Servant Leadership A Review of Literature

Running Head: SERVANT LEADERSHIP

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

Servant Leadership

Abstract

Over 100 research articles on servant leadership have been published in the past half a decade. However, lack of clarity and coherence on the subject matter has resulted in the development of its theory. This detailed, integrative research paper offers a conceptual clarity of servant leadership through critical leadership techniques and provides a completely new servant leadership definition. The paper evaluates servant leadership measures based on their validation and scale construction rigor. It also maps servant leadership’s nomological and theoretical network based on outcomes, antecedents, mediators, and moderators. Finally, the research paper also presents study limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research. The paper generally gives a holistic picture of servant leadership and the direction for future research.

Introduction

Evolutionary leadership biology indicates that humans evolve, evolution occurring over a long period, and most needs of the hunter-gather within people remain unfulfilled. Leaders in hunter-gather tribes were known to their tribesmen intimately; hence there was no difference between the public and private self (or the life) of a leader. Today, large bureaucratic companies with mobile employees dispersed worldwide have embedded the small, family-like, hunter-gatherer tribes into the organizations (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2010). However, the modern organization has failed to provide employees with a sense of tribal belonging that the human mind needs. Servant leadership has come in to fill this eminent gap. It gives followers a sense of social identity and creates kinship-like teams similar to those found in the societies of hunter-gatherers. Team members help and develop the capacity of each other.

Servant leadership can deliver leadership that can solve most modern workplace challenges while providing humans with a hunter-gatherer sense of belonging. This explains why Southwest Airlines and Starbucks continue to grow, calling for servant leadership research. Servant leadership is based on a holistic approach that engages the ethical, relational, spiritual, emotional, and other dimensions of leadership followers (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2010). The leadership approach empowers followers to grow to their maximum potential. Firstly, the leadership approach allows followers to grow based on their leaders’ ethical and altruistic orientations.

Servant leadership prioritizes followers’ growth and general well-being, making them more effective and engaged in their specific work (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2010). As organizations’ stewards, servant leaders are determined to grow the finances and resources of the company entrusted to them. Therefore, servant leaders emphasize their followers’ personal development without overlooking organizational performance expectations. Servant leadership, unlike leadership approaches based on performance, focuses on long-term sustainable performance. The leadership approaches based on performance promote organizational growth and profit at the expense of the people.

Servant leadership research is grouped into three stages: conceptual development, measurement phase, and analysis of servant leadership against outcomes (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2010). The third phase, the model development stage, involves complex research designs that do not just look into essential servant leadership relationships with outcomes but also cover mediating mechanisms, antecedents, and boundary circumstances around this type of leadership. Since the pioneering Graham (1991) foundation research on servant leadership theory development, research has theoretically, and empirically differentiated servant leadership from other leadership approaches. Lack of clarity and coherence in the servant leadership subject despite a surging academic interest also informs the purpose of this research.

Research on servant leadership has been done across multiple disciplines, including top-tier management, education, nursing, youth, tourism, public, and not-for-profit sectors, and appeared in respective journals. Decades of research across multiple disciplines have advanced the servant leadership theory, but the fragmented studies are not integrated (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2010). The existing measures of servant leadership are yet to be assessed. This research paper evaluates the measures to form a basis for future research on servant leadership measures. The paper also seeks to review servant leadership vs. outcomes due to the significance of this relationship. Generally, the paper discusses the positioning of servant leadership in the leadership theories network, providing a clear servant leadership definition. The paper also discusses and evaluates servant leadership research design and measurements and evaluates empirical servant leadership work to map the nomological network based on antecedents, theories, outcomes, and the construct mechanisms. Finally, the paper discusses limitations and implications and suggests empirical and theoretical advancements for future research.

An Understanding and Definition of Servant Leadership in Literature of Leadership

Although there is an increase in leadership theories, no evidence exists to show that each theory empirically and theoretically differs from its predecessors. Some studies have provided empirical evidence to support servant leadership’s rising validity over other forms of leadership (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). However, it is difficult to determine this due to limitations of existing research studies such as measurement error, endogeneity bias, and bias of standard methods. Other limitations include relatively low sample sizes adopted in meta-analyses and the small number of research studies. Empirical and theoretical arguments showcase how servant leadership is different from ethical, transformational, and authentic leadership.

