Servant leadership is positioned as a new field of research for leadership scholars. This review deals with the historical background of servant leadership, its key characteristics, the available ...measurement tools, and the results of relevant studies that have been conducted so far. An overall conceptual model of servant leadership is presented. It is argued that leaders who combine their motivation to lead with a need to serve display servant leadership. Personal characteristics and culture are positioned alongside the motivational dimension. Servant leadership is demonstrated by empowering and developing people; by expressing humility, authenticity, interpersonal acceptance, and stewardship; and by providing direction. A high-quality dyadic relationship, trust, and fairness are expected to be the most important mediating processes to encourage self-actualization, positive job attitudes, performance, and a stronger organizational focus on sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
Servant leadership is increasingly gaining interest inside and outside academia. This article builds and extends current theorizing by describing the process that introduces compassionate love as a ...practical translation for the need to serve, which was positioned by Greenleaf (Servant leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, Paulist Press, New York, 1977) as the core of servant leadership. This article takes a virtues perspective and shows how servant leadership may encourage a more meaningful and optimal human functioning with a strong sense of community to current-day organizations. In essence, we propose that a leader's propensity for compassionate love will encourage a virtuous attitude in terms of humility, gratitude, forgiveness and altruism. This virtuous attitude will give rise to servant leadership behavior in terms of empowerment, authenticity, stewardship and providing direction.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a multi-dimensional instrument to measure servant leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach Based on an extensive ...literature review and expert judgment, 99 items were formulated. In three steps, using eight samples totaling 1571 persons from The Netherlands and the UK with a diverse occupational background, a combined exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis approach was used. This was followed by an analysis of the criterion-related validity. Findings The final result is an eight-dimensional measure of 30 items: the eight dimensions being: standing back, forgiveness, courage, empowerment, accountability, authenticity, humility, and stewardship. The internal consistency of the subscales is good. The results show that the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) has convergent validity with other leadership measures, and also adds unique elements to the leadership field. Evidence for criterion-related validity came from studies relating the eight dimensions to well-being and performance. Implications With this survey, a valid and reliable instrument to measure the essential elements of servant leadership has been introduced. Originality/Value The SLS is the first measure where the underlying factor structure was developed and confirmed across several field studies in two countries. It can be used in future studies to test the underlying premises of servant leadership theory. The SLS provides a clear picture of the key servant leadership qualities and shows where improvements can be made on the individual and organizational level; as such, it may also offer a valuable starting point for training and leadership development.
This meta‐analysis enhances our insight into the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving eudaemonic well‐being. The focal outcome of these interventions is Ryff's Scales of Psychological ...Well‐being. We summarized experimental studies and concluded whether a specific intervention approach improves individual positive functioning by assessing the six dimensions of psychological well‐being and the composite score of well‐being. Our study confirmed that eudaemonic well‐being can be improved. The strongest influence is seen in integral programs that link directly to Ryff's conceptual model. Breaking down to dimensional scores, existing interventions had the strongest influence on Environmental Mastery, Personal Growth, and Self‐Acceptance. The weakest influence was on Autonomy and Positive Relations with Others. Overall, our result is an important contribution to the well‐being literature in that it shows, more convincing than previous meta‐analyses due to its exclusive and comprehensive focus on Ryff's model, that psychological eudaemonic well‐being can be enhanced by targeted intervention programs.
Cultural diversity and team performance Nederveen Pieterse, Anne; Knippenberg, Daan van; Dierendonck, Dirk van
Academy of Management journal,
06/2013, Letnik:
56, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
As workforce diversity increases, knowledge of factors influencing whether cultural diversity results in team performance benefits is of growing importance. Complementing and extending earlier ...research, we develop and test theory about how achievement setting readily activates team member goal orientations that influence the diversity performance relationship. In two studies, we identify goal orientation as a moderator of the performance benefits of cultural diversity and team information elaboration as the underlying process. Cultural diversity is more positive for team performance when team members' learning approach orientation is high and performance avoidance orientation is low. This effect is exerted via team information elaboration.
