Critically evaluate the contribution of the servant leadership perspective to the understanding of leadership in organisations
Recent leadership-related studies have suggested that positive leadership, including the three moral forms of leadership (i.e., ethical, authentic, and servant leadership), is gradually being considered necessary for organisational success (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018).
Aligning with the growing popularity of the concept of servant leadership, this article will specifically focus on the evaluation of how servant leadership uniquely contributes to the understanding of leadership in organisations, while evidence of servant leadership will be examined, followed by a critique of research on this particular leadership style.
Defining Servant Leadership
Servant leadership, in general, is a moral form of leadership in which the goal of the leader is to serve (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). The term ‘servant’ leadership is first coined by Greenleaf in 1970 while he was observing how employees and managers interact at work (Frick, 2004). Greenleaf later identified that ‘the servant leader is the servant first… [he or she] makes sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served…’ (Greenleaf, 1977: p. 13).
However, Greenleaf’s original definition of servant leadership has led to criticism for lacking specificities and its emphasis on servant leadership as a way of life, which is difficult to be empirically measured (Parris & Peachey, 2013). After systematic review of servant leadership studies, a further definition is proposed that servant leadership is an (1) other-oriented approach to leadership that (2) manifests through one-on-one prioritising of followers’ individual needs and interests, and (3) outward reorienting of their concern for self towards concern for others within the organisation and the larger community (Eva, Robin, Sendjava, & van Dierendonk, 2019: p. 116).
According to this integrative review, researchers identified the motive, mode, and mindset of servant leadership respectively. The motive of a servant leader indicates that he or she possesses the motivation of taking the responsibility as a leader who cares about others, whereas in servant leadership, the mode implies that servant leaders lead by prioritising the followers’ needs. Finally, the mindset of servant leadership urges leaders to reorient their followers’ concerns to the broader communities that are internal and external to the organisation (Eva et al., 2019).
What Servant Leadership Tells Us about Leadership
While positive leadership is greatly dominated by transformational leadership for recent studies, researchers have proposed theoretical justification that servant leadership is distinct and should be incorporated into the current concept of transformational leadership to achieve optimal organisational outcomes (Hoch et al., 2018). For example, although servant leadership shares similar features with transformational leadership such as trust, credibility, and service, it prioritises the needs of the subordinates themselves rather than focusing on inspiring employees to fulfil organisational goals (Bass, 2000).
On the other hand, an integrative review of the moral forms of leadership style argued that commonalities among servant, ethical, and authentic leadership’s effects are more considerable than their differences (Lemoine, Hartnell, & Leroy, 2016). The similarities may result from the undifferentiated measurement items between the three leadership styles and the common theories (i.e., social exchange and social learning theory) used to interpret their effects (Lemoine et al., 2016). For example, both servant leadership and ethical leadership feature concerns for their followers (Lemoine et al., 2016). While ethical leaders are theorised to be driven by viewing protecting followers as a resource to promote personal gain, servant leaders may do so to fulfil their followers’ needs.
As for servant leadership and authentic leadership, developing followers is reported to be a commonality (Lemoine et al., 2016). Servant leaders may enhance followers’ growth by empowering them to participate in important decisions, whereas authentic leaders may encourage cross-level information-sharing that promotes relationship transparency (Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005).
Despite the overlaps in the three moral/ethical approaches, servant leadership is unique in its focus on ‘person (Ehrhart, 2004).’ According to Greenleaf, servant leadership is a style of leadership that values serving the needs (1998), which inspires servant leaders to show their care for their followers, the organisation, and even relevant communities (Reinke, 2004).
Based on this premise, later studies have identified some unique operationalisations of servant leadership such as putting others first, helping others grow and succeed, creating value for the community, emotional healing, and empowering others (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008). Accordingly, Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder theory has been uniquely adopted to explain the effect of servant leadership (Lemoine et al., 2016). Namely, servant leaders would extend their concerns beyond their followers, including the well-being of external stakeholders. Therefore, it is proposed that customer service behaviours and quality are unique outcomes of servant leadership (Lemoine et al., 2016).
Review of Evidence for Servant Leadership
Although there are few integrative reviews of servant leadership in an organisational setting, Parris and Peachey (2013) argued that servant leadership is a ‘tenable’ theory that could be explained through empirical evidence. The initial stage of the review of servant leadership includes measurement developments (e.g., Liden et al., 2008) and proposal of theoretical frameworks (Van Dierendonck, 2011), while not many studies specifically focus on empirical research (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Regarding the review of empirical evidence for servant leadership, this essay will specifically discuss two of the main themes of servant leadership research: Measurement development and outcomes of the implementation.
i. Measurements of Servant Leadership
Although many may argue that servant leadership is not conceptually distinct from transformational leadership, Hoch et al.’s meta-analysis (2018) reveals that there is only a moderate correlation between the two concepts (.52), which serves as evidence of empirical differentiation. With the belief of servant leadership as a unique form of leadership style, various measurements of servant leadership have been developed since Laub (1999). As shown in the table below, most measurement developments rely on extensive literature reviews and different forms of factor analysis (adapted from van Dierendonck, 2011).
Laub’s Organisational Leadership Assessment instrument (OLA) involves six dimensions initially, however, factor analysis shows that there are only two dimensions underlying (Smith, Montagno, & Kuzmenko, 2004). Despite the conceptual error, Laub’s measurement can still be used to decide to what degree servant leadership exists in an organisation (Smith et al., 2004). The Servant Leadership Scale, developed by Ehrhart (2004), is a one-dimensional instrument. Although this measurement, focusing on two aspects of servant leadership, is easy to adopt, its capability to distinguish between different dimensions of servant leadership is still questionable.