Servant leadership separation and conceptual grouping address the problem of unrationalized categorization. It eliminates the wrong assumption that this form of leadership is similar to other leadership techniques based on value (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). Servant leadership differs conceptually from transformational leadership. For example, it focuses more on followers’ psychological needs as a goal on its own. On the converse, transformational leadership considers the need to be less critical to the goals of an organization.

A common overlap between the two types of leadership is that they both emphasize the needs of followers. However, they differ qualitatively regarding why the focus is emphasized and where it is positioned relative to other vital factors in a company. The aim of transformational leadership to emphasize the needs of followers is purposed to help the organization attain better its objectives and goals (a means to reaching an end goal). However, servant leaders focus on followers’ multidimensional development as an ultimate goal. When servant leaders focus on meeting their followers’ needs, the company’s goals are eventually met as a by-product or result of satisfying those needs over time (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). Unlike transformational leaders, servant leaders have a higher chance of prioritizing the needs of followers as the focus of their leadership, followed by those of the organization, and their own would be fulfilled last.

Servant leadership, just like authentic leadership, acknowledges the essence of being accurate and authentic when interacting with other people in the same organization. However, the need for servant leaders to work from a deep sense of self-control and self-awareness emanates from their altruistic and spiritual need to serve their followers, not present in authentic forms of leadership. Servant leaders are motivated by an inner conviction or higher calling to be authentic in their leadership, to serve others, and make a difference in their lives (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). In comparison to ethical leadership, servant leadership adopts stewardship as a critical part of effective leadership, focusing on long-term views with all stakeholders.

According to ethical leadership theory, the behavior of leaders is more prescriptive and aligned with rules to follow based on what a leader’s innate ethical rules deem reasonable. However, the behavior of servant leaders is more contingent and flexible, putting both the needs of the organization and followers in perspective. On the other hand, ethical leadership focuses on being trustworthy, honest, and caring for people. However, it puts little emphasis on directing followers and authenticity. Servant leadership, unlike transformational leadership, can predict the outcomes of followers (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). It can offer up to 12% greater incremental variance on follower outcomes than transformational leadership approaches. On the other hand, ethical leadership offers an outcome variance of 6.2% and authentic leadership of 5.2%.

There is a need for further research to differentiate servant leadership from other forms of leadership theories empirically. However, servant leadership is conceptually different from other leadership approaches based on its overarching objective and motive. Researchers must use more robust techniques to analyze how servant leadership is different empirically from other theories of leadership (Barbuto Jr, Gottfredson & Searle, 2014). There is also a need to determine servant leadership’s predictive or incremental validity over other theories of leadership. Moreover, further analysis would determine whether the difference in leadership approaches’ focus would impact how they predict outcomes.

Definition of Servant Leadership

A servant leader has the natural feeling to serve followers first. The leader is a servant first before being a leader. The leader chooses consciously to lead. Servant leadership is an approach oriented towards others. It involves a leader prioritizing the interests and needs of individual followers and reorienting personal concerns towards others within the same organization or community (Barnes et al., 2015). Based on the definition, the motive of servant leadership is the “Servant-first” element that stems outside a leader, hence the other-oriented approach. Unlike other leadership approaches, the servant leader is motivated from within to take up leadership roles. The orientation to serve others showcases the leader’s conviction, resolve, or belief that leading followers is a way to move from self-orientation.

On the contrary, other leadership approaches emphasize leaders are advancing their agenda or ambition. A servant leader’s self-concept as a moral, altruist person drives their resolve to serve their followers. A servant leader is not necessarily friendly or courteous but has a strong sense of character, self, and psychological maturity (Barnes et al., 2015). Anyone not willing to serve others is not fit to become a servant leader. Servant leadership recognizes that every follower is unique and has distinct interests, needs, goals, desires, limitations, and strengths. The relationship between a leader and followers takes varying forms despite organizational systems and policies to ascertain equity. This is the servant leadership model that puts others first before self.

