what are the qualities of a servant leader essay

The Essential Qualities of Servant Leadership

• October 28, 2021

Here we’ll summarize Greenleaf’s original ideas on servant leadership, recap what some others have added, and then add a few of our own thoughts.

Greenleaf’s Qualities of Servant Leadership

In “The Servant as Leader,” Greenleaf wrote (the bold italics are ours):

• “The servant-leader is servant first … Putting people first… That person is sharply different from the one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive…”
• “The very essence of leadership [is] going out ahead to show the way … The leader ventures to say, ‘I will go; come with me!’ while knowing that the path is uncertain, even dangerous.”
• “…clearly stating and restating the overarching purpose … [to] dream great dreams.”
• “ Stewardship … [to] elicit trust .”
• “Only a true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first .”
• “…uses power ethically, with persuasion as the preferred mode .”
• “… seeks consensus in group decisions.”
• “The art of withdrawal … reflection and silence.”
• “… accepts and empathizes … requires a tolerance of imperfection.”
• “ Foresight … a sense for the unknowable and [being] able to foresee the unforeseeable…”
• “ Awareness and perception ”: Leaders understand the reality that confronts them and act accordingly.
• “ Conceptualizing … to state and adjust goals, to evaluate, to analyze, and forsee the contingencies along the way.”
• “ Healing … between servant leader and [those] led is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something they share.”
• “ Community … [when] the liability of each for the other, and all for the one, is unlimited… It is a requirement of love .”

Servant Leadership Contributions from Others

Dr. Kent M. Keith , former CEO of the Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership (Asia), in The Case for Servant Leadership :

• “Servant leadership has a “ moral base. ”
• “ Self-awareness ” [emotional intelligence].
• “ Developing colleagues ”
• “ Finding meaning … Meaning comes from having a sense of purpose.”
• “ Coaching instead of controlling … Unleashing the energy and intelligence of others.”

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner , authors of The Leadership Challenge , said, “The more you control others, the more likely it is that they will rebel.”

Author Margaret Wheatley said, “Servant-leaders participate, guide, coach, and facilitate.”

Joseph J. DiStefano , author and university professor, noted other themes throughout Greenleaf’s life which are qualities of a servant leader, including:

• “ Readiness and preparation ” through constant learning and seeking.
• “ Patience, faith, and humility ” to let clear insights emerge from the deep dive into the exploration.
• One’s ability to “ synthesize ” complex ideas clearly.

Max DePree , chairman of Herman Miller Company and author of Leadership Is an Art and Leadership Jazz: The Essential Elements of a Great Leader , cited other essential qualities of the servant leader: integrity, vulnerability, discernment, courage in relationships, and comfort with ambiguity.

10 Characteristics of a Servant Leader

Larry C. Spears , Michele Lawrence , and Ken Blanchard in Focus on Leadership: Servant-Leadership for the Twenty-First Century , synthesizing the work of Robert Greenleaf with ten characteristics of a servant leader:

• Listening: acknowledging the viewpoint of followers and validating these perspectives
• Empathy : standing in the shoes of others and seeing things from their point of view
• Healing: in helping followers become whole, servant leaders are themselves healed
• Awareness: understanding oneself and the impact one has on others
• Persuasion: creating change through gentle, nonjudgmental argument
• Conceptualization: being a visionary for an organization
• Foresight: predicting what is coming based on the present and the past
• Stewardship : carefully managing the people and organization, and holding the organization in trust for the greater good of society
• Commitment to the Growth of People : treating followers as unique and worthy, with intrinsic value beyond what they contribute to the organization.
• Building Community: allowing followers to identify with something greater than themselves

Our Thoughts on the Essential Qualities of Servant Leadership

To lead well as a servant leader, l ead yourself first and begin with the “inside-first . ” Build your ethical foundation. Define your personal values—they are your moral compass. Genuinely care for others even with all their human imperfections. Commit to serving others before yourself. Develop your empathy and emotional intelligence . Reflect and renew yourself in silence and sanctuary. Connect with something larger and better than yourself. Allow others to see your vulnerability .

It’s also important to be mindful of the traps and derailers that can cause leaders to go astray. Here are key things to avoid when leading:

• Ego . Our egos undermine our ability to serve. It’s not about us. We must keep our egos in check.
• Power . Using your authority and power in manipulative and authoritarian ways will almost always backfire.
• Hypocrisy . Saying one thing and doing another will erode trust. Having any privileges while your colleagues lack them undermines trust.
• Toxic behavior . Avoid harmful behaviors such as disrespecting others, withholding information, deceiving people, bullying, abusing power, passive-aggressiveness, and the like.
• Claiming humility . Humility can only be observed in you by others.
• Talking too much signals self-importance. Servant leaders are great listeners.

Leadership Derailers Assessment

Take this assessment to identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness. It will help you develop self-awareness and identify ways to improve your leadership.

The Benefits of Servant Leadership

Effective servant leadership yields a powerful array of benefits, including:

• Trust. Bob Whipple , CEO of Leadergrow and known as the “Trust Ambassador,” after years of studying and practicing leadership, identified trust as the critical element for a leader to foster and elicit. People who believe a leader serves them will trust that leader.
• Commitment. People move from begrudging compliance to the dictates of the boss to voluntary commitment to the overarching aims of the organization and their leader.
• More Happiness and Good Health. Servant-led people find joy, happiness, and better health in their work.
• An Incredible Reservoir of Talent. As Bob said in his chapter in Reflections on Leadership , “There is absolutely no tough decision that can’t be implemented by such a group of united, committed volunteers under a servant-leader.”
• Justifiable Pride in Achievements. People in servant-led organizations find genuine pride in their collective accomplishments.
• Exceptional Results. Over our careers in many different industries and sectors, we’ve seen more sustainable growth, more efficient operations, superior financial results, and more satisfied stakeholders due to the practices of servant leadership.

In our view, servant leadership is superior to old-fashioned ways of leading people. It’s a powerful framework that can transform organizations and their people—including leaders. We heartily endorse servant leadership.

Tools for You

• Leadership Derailers Assessment to help you identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness
• Personal Values Exercise to help you determine and clarify what’s most important to you
• Alignment Scorecard to help you assess your organization’s level of alignment

More Articles from Our Series on Servant Leadership

• How to Become a Better Servant Leader
• Unleashing Leaders in Your Organization
• Who Determines If You’re a Leader?
• Why Servant Leaders Outperform Bosses
• Do I Have to Be a Servant Before I Can Lead?
• Why Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Wrong
• How Robert Greenleaf Created Servant Leadership
• The Paradoxes of Servant Leadership
• Boards and Servant Leadership

Postscript: Quotations on the Essential Qualities of Servant Leadership

• “Servant leadership is not just another management technique. It is a way of life for those with servant hearts.” -Ken Blanchard
• “Over the past 30 years I have come to understand that service is not just something you do. It’s what life is all about. Nothing is more important, or more meaningful or fulfilling, than loving and helping others.” -Dan Hedberg
• “…the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” -Albert Schweitzer
• “Service is the very purpose of life. It is the rent we pay for living on the planet.” -Marion Wright Edelman
• “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” -John C. Maxwell

++++++++++++ Bob Vanourek and Gregg Vanourek are leadership practitioners, teachers, trainers, and award-winning authors. They are co-authors of Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations , a winner of the International Book Awards. Check out their Leadership Derailers Assessment  or join their community and sign up for their newsletter . If you found value in this, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

2 thoughts on “The Essential Qualities of Servant Leadership”

Great overview! Very helpful. Servant Leadership is the way to a better future in organizations. With leadership distrust rampant we need and transformation in leadership thought and practice. Thanks.

Thanks, Rick. So glad you found value in this, and it looks like you do interesting and important work with servant leadership. Great! Thanks for weighing in. -Gregg V.

Comments are closed.

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What Is Servant Leadership? A Philosophy for People-First Leadership

This article was from CIO and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace . Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com .

Servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes the growth, well-being, and empowerment of employees. It aims to foster an inclusive environment that enables everyone in the organization to thrive as their authentic self. Whereas traditional leadership focuses on the success of the company or organization, servant leadership puts employees first to grow the organization through their commitment and engagement. When implemented correctly, servant leadership can help foster trust, accountability, growth, and inclusion in the workplace.

Proponents say that by improving the emotional health of employees servant leadership empowers employees to express themselves more freely in the workplace. Employees then turn around and give the same nurturing to their coworkers, creating a welcoming environment that enables and encourages growth and quality work. A major aspect of servant leadership is acceptance of others; by creating an environment where everyone feels accepted, it helps create a "psychological ethical climate" that allows employees to be authentic and not fear judgment from leadership for being themselves. It encourages a forgiving and understanding attitude that allows employees to make mistakes, learn from their mistakes, and channel that into personal and professional growth in the organization.

Servant leadership theory

The theory of servant leadership was started by Robert K. Greenleaf, who popularized the term in a 1970s essay titled "The Servant as Leader." After reading the book Journey to the East , Greenleaf was inspired by the main character, Leo, a servant who disappears from work. After his disappearance, the productivity and effectiveness of the rest of the workers falls apart, revealing that Leo was in fact a leader all along. This led Greenleaf to believe that servant leadership is effective in its ability to allow workers to relate to leaders and vice versa, creating more trust and autonomy for workers. Greenleaf first put this theory to test while working as an executive at AT&T, and it's gained traction over the years as an effective leadership style.

Greenleaf initially proposed an "I serve" mentality for servant leadership and based it on the two main premises of "I serve because I am the leader," and "I am the leader because I serve." The first premise is focused on altruism, a selfless concern for others, while the second premise hinges on a person's ambition to become a leader.

Servant leadership model

Greenleaf's original premise for servant leadership was relatively vague compared to other leadership approaches and models, which has led to several interpretations of his original idea to either expand on the concept of servant leadership or help offer more specific guidelines to what servant leadership looks like in practice.

