadership have resulted in an extensive list of other servant leadership attributes (Coetzer et al., 2017; Winston & Fields, 2015).

Liden et al. (2014) created a promising model of servant leadership that has three main components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and outcomes.  Antecedent conditions that are likely to impact servant leaders include context and culture, leader attributes, and follower receptivity. Central to the servant leader process are the seven  servant leader behaviors: conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. The  outcomes of servant leadership are follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and societal impact.

Research on servant leadership has several strengths. First, it is unique because it makes altruism the main component of the leadership process. Second, it can be used to explain employee performance. Third, servant leadership provides a counterintuitive and provocative approach to the use of influence wherein leaders give up control rather than seek control. Fourth, rather than a panacea, research has shown that there are conditions under which servant leadership is not a preferred kind of leadership. Last, recent research has resulted in a sound measure of servant leadership (Servant Leadership Questionnaire) that identifies seven distinct dimensions of the process.

The servant leadership approach also has limitations. First, the paradoxical nature of the title “servant leadership” creates semantic noise that diminishes the potential value of the approach. Second, no consensus exists on a common theoretical framework for servant leadership. Third, servant leadership has a utopian ring that conflicts with traditional approaches to leadership. Last, it is not clear why “conceptualizing” is a defining characteristic of servant leadership.

Despite the limitations, servant leadership continues to be an engaging approach to leadership that holds much promise. As more research is done to test the substance and assumptions of servant leadership, a better understanding of the complexities of the process will emerge.

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Antecedent conditions:

· Context and culture

· Leader attributes

· Follower receptivity

Servant leader behaviors:

· Conceptualizing

· Emotional Healing

· Putting Followers First

· Helping Followers Grow and Succeed

· Behaving Ethically

· Empowering

· Creating Value for the Community

Outcomes:

· Follower Performance and Growth

· Organization Performance

· Societal Impact

Antecedent behaviors affect servant leader behaviors, which influence outcomes.