Servant leadership involves understanding the core values, background, assumptions, beliefs, and characteristic behaviors of followers, blurring the line between a leader’s personal and professional life. Unlike other leadership approaches, servant leaders aim to help followers grow in various areas, including emotional maturity, psychological well-being, and ethical wisdom (Barnes et al., 2015). Other leadership approaches focus on advancing the bottom line of the organization both financially and in non-financial areas. The focus of servant leadership aligns with stewardship, meaning the servant leader is a steward responsible for treating individual followers under them to reach higher heights and better themselves. In turn, followers consider their servant leaders as trustworthy persons.

The servant leadership mindset reorients self-concern towards others within the same community or organization. The mindset is that of a trustee. The servant-leader deliberately emphasizes the development of followers due to a general concern for the larger organization or community. The leaders are also dedicated to being accountable for followers’ general well-being. They believe that individuals among their followers have been entrusted to them for care, hence the stewardship notion (Barnes et al., 2015). Servant leaders, as trustees, ensure that organizational resources and followers entrusted to them develop and grow responsibly. Moving from self-service to other-serving orientation, servant leadership empowers followers to be productive. The leaders are pro-social catalysts with the ability to impact the lives of others positively.

Servant leaders change the social world’s broken structures within their environment of operation. The motive, mode, and mindset aspects of servant leadership discussed above help give a precise understanding of this form of leadership approach (Barnes et al., 2015). Whether focused on the spiritual, ethical, communal, or all aspects of servant leadership, it is clearly about others (not the leader), involves personal interactions between followers and leaders, and includes an overarching concern for followers’ general well-being (the organization or community at hand). This paper’s definition of servant leadership can inform future research in creating a detailed servant leadership theory.

Servant Leadership Measures and Research Design

Measures

Servant leadership research measures are about 16 in number. The 7–item composite of the Servant Leadership measure (SL-7) incorporates a servant leader’s genuine and conscious concern to develop a value for both followers and the community around the organization. It includes how a servant leader encourages followers to actively participate in community activities (Butler Jr, 1991). The leader gives back to the community as reflected in the dimension that focuses on the community. Moreover, the SL-7 includes a distinct dimension based on competencies, such as conceptual skills and character. This measure is ideal for community-based outcome variables or competencies based on cognitive skills or aspects of the organization. The global servant leadership measure, SL-7, is straightforward to use alongside other measures because it only has seven items.

The 6-item composite of the Servant Leadership Behavior Scale (SLBS-6) maintains the factorial structure and hierarchical model of the original SLBS-35 measure, but at a higher order. The spiritual dimension of this measure differentiates it and renders servant leadership genuinely holistic. The inclusion of spirituality showcases initial, and subsequent theories stating that servant leadership depends on humility and spiritual insights into significant sources of influence (Butler Jr, 1991). The measure is ideal for studies that focus on the spiritual aspect of servant leadership. Just like SL-7, SLBS-6 is short and easy to employ. They deliver consistent psychometric properties, unlike if items are dropped from or added to a scale. They also accurately capture the importance of the entire measures, making them ideal for global or general servant leadership studies.

The complete scales, SLBS-35 and SL-28, are ideal for separately assessing the dimensions of servant leadership to determine their reliability and improve their validity. Short measures are not ideal for dimensional analysis. The 30-item Servant Leadership Survey is ideal for dimensional analysis (Butler Jr, 1991). The Survey features 30 items representative of eight servant leadership dimensions: forgiveness, standing back, empowerment, courage, authenticity, stewardship, accountability, and humility. It is longer than the first couple of measures and considers the relationship between the “leader” -side and the “servant-side” side of servant leadership.

The model showcases that servant leaders empower people and help them develop while holding them accountable for their work outcomes. The measure shows that servant leaders are open to learning, humble, and willing to admit their mistakes. They also stand for their innate values and emphasize the general good of everyone in the organization. The shorter, 18-item version of this measure showcases cross-cultural factorial stability (Butler Jr, 1991). Servant leadership measures inherently emphasize the leader-follower hierarchical dyad. However, alternate structures have come up and resulted in non-traditional scenarios surrounding leaders and their followers. A good example is the adoption of shared leadership in medicine, education, and volunteer or not-for-profit organizations.