Larry Spears, former president of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, in " Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective Caring Leaders " has outlined the qualities that a servant leader needs to have to be impactful. These characteristics include empathy, listening, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community.

Two researchers, Barbuto and Wheeler , evolved Spears's 10 characteristics into a framework called "the natural desire to serve others," which combines Spears's 10 characteristics into five dimensions of servant leadership that includes altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping, and organizational stewardship. Under each category there are four to five characteristics that pertain to servant leadership.

Joe Iarocci, author of Servant Leadership in the Workplace , defines three key priorities (developing people, building a trusting team, achieving results), three key principles (serve first, persuasion, empowerment), and three key practices (listening, delegating, connecting followers to mission) to outline what servant leadership looks like in the workplace.

Russel and Stone, two researchers, developed nine " functional attributes of servant leadership ," which includes vision, honesty, integrity, trust, service, modeling, pioneering, appreciation of others, and empowerment. They also outlined 11 "accompanying attributes," which includes communication, credibility, competence, stewardship, visibility, influence, persuasion, listening, encouragement, teaching, and delegation.

Servant leadership characteristics

According to Greenleaf, the most important characteristic of being a servant leader is to make it your priority to serve rather than to lead. Servant leaders are more interested in serving the needs of employees and helping them grow in the organization and are less interested in focusing on profits and simply leading people along by telling them what to do. Greenleaf didn't outline exactly what character traits make for a strong servant leader, but researchers James Sipe and Don Frick have studied his work and outlined seven pillars of servant leadership that fall within the boundaries of Greenleaf's original theory: 

• Person of character: A servant leader is someone who maintains integrity, makes decisions based on ethics and principles, displays humility and serves to a higher purpose in the organization.
• Puts people first: A servant leader demonstrates care and concern for others and helps employees meet their goals and grow within the organization.
• Skilled communicator: Communication skills are integral to servant leadership, and you will need to ensure you can effectively listen to and speak with your employees, while also inviting feedback.
• Compassionate collaborator: To be a strong servant leader, you'll need to consistently work with others and work to strengthen relationships, support diversity, equity, and inclusion, and navigate conflict in the workplace.
• Has foresight: As a servant leader, you will need to keep an eye on the future and anticipate anything that might impact the organization. You'll also need to have a strong vision for your organization and be the type of person who can take decisive action when needed.
• Systems thinker: Servant leaders need to be comfortable navigating complex environments and able to adapt to change. This type of leadership requires strategic thinking and the ability to effectively lead change in the organization.
• Leads with moral authority: As a servant leader, it's important to establish trust and confidence in your workforce by establishing quality standards, accepting, and delegating responsibility and fostering a culture that allows for accountability. 

Examples of servant leadership

In the technology industry, servant leadership is most often seen in agile development environments on Scrum teams. On a Scrum team, the Scrum Master isn't necessarily a leader; instead they're a team member who works closely with other agile workers and takes charge on defining requirements, mapping sprint plans, and resolving any roadblocks along the way.

Famous servant leaders in the corporate world include Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Co.; Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube; Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever; Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks; and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; among many others. These are just a few people who are billed as strong examples of servant leadership in the corporate world. These leaders show qualities that include being risk-adverse, employee-focused, and driven by success over profits.     

Servant leadership training

The Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership offers several courses on servant leadership. The Foundations of Servant Leadership covers the fundamentals of Greenleaf's philosophy and how to apply those principles in the workplace. The Key Practices of Servant Leadership covers strategies for effective servant leadership and how to apply those in real-life settings. The Implementing Servant Leadership course focuses on strategies and practices that will help you effectively implement servant leadership in an organization. Courses are completed online using a collaborative wiki and group discussions; each course costs $450.

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• What is Servant Leadership?

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.” -Robert K. Greenleaf

Servant Leadership is a non-traditional leadership philosophy, embedded in a set of behaviors and practices that place the primary emphasis on the well-being of those being served.

The Servant as Leader

While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

“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, and difficult to administer, 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 not be further deprived?“

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

The Institution as Servant

Robert Greenleaf recognized that organizations as well as individuals could be servant-leaders. Indeed, he had great faith that servant-leader organizations could change the world. In his second major essay, The Institution as Servant, Greenleaf articulated what is often called the “credo.” There he said:

“This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions – often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”

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Servant Leadership: a Systematic Literature Review and Network Analysis

Alice canavesi.

1 Business Economics, Carlo Cattaneo University (LIUC), Castellanza, Italy

Eliana Minelli

2 Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

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Servant leadership is a form of moral-based leadership where leaders tend to prioritize the fulfillment of the needs of followers, namely employees, customers and other stakeholders, rather than satisfying their personal needs. Although the concept is not new among both academics and practitioners, it has received growing consideration in the last decade, due to the fact that it can positively affect a series of individual and organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In particular, the latest trend in literature has focused on the identification of the antecedents, mediating and moderating mechanisms at the basis of this relationship, as well as on the development of a common scale to measure the construct across diverse economic and cultural contexts. The purpose of this paper is to depict the evolution of the scientific literature that has developed on the concept, to identify the main criticalities and provide avenues for future research. A dynamic methodology called “Systematic Literature Network Analysis” has been applied, combining the Systematic Literature Review approach with the analysis of bibliographic networks.

Introduction

With the beginning of the twenty-first century, the moral nature of leaders has started to be considered not only necessary for the good of society but also essential for sustainable organizational success (Freeman et al., 2004 ; Gulati et al., 2010 ; Padilla et al., 2007 ), thus marking a considerable shift in research. As a consequence, moral leadership theories, such as transformational, ethical, authentic and servant leadership, have recently received considerable attention from the scientific community.

Servant leadership seems to be the most promising and most investigated over the last few years, especially due to the holistic approach and broad focus adopted compared to the other philosophies, as well as to its important role in affecting individual and team-level outcomes, such as organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour, job performance and job satisfaction. Like most other leadership constructs, the definition and measurement of servant leadership were primarily developed in the United States. In particular, the term servant leadership was coined by Greenleaf in 1970 in his essay “The Servant as Leader" to describe an emerging style of leadership where leaders focused on followers’ personal growth and development, by treating them in an ethical way. The author asserted that the servant leader is “primus inter pares” or “first among equals”, meaning that his/her highest priority is service to others in order to fulfill their needs, rather than fulfilling his or her personal needs. Greenleaf’s conception was then refined by many other scholars, such as Ehrhart ( 2004 ), who claimed that servant leadership is one in which the leader goes beyond the financial success of the organization recognizing his or her moral responsibility towards subordinates, customers and the entire company’s community. The emphasis of the servant leadership philosophy has been placed over time on serving and creating value for multiple stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization. Liden et al. ( 2008 ) further stressed the fundamental leadership behaviours of servant leadership, such as behaving ethically, helping followers grow and succeed, empowering, emotional healing, conceptual skills and creating value for the community.

Research on servant leadership can be categorized into three main phases: a first phase focusing on its conceptual development, a second phase investigating the measures and testing the relationships with some fundamental outcomes via cross-sectional research, and a third phase aimed at understanding the antecedents, mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of servant leadership. The last “model development phase” is the most recent and has seen a proliferation of studies in the last twenty years. A significant contribution to provide an integrative theoretical framework has been recently made by Eva et al. ( 2019 ), who offered a clear conceptual distinction of servant leadership compared to other approaches, evaluated and assessed the most rigorous scales of the construct developed so far, and highlighted the most important antecedents, outcomes, moderating and mediating mechanisms identified in the literature.

The purpose of this research is to provide a further and complementary review of the literature on servant leadership through bibliometric methods, in order to assess the evolution of the field over time as well as the current state-of-art on the key trends and provide avenues for future research. In particular, the authors aim to identify:

• The structure of the field, the most consolidated research and its temporal and geographical evolution
• The most recurring theoretical underpinning and constructs
• The most cited articles representing milestones of the literature
• The most impactful authors and journals
• The disciplines and subject areas involved by the topic
• Research implications
• Future research directions

The structure of the paper is as follows. In the first section, the methodology adopted for the literature review and the steps taken in developing the research are presented. In the second section, the results of three different analyses are explained: namely, the paper citation network consisting in the connected components and the main path, the keywords analysis, and finally the global analysis with the basic statistics. In the third and final section, the main conclusions are drawn and questions to be addressed by future research are provided.

The paper is based on a two-step method, referred to as “Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA)” (Colicchia & Strozzi, 2012 ): a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and a further analysis of the subset of relevant articles obtained through a bibliographic Network Analysis (NA): namely, the citation network analysis, the co-occurrence networks analysis and the basic statistics. The first qualitative assessment is mainly based on the researchers’ judgements as to the selection of keywords and leverages on an explanatory approach; while the bibliometric assessment provides more objective insights through quantitative and statistical evidence (Aliyev et al., 2018). In particular, bibliographic data analysed through bibliometric methods include the most impactful author names, journal titles, article titles, article keywords and article publication years (Block & Fisch, 2020). The aim is to “complement the traditional content-based literature reviews by extracting quantitative information from bibliographic networks and detect emerging topics, thus revealing the dynamic evolution of the scientific production of a discipline” (Strozzi et al., 2017 ). This dynamic analysis has proven to be effective in different research fields, as it highlights the literature development, identifies authors network and topic clusters, examines gaps and criticalities as well as presents further research directions. In contrast to narrative literature reviews, which aim to summarize the content of the studies of a particular research field, SLNA focuses on assessing the conceptual structure of the field and its development over time (e.g. how has the number of studies evolved, how have the topics evolved, how have the outlets evolved, etc.). It goes beyond a mere descriptive summary of prior literature, by leading a discussion of what we know and where we can go, and allows the measurement of the knowledge diffusion within and between disciplines, by identifying interdisciplinary links. Moreover, compared to traditional methods which lack a clear methodological approach, quantitative bibliographic studies make it possible to avoid the researchers’ selection bias by selecting clear keywords and exclusion / inclusion criteria and by adopting clear boundaries at every stage to ensure a systematic search of papers (Fetscherin & Heinrich, 2015; Block & Fisch, 2020), to the point that the process can be replicated at any time. Lastly, SLNA is characterized by a more up-to-date and broader scope (with regards, for instance, to the journals and publication years considered), thus minimizing the risk of producing an over-reflective and biased argument by the authors but rather leading to evidence-based conclusions.

