Literature Review: Servant Leadership 1
Literature Review: Servant Leadership
Tamarah L. Wynn
The School of Business, Liberty University
BMAL 501: Strategic Leadership
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 2
Abstract
This paper aims to explore peer reviewed journals discussing the style of Servant
Leadership and its contribution to organizational stability and performance. Empirical
evidence includes information focused on employee perception of servant leadership and
dissects the definition, the characteristics of and positive outcomes of a servant leader.
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 3
LITERATURE REVIEW: SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Servant Leadership is defined as a leadership style which emphasizes increased
service to others, a holistic approach to work, promotes a sense of community, and the
sharing of power in decision-making (Tran & Spears, 2020). In comparison to leadership
styles such as transformational, transactional, autocratic, democratic, and laissez-fair
leadership, servant leadership redirects power to the follower or community. The history of
this theory has its roots in ancient history; however, Robert Greenleaf modernized the
concept for the use and benefit of modern organizations. Servant leadership is not quite a
universally accepted model, explained by Gandolfi et al. (2017) because of a lack in
quantifiable research, and the absence of a comprehensive instrumentation have decelerated
the belief in servant leadership theory with business scholars and has led to considerable
confusion of what servant leadership is and is not.
Throughout research conducted in preparation for this paper, various scholars all
argued to some degree, that a servant leader is genuinely concerned with serving his or her
followers (Paesen et al., 2019). Servant leadership theory is based on the fundamental idea
that servant leaders are largely driven by empathy, altruism, and a sense of community
stewardship with this ethical imperative driving their devoted and stanch commitment to
follower growth, empowerment, and well-being servant first (Lee et al., 2019). This
commitment focuses on putting followers first, emotional healing of followers,
empowerment, and creating value for the community
Putting Followers First
Cambridge (2022) defines servant a person who is employed to do work for another
person, esp. to work in another person’s home doing jobs such as cooking and cleaning;
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 4
servant is also used in combination to mean someone working for the public. Tran & Spears
(2020) tie the relationship between the teachings of Greenleaf’s servant leadership to that of
Pope John XXIII by arguing that the life work of the Pope is in alignment with servient
leadership defined by Greenleaf. Although the Pope is charged with being the leader and the
example for Catholicism, he operates as a servant leader by prioritizing listening to his
followers, utilizing empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight,
stewardship, commitment, and building community, opposed to just focusing on the
outcomes and business-like initiatives of the Catholic church (Trans & Spears, 2020). Putting
followers first gives followers a voice and sense of security. A follower that is heard and
secure is a follower that will be loyal, innovative, and high performing. All these
characteristics eventually are to the benefit of the business or organization. The idea of the
measure of a servant leader is therefore not confined to functionalist outcomes of
organizational performance and profit but prioritizes instead the growth of those being served
(Liu, 2017).
Emotional Healing
In accordance with the Journal of Organizational Change Management (JOCM),
emotional healing can be impacted by leader behavior to which emotional healing promotes
an environment that promotes radical innovation, increases learning capability and positive
workplace conditions. Leadership style and leader behavior is a factor in which employee
innovation, creativity and morale are dependent upon. An organization with employees that
are experiencing both negative and positive emotions (Domínguez-Escrig et al., 2021) will be
affected either positively or negatively. Employees who are emotionally positive, are
employees that experiencing feelings of happiness, enthusiasm, pride, and respect. These
employees will give the organization a positive return as positive emotions increase the
thought–action repertoire of the employees (Khan et al., 2021). On the contrary, those
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 5
employees experiencing negative emotions such as unhappiness, disappointment, frustration,
embarrassment, or bitterness underperform or cause discord among the team. Companies
should be vigilant for early signs of negative emotions, which can cause future problems,
hamper innovative projects, hinder organizational activity (Domínguez-Escrig et al., 2021) or
leave the organization taking their talents with them.
Empowerment
The relationship between servant leadership and public service motivation (PSM)
observed by Schermuly et al. (2022) is that servant leaders who display unselfish behavior
and compassion to their employees and emphasize community values serve as role models,
leading their employees to imitate such behavior. The characteristics empower subordinates
to make better choices and foster a positive attitude in the workplace. Schermuly et al.