Existing servant leadership measures can be restructured to reflect the shared, reliable and valid way of organization. For example, a 15-item shared measure can be derived from the 30-item SLS measure. It changes from rating the servant leader to rating other team members, and only team-member items are maintained, not leader-follower items. In this case, a leader is changed to a team member. The servant leadership measure can also be altered to accurately capture distinct scenarios or settings, such as a non-traditional leadership form (Butler Jr, 1991). Referent-shift consensus models and re-validating measures of servant leadership are ideal for confirmatory or exploratory analysis of factors. Irrelevant items may be dropped after performing appropriate psychometric re-analyses. SL-7, SLBS-6, and SLS are the most recommended servant leadership measures.

Research Design

The qualitative servant leadership research design makes use of focus groups, interviews, and observations. The data collection methods are easy to use and analyze (Creswell & Clark, 2017). Interviews allow researchers to collect data from small subject groups on a wide range of topics such as servant leadership. Just like structured questionnaires, structured interviews feature questions listed for each subject, with multiple choice answers to ease response collection. Interviews keep the process of data collection focused, depending on the researcher’s skill level. The interviewer controls the interview process, keeping the interviewees focused and tracking the process to finish giving responses to questions (Creswell & Clark, 2017). It gives control of the flow and order of questions.

Interviews help researchers obtain detailed information about the study respondents’ perceptions, feelings, and opinions (Creswell & Clark, 2017). They deliver a high response rate, allow more detailed questions to be used, and record the exact words of respondents. As a result, interviews are reliable and accurate data collection methods. Primary sources were mainly used for data collection. They are specific, authentic, and provide up-to-date information. Unlike secondary data sources, primary data is costly and time-consuming.

Objective data collected directly from its source renders primary data sources reliable. The information collected about a research topic, such as servant leadership, is up-to-date. In comparison to secondary data, primary data sources like interviews are reliable and provide accurate information (Ehrhart, 1998). This is attributed to the fact that secondary data sources are subject to personal bias, atop lack of regulation. The converse is true about primary data sources used in this research paper.

The research sought to determine how servant leadership is presented in an organization, atop being informed by relevant theories (Ehrhart, 1998). However, mixed-method research design uses organizational surveys coupled with follow-up interviews to understand the servant leadership phenomenon better. There is a need for more servant leadership studies to be informed by theories. Servant leaders and their followers in different organizations and work settings were interviewed to provide accurate information for this research.

Nomological Network of Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership Theories

Servant leadership theoretical frameworks are mainly drawn from social-based theories. Based on the reciprocity norm, the social exchange theory explains that servant leaders and their followers offer essential support and resources to each other in exchange for those obtained from the dyadic relationship (Eisenberger et al., 1986). This means that followers feel obliged to reciprocate the development and growth support they receive from their servant leaders. As an example, the social exchange theory shows how servant leaders improve followers’ organizational or helping behaviors as citizens. They also enhance their commitment through techniques of mediation such as justice and trust.

The social exchange theory gives a reasonable research basis, but behavioral theories support servant leadership conceptualization. Behavioral theories change the behaviors and mindset of followers in the long term instead of short-term outcomes (Eisenberger et al., 1986). The theory explains that servant leaders can easily change followers into servant leaders. Social identity and social learning theories explain that servant leaders develop changing effects on their followers, transforming their behaviors and mindsets. According to the social learning theory, employees who perceive their leaders as credible role models in their company tend to observe and mimic their values, attitudes, and behaviors. Servant leaders are motivated to serve others and act altruistically without any expectations in return; hence they are likely to be perceived as credible role models in organizations.