Figure  1 clarifies all the steps of the methodology.

Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA)

The reference database chosen for the development of the research was Scopus, due to its coverage, convenience, and in alignment with the current literature. According to Falagas et al. ( 2017 ) as well as to Block and Fisch (2020), Scopus includes a more expanded spectrum of journals and a faster and broader citation analysis compared to other research databases, such as Web of Science (WoS). This result has been confirmed by Chadegani et al. ( 2013 ), who assessed that Scopus covers a superior number of journals compared to WoS, even though it is limited to more recent articles, and by Bergman ( 2012 ), who demonstrated that Scopus also provides higher citation counts than Google Scholar and WoS. Moreover, compared to these two other databases, Adriaanse and Rensleigh ( 2013 ) proved that Scopus delivers the least inconsistencies regarding content verification and quality, such as author spelling and sequence, volume and issue number.

The key search criteria and final query were defined on the basis of the keywords used by scholars to address the concept of servant leadership, according to one reference paper among the main pillars of the literature: “Servant leadership: a systematic review and call for future research” (Eva et al., 2019 ) from which this paper mainly differs due to its quantitative citation-based methodology. The most common keywords in literature, also employed in this study, consist of: servant leadership, servant leader, service leadership, servant behaviour and servant organization . In order to develop a more comprehensive definition and consequently to obtain a more comprehensive sample on the topic, the search criteria were loosened to “servant leader*” OR “service leader*” to include both “servant leadership” and “servant leader(s)” OR “service leadership” and “service leader(s)”. Also, considering the different spelling between British English and American English, both terms “behaviour” and “behaviour” were included. As the literature on leadership is very broad, the terms above were limited to three streams of search in the section “Article title” to include only articles that were strictly related and focused on the topic, and not dealing with it in a marginal way, but also to obtain a moderate number of papers to conduct the analysis. This systematic literature review is most suitable when the number of papers is not too limited nor too big. The authors tried to conduct a broader search stream also including keywords and abstracts, but it resulted not applicable: it provided several thousand results and the content of papers obtained was in most cases out of scope. Since the focus of the research was servant leadership from a human resource and organizational perspective, areas were investigated individually to assess whether they were pertinent or not with the topic. On the basis of this analysis, it was possible to include: Business, Social sciences, Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Psychology, Arts and Humanities, Decision sciences, Environmental science and Multidisciplinary. Papers written in languages other than English were excluded. With regards to the time span, the year in which the study was conducted (2020) was eliminated in order to consider only papers of concluded years. Finally, the search was limited to articles and conference papers, as they contain very clear citations and make it possible to achieve ideal results. See Table ​ Table1 1 for the final specification of the query.

Query final specification

This procedure allowed us to obtain a subset of 357 papers published between 1984 and 2019, which were then analysed using VOSViewer (Van Eck et al., 2010 ; Waltman et al., 2010 ) and Pajek software (de Nooy et al., 2011) to identify the main citation path emerging from the citation network and also key concepts and trends emerging from the co-occurrence network. Afterwards, the basic statistics of the whole subset of papers were examined in order to provide some general insights: the temporal and geographical evolution of the literature, the subject areas involved, the ranking of the 10 most cited papers and the most influential authors and journals. The findings of these analyses are reported in the following sections.

Citation Network Analysis

The initial procedure of the network analysis was aimed at identifying the main article clusters emerging from the citation network by using the VOS Clustering analysis (Van Eck et al., 2010 ; Waltman et al., 2010 ). “A citation network is a network where the nodes are papers and the links are citations. The arrows go from cited to citing papers representing the flow of knowledge.” (Strozzi et al., 2017 ). For the identification of the connected component, the minimum threshold of 0 was maintained in order not to exclude recent papers and less relevant authors. The largest connected component (a set of nodes connected by links) consisted of 291 items connected to each other, with 85 different clusters. No other significant connected components emerged from the literature. Figure  2 presents the network obtained with VOSviewer, where nodes are weighted by the citations and coloured with both a cluster and year overlay.

Citation network analysis (size = citation, color = cluster)

The following procedure of the network analysis consisted in implementing the key route algorithm (main path) of the network, using Pajek: a program providing powerful visualization tools. The objective was to identify the nodes that cite or have been cited the most, thus representing the most consolidated research in the field. This was possible by conducting the betweenness centrality analysis of a vertex, which is “the proportion of all geodesics between pairs of other vertices that include this vertex” (de Nooy et al., 2011, p. 131). The betweenness centrality analysis allows to focus on the importance of a node in the communication between any node pair in the network, to identify those playing a central role in information flows and being responsible for the system vulnerability (i.e. vertexes lying on many of the shortest paths between other vertexes). Figure  3 shows the flow of knowledge over time, with the network of the 25 essential articles, intensively cited and referring to other papers, labelled by Pajek with the name of the first author and the year of publication. It is clear how the research structure has changed over time: from 1996 to 2012 it developed linearly, while from 2012 on it has started to articulate towards different directions often interconnected to each other. One possible interpretation of this pattern is the following: originally, the novelty of the subject led to a straight evolution of the field over time, afterwards, once the topic gained ground and different research trends emerged, referencing papers and literature reviews started to come out.

Main path of articles from citation network

Based on the previous analysis, the most relevant papers were studied not only to identify the key concepts expressed by the single paper but most importantly to understand the evolution of the field over time. The analysis of the main path allowed for pinpointing trends and variations that would not be very visible in the general set of papers. The main findings, which are the result of a quantitative analysis and have not been selected by the authors according to a discretionary criterion, are reported in the following section with the aim of depicting a landscape of the scientific literature on the concept of servant leadership.

Main Path Analysis

The most recent paper dealing with servant leadership is the one by Yang et al. ( 2019 ), which builds on self-determination theory to investigate, through an empirical study conducted in the Chinese banking sector, how servant leadership affects employee creativity. The authors used a survey based on five-point Likert scales to assess that there is a positive relationship between servant leadership and employee creativity, mediated by follower psychological empowerment and moderated by work-family conflict. This paper can be considered as a pillar of the literature as it gathers the contributions of several articles, including a paper by the same author written two years before. Yang et al. ( 2017 ) previously provided evidence on other mechanisms influencing the relationship between servant leadership and creativity both at the individual and team level: employees’ efficacy beliefs, as a mediator, and team power distance, as a moderator. With regards to work-family balance, a similar study conducted by Tang et al. ( 2016 ) demonstrated that servant leadership is negatively related to employees’ work-to-family conflict (WFC) and positively related to work-to-family positive spillovers (WFPS), with the moderator role of reduced emotional exhaustion in both relationships and the mediator role of enhanced personal learning in the relationship between servant leadership and WFPS. Hoch et al. ( 2018 ) compared servant leadership and other moral-based forms of leadership (authentic leadership and ethical leadership) with transformational leadership, to assess whether they were able to explain incremental variance with respect to a series of relevant organizational outcomes. Servant leadership emerged as the only positive leadership style adding incremental variance to that explained by transformational leadership, thus being of significant utility. Previously, Van Dierendonck et al. ( 2014 ) leveraged on two experimental studies and one field study to differentiate servant leadership from transformational leadership in the way they affect organizational commitment and work engagement, as the former is mediated by follower need satisfaction while the latter by perceived leadership effectiveness. Hsiao et al. ( 2015 ) systematically integrated the three levels of organization, employee and customer to demonstrate that leaders displaying servant behaviours stimulate customer value co-creation (CVC) with the key mediating roles of positive psychological capital (PPC) and service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). Newman et al. ( 2017 ) found that at the basis of the link between servant leadership and followers’ OCBs, there are also the mediating mechanism of leader-member exchange (LMX) and the moderating mechanism of leader proactive personality. Chiniara and Bentein ( 2016 ) previously provided other mediating mechanisms between servant leadership and individual performance outcomes such as OCBs and task performance: namely the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs of employees (autonomy, competence and relatedness). Ozyilmaz and Cicek ( 2015 ) tested the positive effects of servant leadership on OCBs and on job satisfaction, assessing that this second relationship is partially mediated by psychological climate. Hunter et al. ( 2013 ) further investigated both the direct effects generated by servant leaders at the individual level, such as decreased turnover intentions and disengagement, and the indirect effects generated at the team level, such as decreased turnover intentions, helping and sales behaviour through the mediation of service climate. Moreover, they investigated the basis for individuals enacting this mode of leadership and found that leader agreeableness represents a positive antecedent of servant leadership, while extraversion a negative one. Executive characteristics of servant leaders were also tested by Peterson et al. ( 2012 ) , who assessed that narcissism is negatively related to servant leadership while founder status (i.e. founder or non-founder) is positively related to servant leadership; both effects are partially mediated by the chief executive officer identification in the organization. Sun ( 2013 ) further concentrated on the identity of servant leaders, by explaining the psychological factors, both cognitive and behavioural, that constitute it. Neubert et al. ( 2016 ) tested servant leadership effects in hospitals, accumulating evidence that there is a positive relationship with both nurse and patient satisfaction, moderated by organizational structure. Similarly, Chen et al. ( 2015 ) explored how managers’ servant leadership affect the performance of frontline service employees’, such as hairdressers, through the partial mediation of self-efficacy and group identification. In relation to these performance behaviours, they also found that servant leadership explains additional variance above and beyond transformational leadership. Liden et al. ( 2014 ) developed a model to test servant leadership in restaurants and stores. Specifically, they demonstrated that servant leaders propagate servant leadership behaviours among employees, such as increased job performance, creativity and customer service behaviours as well as decreased turnover intentions, by establishing a serving culture at the unit level (e.g. store) and fostering employee identification with the unit. Liden et al. ( 2015 ) contributed to the literature by providing the shortest-to-date 7-item scale (SL-7) measure of global servant leadership, starting from a previous 28-item scale (SL-28) developed in 2008, and tested it across three empirical independent studies. Besides the topic of employee creativity already investigated in literature, Yoshida et al. ( 2014 ) ascertained the effects of servant leadership on individual relational identification and collective prototypicality, which, in turn, fosters team innovation. Antecedents of servant leadership discussed above have been examined by other scholars, such as Hu and Liden ( 2011 ), who identified team-level goal, process clarity and team servant leadership as three mechanisms affecting team potency, performance and organizational citizenship behaviour. The authors also emphasized the role of servant leaders in moderating the link between team-level goal and process clarity with team potency. Similar outcomes were found a year before by Walumbwa et al. ( 2010 ), whose analyses revealed that the relationship between servant leadership and OCBs is partially mediated by commitment to the supervisor, self-efficacy, procedural justice climate and service climate. Hale and Fields ( 2007 ) leveraged on three servant leadership dimensions introduced by Greenleaf (1977), namely service, humility and vision, to point out cultural differences affecting the way servant leadership is perceived in different countries. Specifically, they found that countries with a higher level of power distance and collectivism experience servant leadership behaviours less frequently. They also assessed that, when great value is placed on uncertainty avoidance, vision has a significant stronger relationship with leadership effectiveness. Previously, Dennis and Bocarnea ( 2005 ) developed and tested a scale aimed at measuring five out of the seven servant leadership constructs based on Patterson’s theory: agapao love (which means to love in a social or moral way), humanity, vision, trust and empowerment. This theoretical development was drawn on a literature review by Russell ( 2001 ), who provided an overview of the current individual and organizational values associated with servant leadership, deepening their role in three main attributes: trust, appreciation of others and empowerment. A sequential, upward-spiralling model based on the variables of vision, influence, credibility, trust and service was formerly developed by Farling et al. ( 1999 ) to explain how these variables relate one to another in defining the concept at the basis of servant leadership. This paper represented an evolution of two former analyses. The first one consists in a servant leadership model developed by Buchen ( 1998 ) within the context of higher education and based on five main dimensions: identity (the direction of ego and image), empowering (the sharing of power with collaborators), reciprocity (a relationship of mutual dependency between leaders and followers), commitment (the absolute devotion to academic discipline) and finally future (the alignment between faculty and institution). The second is a reflection paper on Greenleaf’s definition of servant leadership by Spears ( 1996 ), which, on the one hand, emphasizes the primary goal of serving the greater needs of others and, on the other hand, draws the evolution of the topic from its genesis (1970) to the current time (2019).