The measurements developed after Liden et al. (2008) have undergone different stages of factor analysis to confirm their initial proposal in terms of dimensions so that the accuracy of explaining the underlying mechanism has been improved. Although nine dimensions were proposed at the beginning of Liden et al.’s measurement, EFA and CFA both showed that there are seven dimensions (2008).
On the other hand, factor analysis of the measurement developed by Sendjaya et al. (2008) regrets fulfilling their initial assumption, yielding only one out of six of their proposed dimensions. Van Dierendonk and Nujiten (2011) later developed a six-dimensional instrument, which matches the six key characteristics of servant leadership, nonetheless, the range of internal consistency is relatively larger than the previous approaches.
Parris and Peachey’s (2013) empirical review of servant leadership studies reveals that for quantitative studies, Laub’s (1999) and Ehrhart’s (2004) instruments are the most popular measurements. Nonetheless, of the 27 studies they examined, 14 different measures have been used, and a majority of the studies include multiple measurement scales in their surveys. This phenomenon once again exemplifies the variety of definitions for servant leadership (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Namely, there is still no agreed operationalised measurement for servant leadership, which may result in the inconsistency of research.
ii. Outcomes of Servant Leadership
Servant leadership has been reported to have positive influences on behavioural outcomes such as job performance (Yang, Ming, Ma, & Huo, 2017), which is improved through leaders showing genuine concerns for followers’ well-being and prioritising their needs (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2014). In addition to job performance, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is also improved when servant leadership is performed (Liden et al., 2008). Regarding servant leadership’s definition of concerning followers’ needs in a one-on-one manner, the nurturing of the leader would encourage followers to treat others similarly.
As for attitudinal outcomes, servant leadership is found to be positively associated with job satisfaction and engagement (Chan & Mak, 2014). Servant leaders may promote their followers’ identification with him or her by serving their needs (Hoch et al., 2018). Once the employees’ job satisfaction is enhanced, their willingness to engage in work is likely to increase. On the other hand, through prioritising the needs of followers, servant leaders would assure employees of trust and belonging. By doing so, organisational commitment, an important indicator of employees’ bond with the organisation, would increase (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). In Hoch et al.’s (2018) study, servant leadership is found to explain an additional 15% incremental variance beyond transformational leadership when it comes to organisational commitment.
In addition, it is found that the overall team effectiveness can be improved through a servant-led environment, for a helping culture that increases leaders’ and followers’ trust can be established (Irving & Longbotham, 2007; Hu & Liden, 2011). Also, after a positive working environment is created, the trust and caring of the leaders can positively influence followers’ well-being (Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, & Chonko, 2008), which will also foster employees’ organisational commitment.
Critique of Research on Servant Leadership
Since Greenleaf (1977) first introduced the concept of servant leadership, the operationalised definition of servant leadership and the concept of ‘need to serve’ have been constantly debated. In this section, three major concerns of research on servant leadership would be presented and discussed, including the paradoxical combination of serving and leading, measurement limitation, and cross-cultural validity.
- Paradoxical combination of serving and leading
Although various studies have identified that servant leadership is known as the combination of serving and leading (e.g., Van Veirendonck, 2011; Hoch et al., 2018), the two concepts turn out to be quite contradicting. Without reaching a consensus on the definition of ‘serving,’ the development of the approaches to apply servant leadership practices in organisational settings may be ineffective due to ambiguity in its operationalisation.
Also, the divergent explanations of the combination of serving and leading may result in heterogeneity in the focus of the research. A meta-analytic study revealed that only a few outcomes of servant leadership have been examined in a consistent manner (Hoch et al., 2018). This may result from the obscurity of the concept of serving, thus contributing to the divided paths of investigations.
2. Measurement limitation
The second concern in servant leadership research is the prevalence of the utilisation of self-report single-response survey design. According to the integrative review conducted by Eva et al. (2019), most of the servant leadership studies fall under the category of quantitative and correlational field studies, which results in a questionable situation — can the complexity of servant leadership be captured through this relatively simple design?
This particular approach has led to the fact that most servant leadership studies actually focus on the ‘servant leadership outcomes,’ posing a lack of evidence on how servant leadership develops within an organisation and what antecedents are expected to influence its development. Besides, few experimental designs are being conducted in servant leadership research (Eva et al., 2019), which may result in uncertainty in its internal validity.
3. Cross-cultural generalisability
Last but not least, cross-cultural validity is a concern worth noticing in servant leadership research. Although servant leadership studies are being conducted across a variety of cultures, contexts, and themes (Parris & Peachey, 2013), different cultures’ interpretations of servant leadership may differ in terms of the cultural context. Besides, cultural context may play a significant role when developing servant leadership.
For example, Liu’s (2019) study reveals that servant leadership is influenced by wider cultural power structures, which implicitly determines who would become the servant leader. In her study, an Asian manager felt subordinated by white supremacist ideologies, despite his efforts of exercising servant leadership practices (Liu, 2019).
Therefore, it is plausible that the dynamics of servant leadership may be influenced by demographical and cultural factors, while this phenomenon would diminish the generalisability of servant leadership’s practical effect on organisations.
Conclusion
As critics argue whether there is a necessity to distinguish a novel leadership style that is tenable for organisational success, reviews of servant leadership research reveal that it is conceptually distinct from existing leadership styles (e.g., Hoch et al., 2018; Eva et al., 2019). However, various studies also suggest that research on servant leadership still needs to be more comprehensively explored due to the lack of consensus in its definition, measurement limitations, and external validity issues (e.g., Van Dierendonk, 2010; Eva et al., 2019; Liu, 2019).
Overall, it is of certainty that servant leadership has become an intriguing field of study in recent years. While investigating its effects on prospective organisational success is a key focus of servant leadership research, the aforementioned concerns are potential areas that worth examining further.