The social learning theory uses the role modeling procedure to showcase how servant leaders adopt positive team environments such as a knowledge-sharing or service climate to impact creativity, innovation, and performance. On the other hand, the social identity theory showcases how servant leaders create strong employee-leader bonds based on their authentic and follower-focused nature. As a result, they make followers or employees feel like partners in the company (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Employees or followers eventually engage in beneficial behaviors once they self-identify with the organization or group. For example, servant leaders improve how followers identify with the organization, the leader, and the team, thereby reducing burnout and improving OCBs, including employee voice.

Servant Leadership Antecedents

A servant leader’s antecedent behavior includes team and organizational policies, culture, influences from the leader, including demographics such as sex and personality of the leader. Apart from the characteristics of the servant leader, particular behaviors, attitudes, and situational influences can also determine servant leadership antecedents (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Leaders report on their personality, and followers rate their leaders’ servant leadership behaviors to determine the impact of leaders’ personalities on their servant leadership behaviors. Leaders low on extraversion, high in agreeableness, high in mindfulness, high in core self-evaluation, and low in narcissism levels show higher servant leadership levels. Servant leadership behaviors are also linked to organizational identification.

Although no evidence links servant leadership with emotional intelligence, leaders who are less extroverted, more agreeable, strongly identify with their organizations, and exhibit a strong sense of self-confidence increasingly exemplify the behaviors of servant leaders. Existing evidence shows that the personality of a leader relates to servant leadership to a limited extent (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Compared to their male counterparts, female leaders showcase emotional healing, altruistic calling, and organizational stewardship behaviors in terms of sex weighed as a dichotomy. The female leaders are also more likely to possess altruistic and service values, resembling those of servant leadership. Therefore, female leaders are more likely to exemplify servant leadership behaviors than their male counterparts. There is a need for future studies to assess the relationship between a leader’s sex, age, tenure, and education, and servant leadership in developing a more holistic image of servant leadership and sex.

Servant Leadership Outcomes

Existing evidence shows organizational and group-level outcomes of servant leadership, including how servant leaders impact follower behavioral outcomes and the processes behind the relationships. The servant leadership nomological network shows the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and servant leadership. The relationship includes OCB with an emphasis on customers, the community, and co-workers. Similarly, servant leadership is also positively associated with collaboration among nurses, helping behaviors, proactive behavior, and self-rated corporate social responsibility (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Moreover, servant leadership is negatively linked to lower employee deviance levels and followers’ avoidance of taking up leadership responsibilities. Helping behaviors and OCB are relevant servant leadership outcomes due to servant leaders’ innate motivation to engage in OCB and showcase altruism. Similarly, the servant leadership “acid test” shows that servant leadership results in followers likely to serve the people around them, including their organization at large.

Servant leadership’s developmental and holistic nature positively links it to a more general range of attitudinal job outcomes. They include job satisfaction, employee engagement, perceptions of meaningful work, thriving at work, and the psychological well-being of followers (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Servant leadership also negatively links ego-depletion and emotional exhaustion, job boredom, cynicism, and turnover intention. It also impacts employees’ or followers’ perception of family support and work-life balance, including reducing work-family conflicts. Evidence also shows that employees also increasingly perceive their organization positively due to servant leadership influence. This includes increased perceived person-organization fit levels and organizational identification levels. As a result, servant leadership positively impacts employees’ dedication to change, including the commitment to the organization.

Servant leadership has a positive relationship with multiple performance levels as showcased through team, employee, and organizational performance. It also impacts innovation-based outcomes and sharing of knowledge among followers or employees. Moreover, servant leadership and customer-based performance outcomes trickle down to customer satisfaction, quality of customer service, customer-based pro-social behavior, customer service performance, and co-creation of customer values (Gagné & Deci, 2005). This form of leadership also affects relational outcomes (leader-related outcomes) such as the quality of leader-follower relationships, perceived leader integrity and effectiveness, and trust perceptions in the servant leader. It also impacts team-level OCB, service-oriented OCB, person- and task-focused OCB, and conscientiousness- and helping-focused OCB at the team level. Servant leaders also influence store and team performance levels. Moreover, it positively impacts team psychological safety, team effectiveness levels, team innovation, and team creativity. Increased organizational commitment, service climate, and operational performance also result from servant leadership at the organizational level.