At first, from the mid 1990’s to the late 2000’s, research was mainly qualitative and moved towards the development of a theoretical framework of servant leadership, as well as of various scales aimed at measuring the main dimensions of the construct. The last stream of research from 2010 to 2020, instead, suggests the authors’ orientation for a quantitative approach based on surveys, experimental and field studies to investigate the antecedents, mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of servant leadership. Recently, some qualitative studies have emerged again on the topic; however, very few scholars are taking advantage of mixed methods combining the quantitative and qualitative approach.

From a theoretical perspective, the attempt of the present paper was also that of identifying meaningful constructs, underpinnings and framework used in the most consolidated literature on servant leadership, even if not explicitly mentioned by single studies. All papers, except one, were built on the basis of the servant leadership theory, often in combination with theories on other leadership styles, such as transformational, or on antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators of servant leadership, such as LMX theory. Moreover, the majority of paper explicitly employed more than one theoretical basis. The most recurring theory (6 out of 25 papers) was the social exchange theory, which was defined by Blau (1964) as “voluntary actions of individuals that are motivated by the returns they are expected to bring and typically do in fact bring from others” (p. 91) and is based on the central premise that the exchange of social and material resources is a fundamental form of human interaction. Motivational theories were also found several times (6 papers), with different sub-theories, such as goal-setting theory, motivational language theory and intrinsic motivation theory, emphasizing various factors that can foster personal or followers’ motivation. The most important among these motivational theories came out to be the self-determination theory’s (SDT) basic psychological needs, which consists in an empirically-based theory of human behavior and personality development aimed at identifying the social-contextual aspects that promote or prevent motivation based on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs such as competence, relatedness and autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2017, pag. 3). The social learning theory (SLT), then evolved in the social cognitive theory (SCT), also emerged to be fundamental (5 papers), positing that learning occurs within a social context through the combination of individual experience, social interaction and environmental factors. Finally, the least recurring theory was the social identity theory (2 papers), which is a social psychological theory examining the role of self and identity in group and intergroup dynamics (Hogg, 2016).

Co-word Network Analysis (Keywords Analysis: VOS Clustering)

A second type of analysis, focused on the authors’ keywords, was carried out in VOSviewer on the basis of the co-occurrence network. Co-occurrence analysis assumes that the article keywords chosen by various authors represent an adequate description of the content or of the relationship that the paper establishes between investigated problems (Strozzi et al., 2017 ). The aim of the analysis was to frame the development of the research trends over time: if many co-occurrences can be identified around a term, this is likely to represent a specific research pattern of the discipline. An occurrence threshold of 8 was used, with the goal of ensuring clusters’ consistency in terms of content and dimension. A set of the 17 most relevant keywords divided into 3 different clusters was obtained, as shown in Fig.  4 .

Co-occurrence author keywords network (size = total link strength, color = cluster)

The network’s nodes correspond to the keywords of the 357 papers’ authors and their link weights to how many times the words appear in the papers. Three colors (red, blue and green) differentiate the keywords belonging to one cluster from other clusters’ keywords, while the dimension of the node stands for the total link strength.

In the following section, the keywords clusters are examined in order to address the most relevant research patterns in the literature. Hence, the topics below have been discussed on the basis of the output of a quantitative analysis, aimed at addressing the most used keywords in the literature and identifying research trajectories within each cluster.

Cluster 1: Servant Leadership, Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Leadership Development, Scale Development, Trust

Servant leadership is one of the most recently investigated and adopted approaches belonging to the branch of moral leadership theories. As such, it has been studied in parallel with other similar leadership styles, such as transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a positive form of leadership developed by Burns in 1978 as an ongoing process where “leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation beyond self-interest to serve collective interests”. This concept was then expanded by Bass ( 1985 ) and applied to organizations as a guideline for leaders to make followers perform beyond expectations. From a theoretical standpoint, a significant overlap between servant leadership and transformational leadership has been assessed by scholars, especially in terms of vision, influence, credibility, trust and service shown by leaders, to the point that servant leadership has often been considered as a form of transformational leadership (Farling et al., 1999 ). Trust, in particular, has been addressed in both leadership styles as central to relationship: an important factor in the interdependence existing between leaders and followers, consisting in four distinct dimensions: competence, openness, concern and reliability. Nevertheless, an attempt has been made to define the major variables involved in the servant-leader follower transformational model. On the other hand, research has tried to identify and address the main differences, or better nuances, between the two leadership approaches: while servant leadership focuses more on supporting and developing individuals within an institution, transformational leadership emphasizes the role of leaders in inspiring followers to work towards a common goal (Allen et al., 2016 ).

In 2010s, another stream of literature has focused on the development of a reliable and multidimensional scale to measure various aspects of servant leadership. Examples include the 6-item Servant Leadership Behavior scale (Sendjaya et al., 2019 ) to measure servant leadership behaviors in a leader, or the Executive Servant Leadership Scale (Reed et al., 2011 ) to measure executive servant leadership across different organizational contexts.

Cluster 2: Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Public Sector, China

Several empirical studies have analyzed the relationship between servant leadership and different organizational outcomes, both at the individual and collective level, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Moreover, different mediating and moderating mechanisms as well as various antecedents of this type of relationship have been investigated. For instance, Kauppila et al. ( 2018 ) demonstrated that HR manager servant leadership positively influences organizational employees’ overall justice perception, which in turn enhances organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Moreover, they found that high leadership self-efficacy fosters a line manager’s effectiveness to emulate servant leadership behaviors from HR managers and use these behaviors to advance positive justice perceptions among their followers.

Since the general concept of leadership and the specific concept of servant leadership were developed in the US and in western societies, a consistent research stream has examined the generalizability of servant leadership constructs in completely different cultural contexts, such as China. US society is indeed highly individualistic, short-term oriented and characterized by low-power distance, meaning that relationships are expected to be participatory, democratic and consultative, while Chinese society is permeated by a collectivist culture, long-term goals and high-power distance, therefore based on the expectation that power is distributed unequally. Also, most of these studies were conducted in the public sector, where servant leadership has proven to be very effective in fostering many positive organizational outcomes. Liu et al. ( 2015 ) partially confirmed the generalizability of servant leadership constructs from Western society to China and also found a positive relationship between supervisors’ servant leadership and the public service motivation.

Cluster 3: Organizational Culture, Humans, Human, Adult, Male, Female, Article

Organizations across different fields and geographical contexts need to understand the role of a leadership that is responsive to a “service mission” in driving the company’s evolution and success. Effective servant leadership practices are “humane oriented”; they are implemented when managers or leaders invest in human resources to create a social exchange relationship with employees that makes them feel valued and repay the organization through positive outcomes (Karatepe et al., 2019 ). As a consequence, employees’ commitment and creativity are stimulated and organizational citizenship and prosocial behaviors are fostered, leading to an increase in organizational performance. For instance, Zhou and Miao ( 2014 ) found that servant leadership positively influences employees’ commitment through perceived organizational support as a mediator.