(2022) proposes that servant leadership can be a contributing factor for enhancing employees’
PSM by fulfilling their intrinsic needs, and empowering leadership and psychological
empowerment are positively correlated. When leaders empower their subordinates, they
become more creative and more involved.
Employee creativity is critical to such aims and can be enhanced when they are
trusted, empowered, and supported through by superiors (“Empowering Employees to
Increase Creativity,” 2021). In precedent times as these, it is to the benefit of organizations to
have employees that bring creativity into the workplace and can offer creative solutions to
new problems. COVID-19 has challenged how organizations operate amidst mandated
shutdowns, revenue loss, short staffing, and fear. Empowered employees are the employees
on the front lines, and at the drawing board assisting with creative ways to address a post
COVID work environment. The common perception of empowerment in this instance is that
employees become more involved with decision-making associated with their role.
(“Empowering Employees to Increase Creativity,” 2021)
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 6
Creating Value for the Community
Creating value for the community intends to align organizational goals with the needs
of the community. While the goal of large organizations is to make a profit, servant leaders
prioritize collaboration with the community and benevolence to the community by
intentionally participating in community activities, creating, or contributing to relief efforts
and encouraging others to do so as well. Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to
“dream great dreams” (Tran & Spears, 2020) by helping followers grow, succeed and
behaving ethically.
Page & Wong (2000) introduce their conceptual framework of Servant Leadership
which illustrates that leadership starts from within and speaks to the character of the leader
opposed to a leader’s title, education, or experience. The best leaders want to see everyone
thrive and possess the humility to shape and encourage future leaders. Helping followers to
grow and succeed is a fundamental task of a servant leader. Leaders prioritize the
development of others by focusing on professional development, personal growth,
mentorship opportunities.
The Social Exchange Theory describes reciprocity – the behavior of the leader causes
reciprocal behavior in the follower. In terms of servant leadership and employee effects, a
servant leadership style encourages employees to have sovereignty in their work. They are
empowered, supported, and encouraged. In return, there will be a moral commitment to
reciprocate positive behaviors and attitudes – they are more productive, feel more able to tap
into innovative thinking and give feedback to managers, suggest new ideas and solutions to
overcome work problems. The idea of reciprocal work behavior is also synonymous with
community behavior (“Increasing Innovation,” 2020). On the contrary, The Conservation of
Resource Theory implies that employees may also demonstrate behaviors that are self-serving
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 7
by investing in their own interests and in return, they need a positive work environment and
supportive leadership (“Increasing Innovation,” 2020).
Behaving Ethically is another character trait of the servant leader. Ethical climate
refers to “a group of prescriptive climates reflecting organizational practices with moral
consequences” and it is theorized that an ethical climate frames employee ethical decision
making (Shim & Park, 2018). Although social desirability, and demographic variables can
alter an employee’s perception of what ethical behavior is, it is important to note that the
employee will most likely mimic the ethical aptitude of the leader.
Paesen et al (2019) argues that empowerment, compared to emotional healing and
ethics have both positive effects on self and observed deviance. Employee deviances most
often observed include fraud, violence, corruption, and bullying. Employee deviancies can in
fact, be reduced with the implementation of authentic servant leadership (Paesen et al., 2019).
When the employees know that their manager operates ethically, the likeliness of the above-
mentioned deviances occurring are reduced.
Conclusion
The various contributions to the research of servant leadership varies by industry and
there has not proved to be a clear, universal definition on what servant leadership is.
However, the character of, the hypothesized outcomes of a servant leader and the positive
effects it may have on employees or followers prove to be standard throughout varying
scholarly articles. The overall strengths were the cause and effect of servant leaders on their
followers and the observation that this leadership style was one of its kind because it is a
leadership style that puts the needs of the follower before the needs of the leader. As an aside,
the weaknesses of the articles are the circular references to transformative and transactional
leadership. Being that servant leadership is a modernized ancient concept, and not a newly
developed leadership style, literature could benefit from having broader and more focused
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 8
pieces on servant leaders. More qualitative data on employee deviance, employee retention,
and morale in comparison to traditional leadership styles and that of servant leadership would
be beneficial in arguing that servant leadership is the most productive style.
Literature Review: Servant Leadership 9
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