Servant Leadership Moderators

Servant leadership operates at certain boundary conditions. The industry (intensity of competition and uncertainty of the environment), followers’ or employees’ perception of the general organizational culture, and the organization’s structure (ethical behaviors, CSR, etc.) impact servant leadership effectiveness on organizational performance at the organization level. Followers’ creativity, organizational identification, job satisfaction, and knowledge sharing at the organizational level also influence servant leadership (Graham, 1991). The team’s view of caring, ethical climate, and power distance are other servant leadership moderators that affect it at the team level. They also enhance performance and efficiency at the team level.

The leader-follower relationship is also a common servant leadership moderator that assesses trust, LMX, and interactions between followers and leaders. Followers’ beliefs (collectivism, ideal leader prototype, etc.), personality (extraversion, proactive personality, etc.), and experience (inexperience, tenure, etc.) moderate followers’ attitudes (satisfaction, psychological contract, etc.) and behaviors such as OCB. Multiple and objective ratings, including individual ratings of organizational and team climate, help obtain team and organizational outcomes in servant leadership (Graham, 1991). As a moderator, servant leadership itself can strengthen the process-clarity-goal relationship with team potency. However, it weakens the link between turnover and emotional exhaustion.

Insignificant Findings

Whereas the mediation paths in servant leadership research are important, the paths of moderation are not. Climate or organizational variables such as organizational structure, environmental uncertainty, group competition climate, procedural justice climate, and innovation support make up insignificant research moderators. Sometimes, one path of mediation is insignificant in a larger model with many paths for mediation. For example, service climate fails to mediate servant leadership against follower disengagement and performance (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Similarly, psychological empowerment fails to mediate servant leadership against OCB. However, the same variables successfully mediate servant leadership against alternative outcomes. In this case, service climate mediates servant leadership for better performance, and psychological empowerment mediates this leadership approach against employees’ engagement.

Discerning meaning from insignificant findings is not easy due to their low research value. Insignificant moderators at the organizational level show that the impact of servant leadership on employees or followers may not be influenced by distal organizational processes, policies, and environments. In contrast, servant leaders develop strong team cultures based on service. Moreover, mediation model findings without supporting evidence occur when other factors such as competing mediators or leader personality minimize the impact of insignificant mediators (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). As a result, there is a need for servant leadership researchers to include competing mediators in research designs, more so those already proven to mediate servant leadership link to the specific dependent variable. Future research should include and report insignificant findings to help develop a more detailed understanding of the impact of servant leadership.

Research Limitations

Servant leadership research has room for theoretical advancement. Studies are currently limited to social learning, social exchange, and social identity theories. The theories are important when explaining the processes involved when servant leadership impacts followers’ behavior (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). However, there is a need for extra theoretical views as servant leadership research moves beyond servant leadership to follower outcomes to boundary conditions and other research variables such as servant leadership antecedents and the impact of servant leadership on leaders. The conservation of resources theory, situational strength theory, and self-determination theory can extend the servant leadership theoretical framework in future studies. They can widen the nomological network linked to servant leadership for new empirical avenues.

The conservation of resources theory (COR) can explain the effects of using a servant leadership approach on servant leaders. It can also make it easy to understand how the negative effects of adopting servant leadership can be minimized to improve positive outcomes. The theory argues that individual followers or employees who seek to get resources such as supportive leaders, supportive work practices, and feedback prevent loss of resources (a factor linked to negative outcomes such as burnout, stress, mental illness, etc.). Leaders create different relationships of varying quality due to the availability of insufficient resources required to develop high-quality relations with their employees or followers (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). On the contrary, servant leaders are expected to develop quality relationships with their employees or followers. Servant leadership presents moderate to high-quality leader-follower relationships. This shows that servant leaders tend to form high-quality leader-follower relationships because they merely differentiate themselves from their teams.