In this framework, culture, and particularly organizational culture, is strictly connected to the leadership style adopted within a company. On the one hand, servant leadership is more likely to apply in contexts characterized by specific cultural values such as paternalism, collectivism and low-power distance. On the other hand, servant leadership can be adopted to create a new organizational culture based on trust, fairness and high-quality leader–follower relationships (Lee et al., 2019 ).

Leadership attitudes also vary according to gender, as some studies reported that, relative to their counterparts, leading females are more likely to display behaviors of altruistic calling, emotional healing and organizational stewardship (Beck, 2014) and to hold service and altruistic value (De Rubio & Kiser, 2015); therefore, they more often behave as servant leaders.

Keywords Temporal Analysis

From a temporal standpoint, VOSviewer offers a graphic representation that allows us to identify the most recent keywords and therefore the core topics currently discussed in literature.

Figure  5 , overlay visualization, displays the ultimate research trends by coloring them in yellow, in contrast with the oldest, colored in blue. It is possible to infer that the concept of servant leadership has been recently discussed in relation to some important outcomes, such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction, to which it is linked by evidence. The effectiveness of this leadership style represented in several organizational contexts has encouraged the development of specific leadership practices, such as training or interventions, aimed at fostering the servant leadership behaviors. At present, most empirical studies have focused on the public sector, as it is often characterized by front-line employees who imitate servant leaders’ behaviors displayed by their managers, thus promoting the quality of relationships with end-customers and providing significant benefits to the whole organization. In this framework, the influence of organizational culture is still relevant, as it determines the way servant leadership is built by leaders and perceived by followers, along with its effectiveness in achieving the desired outcomes. In fact, according to the cultural climate, servant leadership may relate to both individual and organizational outcomes through different mediating and moderating mechanisms.

Overlay visualization

Global Analysis: Basic Statistics

In the “analyze search results” section of Scopus, it is possible to gain some general insights into the whole subset of 357 papers used for the purpose of this literature review.

Figure  6 shows how the topic of servant leadership dates back to the mid 1980s but started receiving significant attention only with the beginning of the new millennium. Particularly, it experienced exponential growth from 2007 to 2019. This corresponds to the period when the first scales for the measurement of servant leadership were developed allowing the conduction of several empirical studies across various organizational contexts.

Documents by year

From a geographical standpoint, it is possible to observe in Fig.  7 how the trend has interested primarily the United States (40.8%), where theories of servant leadership first originated, and China in the second place (13.8%), where the western construct of servant leadership was tested to assess its reliability and validity across cultures. Several cultural differences have indeed been assessed between the United States and the Chinese culture; for instance, China is a long-term and collectivist country committed to work loyalty and respect, while the United States are more individualistic and oriented to short-term business relationships. The topic has then spread in most Anglo-Saxon countries, such as Australia (7.7%), United Kingdom (7.4%), South Africa (5.8%) and Canada (4.5%), probably fostered by their use of a common language and their cultural and historical ties. The countries of Netherlands, Hong Kong, Spain and Turkey represent altogether the remaining 19.9%.

Documents by country or territory

Servant leadership is a versatile and multidisciplinary topic, as it can be applied to a variety of contexts that also fall outside that of the typical corporation. Figure  8 shows how, besides Business, Management and Accounting (38.7%), the subject areas of Social Sciences (25.3%) Psychology (11.1%) and Arts and Humanities (7.9%) are also significantly involved in the literature. This can be explained by the fact that, rather than organizations, at the core of servant leadership are humans: specifically, leaders and their followers.

Documents by subject area

Figure  9 shows the contribution of the most impactful journals over time. The Leadership and Organization Development Journal with 22 articles out of 63, is the leading in the field and has grown exponentially from 2015. The journal of Business Ethics, with its 15 articles, has also been very influential for contributions to servant leadership research in the last decade. Other articles focusing on servant leadership have been published in Leadership Quarterly (10), International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (8), and Leadership Organization Development Journal (8), which are also the longest-running in time.

Documents per year by source

With regards to the scholars who significantly contributed to the academic research on servant leadership (Fig.  10 ), some are based in the United States, where leadership theories have originated and are still widely investigated; the remaining part are based in Europe and Australia but have worked for important American journals and communities, such as Greenleaf center for servant leadership. The most important contribution comes from van Dierendonck (2014, 2019), who has an expertise in leadership and leadership development at Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Holland) and is the associate editor of the International Journal of Servant Leadership, published by Gonzaga University (Washington, United States) in collaboration with the Spears Center for Servant-Leadership. Two other influential authors are Liden et al. ( 2008 , 2014 , 2015 ) and Sendjaya et al. ( 2008 , 2019 ), who have been writing for some of the most important journals in the field, such as Leadership quarterly, Journal of business ethics and Leadership and organizational development journal, which were also highlighted by the previous analysis (Fig.  9 ). The remaining scholars, Winston and Fields ( 2015 ), Eva (2019), Ruiz-Palomino (2018), Bande (2015), Barbuto and Wheeler ( 2006 ), Cooper (2014) and Jaramillo (2009, 2015), have to be mentioned as they also provided considerable contribution to research, as proved by the number of citations of their works.

Documents by author

Figure  11 shows the output of an analysis performed in order to identify recent breakthrough papers that have provided a significant contribution to the topic and have received considerable attention from the scientific community. The ten most cited papers have been identified by extracting all 357 papers from the Scopus database and ranking them according to the overall number of citations of the last 5 years, divided by 5 (average value of citation per year). This reduced time span has been chosen instead of the time-length of the whole dataset in order to avoid the biased result of obtaining the oldest papers as the most cited, due to the fact that they would have received a greater number of citations over time. The article with the highest number of citations is the one by Liden et al. ( 2008 ) who developed and validated a multidimensional measure of 28 items measuring 9 essential dimensions of servant leadership. This scale has been widely applied to test the construct validity in various organizational contexts in recent time, together with its shortened version of 7 item developed by Wayne et al. in 2015. The remaining most cited articles can be divided in three groups, according to the research streams. One stream has focused on the clarification of the construct and the servant leadership theories in organizations, including scale development and validation. A second stream has been investigating the mediating and moderating mechanisms through which servant leadership leads to a series of behavioral, attitudinal and performance outcomes, both at the individual and collective level. Finally, a third stream has compared servant leadership to other moral-based leadership styles, such as transformational, ethical and authentic leaderships in terms of focus and their associations with a wide range of organizationally relevant measures. All the most cited papers are part of the biggest component shown in Fig.  2 ; moreover, four out of the ten papers are included in the main path, while the remaining six are not. Being written by more than one authors, these impactful papers are the result of a significant investigation conducted on the topic by more scholars. Altogether, the articles suggest that the most consistent trend in literature is moving towards the measurement of servant leadership across various cultural and organizational contexts, at both the individual and collective levels (organization, employee, customer, etc.). This has been possible through the clarification of the common constructs composing servant leadership and the development of a scale able to test them across different organizations and organizational levels.

Ranking of the ten most cited papers in the last 5 years (mean value of citation per year)

This paper represents an attempt to rationalize the content of research developed in the context of servant leadership. The limitations of the study are mainly related to the adopted methodology. First of all, it consists in a literature review based on a citation network analysis, which may not be fully representative of a paper’s qualitative contribution to the body of knowledge, especially because VOSviewer shows only a part of the whole subset. Moreover, citations could be biased because scholars often tend to cite the most relevant articles in the literature, driven by their reputation and popularity. However, these limitations can be overcome due to the fact that the purpose of the current study is to depict an evolutionary path of the topic, rather than investigate in-depth the contribution of single papers.

The growing body of empirical studies on servant leadership, analyzed for the purpose of the analysis, has allowed to identify some consolidated streams of research and some areas of the literature deserving further investigation. First of all, there is evidence that servant leadership can foster employees’ positive outcomes, with different antecedents and through various mediating and moderating mechanisms. These outcomes have been found at the individual, team and organizational level and are of various types: behavioral, such as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and proactive behavior (Chiniara & Bentein, 2016 ; Newman et al., 2017 ; Ozyilmaz & Cicek, 2015 ; Walumbwa et al., 2010 ) attitudinal, such as engagement and job satisfaction (Chiniara & Bentein, 2016 ; Hunter et al., 2013 ; Kauppila et al., 2018 ; Van Dierendonck et al., 2014 ) and performance, such as customer value co-creation and team performance (Hsiao et al., 2015 ; Hu & Liden, 2011 ). Moreover, servant leadership has been found to be of significant utility in explaining incremental variance above and beyond transformational, ethical and authentic leadership, with regards to these organizationally relevant criterion measures (Hoch et al., 2018 ). For this reason, scholars have addressed their attention to this leadership approach and several companies are moving towards the adoption of an organizational climate based on service, ethics and healthy work relationships that could significantly contribute to the organizational success (Eva et al., 2019 ). This aspect makes servant leadership attractive for both future research and usage. Also, in the analyses of the present study (main path, keywords clusters, global statistics), no significant criticism of servant leadership, from both an empirical and theoretical level, has emerged; the development of minor critical examinations has always started from a prior enhancement of the construct and its positive outcomes. It has to be considered, however, that the unquestioned positive praise of servant leadership may be due to the so called “Matthew effect”: the fact that those papers offering a promising perspective of servant leadership, which have previously been successful, are more likely to be cited again and again (Bol et al., 2018 ).