PurposeThis article provides deeper insights into the measurement of servant leadership within the Chinese culture. Servant leadership is viewed as a responsible leadership style that is beneficial ...to organizations by awaking, engaging and developing employees and working from a sense of service and stewardship for the world with a long-term perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe paper consists of a survey study that examines the relationships between 5 servant leadership measures translated into Chinese and outcome measures using a sample of 463 participants.FindingsThe authors' results show that the five measures are very comparable. Although some differences exist, the combined conclusions from internal consistency, intercorrelations and correlations to outcome variables and factor analysis confirmed their overall commonality. A core group of 11 items is introduced as a potential scale to represent the underlying variance of all 55 items.Originality/valueThis study validates how the five instruments are grounded in the core aspects of servant leadership described by Robert Greenleaf, the service aspect of choosing to become a leader and the importance for a leader to give attention to the followers' personal growth, meaningful work and well-being.
Servant leadership and other ethical and moral approaches to leadership have been criticized for focusing on followers to the potential detriment of other stakeholders, specifically shareholders. ...With individual data collected from 485 respondents nested in 55 similar stores in a single company, within a large metropolitan area in France, we tested a multilevel model whereby servant leadership relates positively to business-unit performance measured by profit growth—a key indicator for shareholders—through the mediation of employee flourishing and revenue growth. With financial performance data collected approximately 15 months after servant leadership was measured, results supported the hypothesized relationships. At the individual level, this study also showed the association of servant leadership and employee flourishing to be negatively moderated by individual perceptions of power distance orientation: the weaker the power distance orientation, the stronger the influence of servant leadership on employee flourishing. Improving on prior studies that relied on data aggregated at the group level and proximal indicators of performance, this multilevel study sheds light on how servant leadership, a prominent form of ethically conscious leadership, may resolve the fundamental tension leaders face vis-à-vis the potentially diverging interests of their stakeholders.
PurposeThis study focuses on leadership in organizations where big data analytics (BDA) is an essential component of corporate strategy. While leadership researchers have conducted promising studies ...in the field of digital transformation, the impact of BDA on leadership is still unexplored.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on semi-structured interviews with 33 organizational leaders and subject-matter experts from various industries. Using a grounded theory approach, a framework is provided for the emergent field of BDA in leadership research.FindingsThe authors present a conceptual model comprising foundational competencies and higher order roles that are data analytical skills, data self-efficacy, problem spotter, influencer, knowledge facilitator, visionary and team leader.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses on BDA competency research emerging as an intersection between leadership research and information systems research. The authors encourage a longitudinal study to validate the findings.Practical implicationsThe authors provide a competency framework for organizational leaders. It serves as a guideline for leaders to best support the BDA initiatives of the organization. The competency framework can support recruiting, selection and leader promotion.Originality/valueThis study provides a novel BDA leadership competency framework with a unique combination of competencies and higher order roles.
There is a lack of consistent evidence that downsizing leads to improved financial performance. Lowered commitment after painful downsizing periods is identified as an important reason why downsizing ...does not show the intended long‐term effects. This paper provides a meta‐analytical overview of the impact of fairness on organizational commitment for survivors and victims after a downsizing operation. Among 37 samples (11,256 persons), a positive relationship was found between fairness and affective organizational commitment (ρ=0.40) for both survivors and victims. Three moderators of the fairness–commitment relationship were identified: (1) for survivors, procedural justice matters more than distributive justice; (2) the impact of fairness is stronger in countries with an individualistic (versus collectivistic) culture; (3) fairness matters more when mass layoff is initiated for profit maximization (versus economic necessity).
The purpose of this longitudinal study among 212 Dutch prison officers was to enhance insight into the nature of the relationship between empowering leader behavior and follower psychological ...empowerment. Empowerment was conceptualized as intrinsic task motivation, manifested in a set of 4 cognitions reflecting the individual's work‐role orientation. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling using a cross‐lagged panel design. The results showed that followers’ belief to be able to affect organizational outcomes (i.e., impact) at Time 1 was related to increased delegation by the leader 3 months later. Furthermore, followers’ perceptions of autonomy regarding initiation and regulation of one's own actions (i.e., self‐determination) at Time 1 was related to increased accountability by the leader 3 months later.
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