With a lack of enough resources, servant leaders cannot offer their followers the support they need to maintain high-quality leader-follower relationships. The job demands-resources (JD-R) model often adopted within the COR theory would help explain the balance between job resources such as feedback and employees’ job demands such as workload. Due to servant leadership’s nature to focus more on followers than other leadership approaches, this model would increase servant leaders’ emotional and physical demands (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). This is attributed to the time leaders spend with their followers, including the emotional energy used on their employees. The result would be a positive link between servant leadership behaviors presented and the stress, burnout, and other health outcomes the leader experiences.

On the contrary, servant leaders may obtain resources such as pride, self-actualization, and better general well-being from offering other team members the support and help they need (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Evidence shows that the resources gained through servant leadership far outweigh the negative impacts of resource loss resulting from the same leadership approach. The link between servant leadership and the impact on servant leaders is complex and difficult to understand, hence the need for further research. The role of organizations in supporting servant leadership is also unknown. The impact of organizational culture on providing resources that servant leaders need to help or support their employees is key. Servant leadership based on cultural values that are not in line with servant leadership, such as aggressiveness, would be difficult. This is unlike leading in an organization with cultural values aligned with servant leadership, such as serving others or respecting everyone.

Organizations with a culture that involves respect for everyone would be highly rated among employees in terms of organizational support, meaning there is a good flow of required resources. Leaders working in organizations with cultures that align with servant leadership have a higher chance of receiving organizational support, including job security, chances for professional development, and social support (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). The COR theory shows that this kind of support allows servant leaders to access the resources they require to satisfy their goals and ambitions. They can fulfill the needs of their followers, helping them to reach their maximum potential. Essentially, the organizations offer enough resources to servant leaders, allowing them to invest in their followers.

Moreover, investing in followers can be perceived as a resource gain or loss because leaders can develop followers who engage in information-sharing among term members (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). The followers also become more adaptive and proactive and experience lower burnout and emotional exhaustion levels. Additionally, followers would be able to help servant leaders with their leadership work responsibilities. Due to the intrinsic pride and satisfaction of making a difference in employees’ lives, investing in followers is a resource gain for servant leaders. There is a need for future research to assess culture and perceived organizational support in terms of developing a conducive environment for servant leadership. COR theory would be an ideal theoretical framework for evaluating the role of organizations in finding out what resources are accessible to servant leaders.

Situational strength theory can help explain how the organization, team, and social climate affect the link between servant leadership and outcomes through multi-level research on servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977). The theory shows the psychological pressure exerted on followers or employees to refrain from or engage in a specific behavior. The theory provides a unique perspective in servant leadership to help explain how situational challenges such as situational ambiguity and occupational attributes may attenuate or improve the impact of servant leaders on teams, organizations, and individuals. The theory can help researchers in future studies solve concerns such as the lack of boundary context and conditions in research on servant leadership. There is a need to study the moderating factors that change servant leadership’s impact.

On the other hand, the self-determination theory (SDT) helps evaluate how servant leaders can meet the needs of their employees or followers. The theory is beneficial in assessing servant leadership antecedents as a framework. It would be necessary for filling the existing research gap in better-understanding servant leadership antecedents that ensue from lack of a guiding theory that may offer the focus necessary to close this gap.

Another limitation and point for advancement is the servant leadership measurement. Although servant leadership has multiple measures, it is assumed that a series of items rated by followers on a Likert scale fully reflects the sophisticated phenomenon. Leadership studies on other approaches such as charismatic leadership have challenged the follow-rated questionnaires, but servant leadership is yet to do so. Statistical processes in leadership continue to advance, and there is a need for servant leadership measures to progress, evolve and grow. Servant leadership research also generally lacks experimental designs (Greenleaf, 1977). Most researchers can use student samples, online panels, and general participants to evaluate the impact of servant leadership in controlled environments instead of engaging in field experiments. The servant-leader can be manipulated in terms of low or high servant leadership behaviors, or comparing it with other approaches of leadership such as ethical, transformational, or authentic leadership, to provide causal findings’ validity.