Although a positive interpretation of servant leadership prevails in the literature, the authors of the present study went beyond the outputs of the main analyses to identify in the literature some potential drawbacks associated with the adoption of this practice within organizations (Palumbo, 2015 ). First of all, it has to be considered that the servant leadership approach takes time to build, as it requires strong interpersonal relationships engaging the emotional, relational and ethical dimension of followers, in which both the leader and the followers play a vital role in maintaining them over time. Plus, the servant leadership style may not be suitable for all organizations, especially those characterized by a fast-changing environment where decisions have to be made quickly, due to the fact that they would require a fast top-down approach, rather than bottom-up. Another risk is losing sight of the purpose of the organization and ultimate goals in favour of people development: the servant leader is in fact devoted to the individual employee and their growth rather than to the organization. This could have negative effects on the organizational effectiveness. On the other hand, a successful company performance is not always due to a visionary leader who establishes a climate of service, as this represents a common misperception of the business world: the halo effect (i.e. the tendency to make specific inferences on the basis of a general impression).

Lastly, too much healing and empathy shown by the leader may turn into merely protective behaviour towards followers, which would discourage them from adopting a proactive role and promptly dealing with critical issues within the organization. This would challenge the prevailing arguments of the literature of servant leadership by producing a disabling environment that disempowers employees and leads to a situation of dependency on the leader (Palumbo, 2015 ). To prevent this possible counterintuitive consequence, servant leaders should act as role models and lead by example, ensuring at the same time that followers have the right degree of autonomy and responsibility. In light of these considerations, the conceptualization of servant leadership should be revisited to contemplate its side-effects, in terms of followers’ behaviour, leader–follower relationships and organizational outcomes, to prevent the impoverishment of the overall organizational effectiveness predicted by some studies (Andersen, 2009 ; Palumbo, 2015 ; Liu, 2019 ; Chenwei et al., 2021 , Wu et al., 2021 ).

In particular, the authors of the present study have leveraged on a critical assessment of the outputs of the main analyses of the literature on servant leadership to identify some research areas that have not been examined in detail and deserve further investigation:

• servant leaders’ system of beliefs and values (i.e. ethics) as well as other antecedents, that may significantly affect followers’ and organizational performance;
• other mediating or moderating mechanisms (i.e. contextual discriminants) influencing the relationship between servant leadership and positive outcomes, both at the individual and organizational level;
• servant leadership behaviours displayed by followers, that are useful to promote customers’ satisfaction, especially in the service sector;
• the utility of servant leadership in contexts where it has not yet been evaluated, such as technology, to test its validity across industries;
• longitudinal, multi-level studies confirming the effectiveness and generalizability of the most recent scale of global servant leadership assessment (SL-7) across culturally diverse countries (other than the US and China, as suggested by this literature review), according to well-known frameworks such as Hofstede’s
• critical theoretical and empirical investigation of the potential shortcomings of servant leadership often neglected by scholars, to challenge the current positive interpretation of the topic and advance the scientific knowledge

Additionally, on the basis of the authors’ considerations, the role of servant leadership, compared to other types of leadership, may be investigated within the institutional framework (e.g. public services and administration, where it has shown to be very effective) and companies’ organizational change management.

Conclusions and Managerial Implications

Due to its holistic approach, broad focus and important role in affecting both individual and team-level outcomes, servant leadership has seen a proliferation of studies in the last 20 years. In response to this research trend, the aim of this paper was threefold. First of all, the recent evolution of the field was depicted through the identification of the main articles cluster that has been cited the most, thus representing the consolidated literature. Second, the development of the research trends over time was framed on the basis of the co-occurrence of authors’ keywords. Third, by conducting analyses on the main subset of papers, the authors presented some general insights on the topic, such as its temporal and geographical development, the main contexts where it has been studied and applied, the most cited papers providing a significant contribution to the field and the most influential journals and authors. The results of the analyses conducted in the present study indicate that the interpretation of servant leadership prevailing in literature is positive, due to the promising attitudinal, behavioural and performance outcomes that it can produce on followers.

Nevertheless, scholars should examine the potential drawbacks of servant leadership, assess its validity across industries, as well as identify the best scenario where it can be implemented. From a practical standpoint, managers should consider the importance of promoting servant leadership in employment settings, to develop specific skills and ultimately improve an organizational climate of empowerment. The servant leadership approach may be particularly effective in the post covid-19 scenario and / or in contexts characterized by a high degree of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). In these environments, leaders struggle to make all decisions, thus requiring the proactiveness and motivational orientation of all employees, which have been identified as important mediators to positive followers’ outcomes in the servant leadership research (Eva et al., 2019 ). Specifically, further considerations are needed in relation to the potential role of this leadership practice in empowering and supporting followers, as well as in giving them the right degree of autonomy and responsibility to take on new challenges and act on behalf of the company when pressured by the external environment.

Data Availability

Code availability, declarations.

We have no conflict of interest or competing interest to disclose.

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Contributor Information

Alice Canavesi, Email: ti.cuil@isevanaca .

Eliana Minelli, Email: ti.cuil@illenime .

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Servant Leadership: How to Transform Your Leadership Style

In times like ours, in which fostering engagement, enhancing staff wellbeing, and preventing staff burnout are high on the agenda of many leaders and organizations, we have much to gain from revisiting the principles of this model.

Let us examine its core features, psychological benefits, and how servant leadership can serve us on our mission of being outstanding leaders.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Leadership Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or others adopt positive leadership practices and help organizations thrive.

This Article Contains

• What Is Servant Leadership? Definition & Examples

Servant Leadership Theory by Robert Greenleaf

Traditional leadership vs. servant leadership, what does servant leadership look like in practice, 5 excellent servant leadership quotes, 4 suggested leadership books, positive leadership tools from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message, frequently asked questions, what is servant leadership definition & examples.

Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy that prioritizes serving others and fostering their growth. It is, in that sense, a non-egoistic approach to transformational leadership ; the servant leader really puts their staff and organization above their own status and ego needs.

Service leadership aims to satisfy the needs of self, others, and systems in ethical and prosocial ways. It rests on leadership competence, character, and care (Shek et al., 2023).

Servant leaders actively listen to, empathize with, and seek to empower their team members. They aim to create an environment where trust, collaboration, and personal development are the utmost priorities.

Servant leadership emphasizes morality and integrity and seeks to support emotional, relational, and ethical growth in followers. These leaders are committed to investing in personal relationships with employees. They seek to increase trust, loyalty, and commitment.

“Key qualities of servant leaders are humility, ensuring followers’ development, listening, sharing in decision-making, behaving ethically and promoting a sense of community. The idea is that when followers’ needs and well-being are prioritized, they are able to achieve their goals, and this flows upward so that the leader’s and the organizational goals are met in turn.”

Canavesi & Minelli, 2022, p. 414

When we think of powerful servant leaders, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela may come to mind. All served their communities with tremendous humility, compassion, and dignity.

We may also think of military personnel who serve in the literal sense, although the military is of course a highly hierarchical domain, and servant leadership in civilian organizations is based on different models.

An example of servant leadership in action in the business world is that of Herb Kelleher, the cofounder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines. Kelleher prioritized his employees’ wellbeing, believing firmly that happy employees would lead to satisfied customers and, as a consequence, to business success.

As he put it, “Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that” (Hyken, 2018, para. 4).

Kelleher created a corporate culture that became known for employees who took themselves lightly, but their jobs seriously.

We can also recall Agile Scrum masters, whose key function is simply to serve their teams as effectively as possible. Depending on the situation at hand, Scrum masters use their soft skills to act as servant leaders, facilitators, coaches, managers, mentors, teachers, impediment removers, and change agents.

Robert K. Greenleaf is often regarded as the pioneer of servant leadership. In 1970, he published an essay on the topic, and in 1977, he published an influential book called Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness .

In this book, he outlines a comprehensive model that encapsulates the core principles of servant leadership. Greenleaf’s (1977) theory emphasizes the following key components:

• Listening Servant leaders listen actively to their team members and seek to understand their perspectives and needs.
• Empathy They demonstrate empathy by caring deeply about the wellbeing of their employees.
• Healing Servant leaders aim to facilitate both healing and personal growth in their team members, at a professional and personal level.
• Self-awareness They are highly aware of their impact on others and the world around them.
• Persuasion Instead of relying on authority, servant leaders use the art of persuasion to guide their team members toward shared goals.
• Conceptualization They have the ability to paint vivid pictures and communicate compelling visions of a better future to their team.
• Foresight Servant leaders are future oriented and always consider the long-term consequences of their decisions and actions.
• Stewardship They take responsibility for the wellbeing of their teams and the wellbeing of their organization as a whole.
• Commitment to the growth of others Servant leaders are passionately dedicated to helping others grow and reach their full potential.

Greenleaf also emphasized that organizations as well as individuals could be servant-leaders. He believed that servant-leader-organizations had the potential to change the world.

In his second major essay, The Institution as Servant , Greenleaf (as cited in Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, n.d., para. 6) wrote:

“This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions – often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt.”

“If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”

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Servant leadership differs from traditional leadership in various ways. In traditional leadership, power, control, status, and authority are often paramount. Servant leaders, by contrast, focus on nurturing trust, collaboration, and personal growth. By shifting the focus from the leader to the team, servant leaders create psychologically safe environments of empowerment and shared responsibility (Spears, 1995).

We can say that servant leadership entails a particular style of leadership that rests on clearly defined theoretical principles. However, it also requires particular traits and qualities in a leader, above all humility and altruism, as well as kindness and compassion. Servant leaders also need to master specific skills, such as active listening and building trust.

Servant leadership has been linked to various positive individual and collective outcomes (Eva et al., 2019). Servant leadership, for example, helps with fostering staff engagement (Howell & Shields, 2017; Zhou et al., 2022).

It also supports proactive and citizenship behavior, job satisfaction , and performance. Several companies, “including some of those ranked by Forbes as among the ‘best 100 to work for,’ such as Marriott, Starbucks, SAS, and Zappos.com, foster an organizational climate based on service, ethics, and healthy work relationships that significantly contribute to organizational success” (Canavesi & Minelli, 2022, p. 414).