As an alternative to surveys, eye tracking can make the behaviors of followers easier to understand for analysis purposes, especially in research on eye-tracking and management. Eye-tracking can help evaluate followers’ emotional arousal towards their servant leaders via the pupil diameter in servant leadership research. Assessing followers’ eye position and number of fixations can help determine employees’ attention patterns and the attention focused on servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1977). Acting as a moderator of weak vs. strong eye fixation, eye tracking can impact servant leadership’s receptivity. Moreover, analyzing eye fixations of the servant leaders in terms of count and duration helps determine how eye contact affects servant leadership. Eye-tracking is beneficial to servant leadership, but this leadership approach needs to be measured by study participants or transformed by researchers.

Another limitation is existing design weaknesses. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research studies can address existing design limitations in servant leadership studies. Integrated research designs enable researchers to respond to applied research questions (Greenleaf, 1977). As an example, the questions would include “how servant leaders are responsible for creating other servant leaders” and “how servant leadership affects followers during the critical change in an organization. Mixed research methods allow researchers to consider how the components of quantitative and qualitative studies interact. For instance, gathering data for “how servant leadership impacts followers during a critical change,” researchers may opt to pair interviews and experience sampling methodology (ESM). The sampling methodology would be adopted to emphasize servant leadership and the general well-being of variables. The use of interviews would help assess the missing “why” element in the relationship. Data would be collected simultaneously, qualitative research findings prioritized, and data mixed during findings interpretation.

The existing survey design used in servant leadership research is weak and needs improvement. Servant leadership research has over-relied on self-reports, making research findings questionable. What’s more, most of those servant leadership studies have failed to solve endogeneity problems within their study design. Previous researchers have tried to enhance efforts towards survey design in the field of leadership (Greenleaf, 1977). If survey design is the most appropriate research design for questions, various techniques can be adopted to improve or strengthen existing servant leadership research designs. Data is collected from many time points in the design phase to develop servant leadership antecedents and outcomes from multiple sources to eliminate common method bias.

The experience sampling methodology (ESM) would allow longitudinal research designs to be deployed. This allows researchers to consistently sample their respondents’ instant experiences as followers in their natural setting. Employee ESM would often be deployed to survey study participants every couple of hours up to daily across 1 to 2 weeks. Furthermore, researchers would use ESM to safeguard against common method bias often linked to memory bias and cross-sectional survey designs (Greenleaf, 1977). However, followers have to recall particular behaviors. Future studies should include multiple competing variables within the research design to showcase the true impact of servant leadership.

Implications of Servant Leadership Research

More than 200 research studies have been conducted on servant leadership, providing enough advice for practitioners. The evidence includes consistent positive links between servant leadership and related valued outcomes at the organization (such as return on investment, customer satisfaction, etc.), individual (task performance, behaviors of individual citizenship, creativity), and team level (performance and potency of the team). They would provide strong evidence to support the process of training and choosing leaders who have adopted servant leadership practices (Greenleaf, 1977). This is true even when controlling common leadership forms such as LMX and transformational. Servant leadership is ideal for organizations with the desire to achieve growth profiles in the long term. The practices are designed to benefit all stakeholders.

Servant leadership needs to impact organizational outcomes indirectly, hence the need for practitioners to understand this concept. Leaders are empowered to emphasize offering followers the things they need to reach their full potential. They are also empowered to handle personal decisions and tasks individually. Servant leaders adapt to the culture of serving others and communal sharing (Greenleaf, 1977). Employees serve customers well with such a culture in place. Organizational loyalty results from customers’ satisfaction, promotive voice, and repeat purchases, driving higher stock prices and the growth of revenues. In addition to servant leadership benefits, practitioners need to prepare for a great effort to build servant leadership culture, beginning with servant leaders as role models.

When leaders prioritize and meet the needs of their followers, the survival instincts of humans are countered and driven based on self-interest. Servant leaders require discipline to lower these instincts within them via role-modeling. They also minimize them within their employees via sharing of encouragement and assisting their followers. Servant leadership needs ongoing and deliberate practice to maintain its orientation because it is hard to master. The resulting benefits of creating strong mutual trust bonds between servant leaders and their employees are beneficial for the organization, making servant leadership worthwhile. Employees are inspired to develop behaviors that can be helpful to customers, their colleagues, and the entire organization (Greenleaf, 1977).