In practice, servant leaders do the following: (Greenleaf, 1977; Sendjaya et al. 2008):

• Listen actively to understand their team’s core needs
• Empower and encourage team members to make decisions
• Lead by example, demonstrating integrity and humility
• Prioritize the wellbeing, personal growth, and healing of their team
• Foster a culture of trust, collaboration, and innovation
• Create value for their communities

Liden et al. (2015) created a seven-item composite measure of servant leadership, a shorter version of their previous 28-item Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Liden, 2008).

It covers seven different dimensions identified in servant leadership (see Canavesi and Minelli, 2022, p. 416):

• Emotional healing
• Creating value for the community
• Conceptual skills
• Helping subordinates grow and succeed
• Putting subordinates first
• Behaving ethically

So then, how can you become a powerful servant leader in practice?

Knowing what servant leadership should look like and having completed the leadership questionnaire to get a measure of your current abilities, reflect on the following focus areas.

Listen actively to ensure employee wellbeing

Be committed to and involved in your team’s wellbeing . This includes taking a genuine interest in your employees’ personal lives and lending an ear when they experience personal problems. It involves connecting deeply and authentically to other people, not just seeing them as replaceable “human resources.”

Serve the community and create value

Ask yourself, “How am I serving the wider community of which I am a part? How could I serve it even better?” Consider the traits of a positive community .

Be a great communicator

The task of a servant leader is also to mediate between people, teams, and wider organizational goals and to communicate clearly and honestly when there is conflict or tension. Here is an article providing guidance: How to Improve Communication Skills .

Empower and trust

A servant leader trusts their employees and equips them with autonomy and responsibility. They also support them to use both wisely. In other words, a servant leader combines challenges with support and builds trust .

Support and encourage

Helps employees grow by supporting their personal and professional development, believing in them, and encouraging them to reach their full potential.

Be a role model

A servant leader models all the behaviors they want to bring out in their teams. They behave with integrity and honesty and own up to failures in an authentic way when they occur.

In that way, a servant leader creates trust. This also includes being vulnerable.

Inspire and motivate

Finally, a servant leader needs to inspire, motivate, paint a powerful picture, and share a compelling vision with their employees.

All of this involves the ability to mentalize, to imagine the world from other people’s points of view. What do your employees care about? What motivates them? What do they fear? What do they truly need to grow?

For more inspiration on how to become a great service leader, you may enjoy the following two videos.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.”

Attributed to Simon Sinek

“It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius.”

Simon Sinek, 2014, p. 21

“Every single employee is someone’s son or someone’s daughter. Like a parent, a leader of a company is responsible for their precious lives.”

Simon Sinek, 2014, p. 19

“The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.”

Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, n.d., para. 2

If you seek inspiration for how to become a powerful servant leader, there are outstanding books out there that can help you develop the core skills you need. These books cover the theory of servant leadership and also contain numerous practical examples from servant leadership in action.

1. Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness – Robert K. Greenleaf

This is the classic book on servant leadership by Robert K. Greenleaf, who coined the term.

Greenleaf outlines a transformative approach to leadership that puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, first.

Listening, connecting, and deeply committing to building a positive organizational culture are central to Greenleaf’s approach. You will learn how to lead by example, generate trust, and create an environment in which your employees can truly thrive.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. The Institution as Servant – Robert Greenleaf

This book features a long essay by Robert Greenleaf, in which the author extends the idea of service leadership to institutions.

Institutions and organizations, too, Greenleaf argues, should operate with a servant leadership mindset. They should remember their social purpose and aim to increase the wellbeing of their communities and stakeholders.

Like leaders, institutions have an obligation to contribute to the greater good. The success of a service leadership institution is measured by not only the usual metrics of success, but also how it positively affects society. They focus on long-term sustainability, rather than just on short-term profit and gains.

3. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t – Simon Sinek

In Leaders Eat Last , the international bestselling author Simon Sinek investigates great leaders who don’t just sacrifice their place at the table but often their own comfort and even their lives for those in their care.

They range from Marine Corps officers to the heads of big business and government. They all share that they put aside their own interests to protect their teams. For them, leadership is not a rank but a responsibility.

4. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business – Patrick M. Lencioni

New York Times bestselling author Patrick Lencioni argues that the key difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has everything to do with how healthy they are.

He argues that an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent, and complete and when its management, operations, and culture are unified.

Leaders can find precious lessons in this book about how to be truly of service to their organizations and teams.

Positive psychology offers valuable tools that align seamlessly with the servant leadership philosophy. Here at PositivePsychology.com, we provide resources like strengths assessments, gratitude exercises, self-awareness worksheets, and emotional intelligence tools that can help leaders cultivate a positive and supportive work environment.

You may find these articles on related topics of interest:

• What Is the Coaching Leadership Style? by Jeremy Sutton
• What Is the Authentic Leadership Style? by Nicole Celestine
• Positive Leadership: 30 Must-Have Traits and Skills by Courtney Ackerman

A core servant leader skill is active listening. Enjoy downloading our free active listening worksheet  to hone this skill.

You may also find our Back Writing Exercise useful for strengthening your team’s cohesion and care for each other.

As a team, you may also benefit from bringing Ikigai into your workplace.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop positive leadership skills, this collection contains 17 validated positive leadership exercises . Use them to equip leaders with the skills needed to cultivate a culture of positivity and resilience.

17 Exercises To Build Positive Leaders

Use these 17 Positive Leadership Exercises [PDF] to help others inspire, motivate, and guide employees in ways that enrich workplace performance and satisfaction. Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Servant leadership is a transformative leadership approach that empowers individuals and organizations to grow.

If you wish to become a powerful servant leader, you can begin by embracing principles like active listening, empathy, and a serious commitment to the development of others. Your key priority should be creating a thriving organizational culture in which compassion and empowerment are key.

Servant leadership is based on the ancient virtues of humility, temperance, and altruism. It is a form of leadership that rests on character strengths and genuine care for others. It is therefore important to model these virtues in your organization and to see service leadership as a daily developmental practice.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Leadership Exercises for free .

Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy that prioritizes serving others, active listening, and empowering team members. It emphasizes the wellbeing and personal growth of those who are being led, rather than the leader’s need for status and power.

Servant leadership is vital as it fosters trust, collaboration, and engagement within teams and organizations. It leads to higher job satisfaction, improved performance, and a more positive work environment in which employees can truly thrive.

The four main principles of servant leadership, as outlined by Robert K. Greenleaf (1977), are listening, empathy, healing, and self-awareness. These principles form the foundation of servant leadership philosophy.

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• Howell, E. E., & Shields, J. E. (2017). Servant leadership and employee engagement: Does the leadership style of the supervisor matter? Advances in Developing Human Resources , 19 (3), 299–315.
• Hyken, S. (2018, March 18). How Southwest Airlines Keeps the Romance Alive With Its Customers . Forbes. Retrieved September 24, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2018/03/18/how-southwest-keeps-the-romance-alive-with-its-customers/.
• Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Zhao, H., & Henderson, D. (2008). Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment. The Leadership Quarterly , 19 (2), 161–177.
• Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Meuser, J. D., Hu, J., Wu. J., & Liao, C. (2015). Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28. Leadership Quarterly , 26 (2), 254.
• Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. (n.d.) What is servant leadership? Retrieved September 24, 2023, from https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/.
• Sendjaya, S., Sarros, J. C., & Santora, J. C. (2008). Defining and measuring servant leadership behavior in organizations. Journal of Management Studies , 45 (2), 402–424.
• Shek, D. T. L., Zhu, X., Dou, D., & Tan, L. (2023). Self-leadership as an attribute of service leadership: Its relationship to well-being among university students in Hong Kong. Frontiers in Psychology , 14 .
• Sinek, S. (2014). Leaders eat last: Why some teams pull together and others don’t . Penguin.
• Spears, L. C. (1995). Reflections on Robert K. Greenleaf and servant-leadership. The Leadership Quarterly , 6 (2), 315–319.
• Zhou, G., Gul, R., & Tufail, M. (2022). Does servant leadership stimulate work engagement? The moderating role of trust in the leader. Frontiers in Psychology , 13 .

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What is servant leadership? 10 principles, characteristics, and examples

Servant leadership is a powerful approach to management that has gained significant traction in recent years. This style of leadership focuses on empowering and supporting team members, fostering collaboration, and prioritizing the needs of others.

In this guide, we’ll explore the servant leadership style, including its benefits, principles, and common characteristics of a servant leader.

Definition of servant leadership

Servant leadership is a management philosophy where the primary goal of the leader is to serve and support their team members, enabling them to reach their full potential and achieve organizational success. By prioritizing the growth and well-being of their team, servant leaders create an environment that fosters trust, collaboration, and high performance.

The term servant leadership was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 in his landmark essay, “ The Servant as Leader .” Since then, the concept has gained widespread popularity.

Servant leadership is based on the idea that leaders and managers should work toward the well-being of their team members by actively listening, empowering the team, and working toward team members’ development and growth. The key to developing a servant leadership style lies in creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive and excel without fear.

Characteristics of a servant leader

Servant leaders possess a unique set of characteristics that enable them to effectively support and empower their teams. These traits are essential for fostering collaboration, promoting personal growth, and ensuring the well-being of team members.

Some key characteristics of a servant leader include:

• Empathy — Servant leaders genuinely care about the feelings and perspectives of their team members. They strive to understand the needs and concerns of others, which helps create an environment where everyone feels valued and supported
• Active listening — A crucial skill for any servant leader is the ability to actively listen to others. By giving their full attention to team members, they can better understand their needs, provide constructive feedback, and make informed decisions
• Humility — Servant leaders recognize that they are not infallible and are open to learning from others. They are willing to admit when they are wrong and seek input from team members to make better decisions
• Focus on development — One of the primary goals of a servant leader is to help their team members grow both personally and professionally. They provide opportunities for learning, encourage skill development, and offer guidance when needed
• Encouragement — Servant leaders inspire their teams by offering encouragement and support. They celebrate successes, acknowledge achievements, and motivate team members to reach their full potential
• Collaboration — A servant leader fosters a collaborative work environment by encouraging open communication, teamwork, and shared decision-making
• Stewardship — Servant leaders take responsibility for the well-being of their team members and the organization as a whole. They act ethically and responsibly in all aspects of their leadership role
• Adaptability — Servant leaders embrace change and are willing to adjust their approach as needed to meet new challenges or seize opportunities

10 principles of servant leadership

There are approximately 10 essential principles of servant leadership:

Let’s take a closer look at each principle:

• Listening — An effective servant leader is a good listener and gives their full attention to others. This helps them provide constructive feedback and ample opportunity for others on the team to feel valued and heard
• Persuasion — Effective servant leaders are more persuasive than authoritative and coercive. They rely on consensus building and explaining why over what to guide and motivate the team
• Empathy — Effective servant leaders understand that demonstrating care and valuing others’ perspectives with an open mind is key to unlocking the team’s full potential. Terefore, they listen actively and understand the perspectives of the team on a personal level to exhibit empathy.
• Community — Servant leaders encourage open communication and engagement within the team and organization. They provide an inclusive culture and a cohesive work environment for sharing knowledge and opinions. They also foster forums and workspaces for ongoing knowledge sharing and non-work-related conversations
• Self-awareness — Servant leaders are aware of their limitations and potential. This allows them to envision day-to-day tasks and broader scope based on their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of the team
• Healing — Impressive servant leaders emphasize overcoming setbacks before tackling new challenges, embracing the importance of healing and growth for the team. This quality builds an inclusive environment where the team feels empowered to overcome future challenges with knowledge, support, and resources
• Stewardship — This principle involves ethical practice, trust, and confidence in demonstrating the well-being of both the team and organization
• Growth mindset — Effective leaders prioritize growth over control and power. They allow the team to grow and develop as future leaders without exhibiting any insecurities
• Foresight — Servant leaders understand the importance of anticipating future opportunities and challenges. They possess the ability to identify potential consequences of decisions and actions to help their team, and encourage the team to do the same
• Conceptualization — Servant leaders possess the ability to envision the bigger picture and long-term goals while balancing day-to-day tasks and challenges. They encourage their team to think beyond immediate concerns, fostering a strategic mindset that drives innovation and sustainable success

Benefits of servant leadership

Organizations that embrace servant leadership often experience a profound shift in their overall success and workplace culture. By prioritizing the needs of employees and fostering an environment of trust, empathy, and growth, servant leaders create a more engaged and productive workforce.

This approach not only benefits individual team members but also has far-reaching effects on the organization as a whole. If you’re considering transitioning from a traditional leadership style to servant leadership, here are some compelling reasons why this change can have a significant impact on your organization:

Enhanced employee engagement

Improved collaboration, increased employee satisfaction and retention, strong company culture, innovation and sustainable success, improved employee net promoter score (enps), enhanced customer satisfaction.

Servant leaders prioritize the well-being and development of their team members, which leads to increased employee engagement. When employees feel valued, supported, and empowered, they are more likely to be committed to their work and take ownership of their responsibilities.

This heightened level of engagement translates into higher productivity and better overall performance for the organization.

A key aspect of servant leadership is fostering open communication and collaboration within teams. By creating an inclusive environment where everyone’s ideas are valued and considered, servant leaders encourage teamwork and cooperation among employees.

This collaborative approach helps break down silos within the organization, leading to more efficient problem-solving and decision-making processes.

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When employees feel genuinely cared for by their leaders, they are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs and remain loyal to the organization. Servant leaders prioritize employee well-being by actively listening to concerns, providing constructive feedback , and offering opportunities for personal growth.

As a result, organizations with servant leaders often experience lower turnover rates, saving time and resources on recruitment and training.

Servant leadership contributes to building a strong company culture rooted in trust, empathy, and shared values. By modeling these behaviors themselves, servant leaders set the tone for the entire organization.

A positive company culture not only attracts top talent but also helps retain existing employees who feel connected to the organization’s mission and values.

By empowering employees to take risks, learn from mistakes, and share their ideas openly, servant leaders create an environment where innovation can thrive. This culture of continuous learning and improvement helps organizations stay ahead of the competition and achieve long-term success.

The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a metric used to measure employee loyalty and satisfaction. Organizations with servant leaders often see an improvement in their eNPS as employees feel more engaged, valued, and committed to the company’s success.

A higher eNPS indicates a more positive work environment, which can contribute to better overall performance.

Servant leadership’s focus on empathy, active listening, and collaboration extends beyond internal teams to include interactions with customers. By fostering a customer-centric mindset within the organization, servant leaders ensure that employees prioritize customer needs and deliver exceptional service. This approach leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, business growth.

Servant leadership vs. traditional leadership

The fundamental difference between servant leadership and traditional leadership lies in their core values.

Servant leaders prioritize the needs of their team members and customers, creating an environment that fosters personal growth, collaboration, and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, traditional leaders focus primarily on achieving organizational goals through a top-down approach, emphasizing efficiency and productivity.

In servant leadership, the emphasis is placed on leadership supporting management, employees, and ultimately customers. Conversely, traditional leadership prioritizes customers first, followed by employees and management, with leadership at the apex of the hierarchy:

The table below highlights the key differences between servant leadership vs. traditional leadership:

Servant leadership examples

Some exceptional product leaders have embraced the servant leadership style to great success. Among the most notable servant leaders are:

Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

Tony hsieh (zappos), mary barra (general motors).

For one notable example, Jeff Bezos at Amazon demonstrated several servant leadership characteristics:

Customer obsession

Jeff Bezos introduced the concept of working backward with the customer. This approach focuses on understanding customer problems and building customer-centric products to drive company growth. Bezos helped Amazon become the most customer-centric organization through customer-guided product development.

Amazon’s famous 16 leadership principles are based on customer obsession and ownership, fostering the concept of acting as a visionary leader without relying on role names or designations. The foundation of these principles depends on not losing focus from customers and not sacrificing long-term vision for short-term results.

Bezos asserted that patience and commitment to customer experience are necessary for innovation, customer satisfaction, and building best-of-breed products (e.g., Kindle, Prime, amazon.com, hyperpersonalization growth).

Trust in your team (the “two-pizza” approach)

Bezos proposed the concept of “two-pizza teams” to empower product teams. He endorsed small, independent teams of seven to eight people to hold accountability for end-to-end product releases.

This concept brought autonomy, innovation, experimentation, and customer focus. Because each team member holds decision-making authority, they tend to feel more valued and thus more personally invested in the success of your product or business.

Similarly, Tony Hsieh at Zappos emphasized employee empowerment, customer focus, learning, and growth to foster Zappos’ culture.

Under Hsieh’s leadership, Zappos became renowned for its exceptional customer service and unique company culture. He implemented practices such as the “holacracy” management system, which decentralized authority and empowered employees to make decisions that aligned with the company’s core values.

Additionally, Hsieh prioritized employee happiness and well-being by offering extensive training programs, creating a fun work environment, and promoting open communication. This servant leadership approach resulted in high employee engagement, loyalty, and a strong commitment to delivering outstanding customer experiences.

Since taking the helm as CEO of General Motors (GM) in 2014, Mary Barra has made significant strides in transforming GM’s culture and operations by embracing servant leadership principles.

Under Barra’s leadership, GM has shifted its focus toward innovation, sustainability, and long-term growth. She has championed the development of electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology, positioning GM as a leader in the future of transportation.

Barra’s servant leadership style is evident in her approach to communication and collaboration. She prioritizes transparency and open dialogue within the organization, breaking down barriers between management and employees. By fostering an environment where everyone’s voice is heard and valued, she encourages a sense of ownership and accountability among team members.

One notable example of Barra’s commitment to servant leadership is her response to the ignition switch recall crisis that occurred shortly after she became CEO. Instead of deflecting blame or hiding behind corporate jargon, Barra took responsibility for the issue, apologized publicly, and committed to making things right for affected customers. She also implemented changes within GM to improve safety protocols and ensure such issues would not occur again.

Furthermore, Barra emphasizes employee development and growth as part of her servant leadership approach. She invests in training programs and mentorship opportunities that empower employees to advance their careers within the company. This focus on personal growth helps create a more engaged workforce dedicated to achieving GM’s goals.

Barra’s servant leadership style has contributed significantly to General Motors’ success by fostering a culture of innovation, transparency, collaboration, and employee empowerment. Her approach serves as an inspiring example for other leaders seeking to make a positive impact on their organizations.

How to embrace the servant leadership style

A manager’s role involves much more than controlling the team and directing it to work on specific tasks. Product culture is about influencing a team without control.

Product management is one of the best examples of servant leadership because PMs share knowledge, rely on data, collaborate quickly in decision-making processes, and remain humble and open to feedback — all of which align with the nine principles of servant leadership described above. Furthermore, product managers interact with various stakeholders and clients, requiring them to foster a culture of empathy, collaboration, and leading by example.

Here are some best practices and strategies for embracing the servant leadership style in your organization:

• Support learning
• Recognize and celebrate your team
• Continuously reflect and improve
• Prioritize coaching and mentorship
• Encourage cross-functional relationships

1. Support learning

You should foster a learning environment by providing access to training opportunities and promoting continuous learning and growth.

2. Recognize and celebrate your team

Acknowledging and celebrating team members’ successes is key to motivating the product team to perform their best. Give credit where it’s due, publicly acknowledge contributions both big and small, and embrace a sense of appreciation within the team.

3. Continuously reflect and improve

Be responsive to your team’s actions and behaviors and remain open to feedback from team members. This provides ample opportunity to identify areas for improvement and practice servant leadership.

Regularly reflecting on these tactics helps you earn the trust of others and stay curious about learning through experience.

4. Prioritize coaching and mentorship

Seasoned managers should foster a learning environment by coaching and mentoring others, helping the team, and inspiring other managers to develop the skills needed to achieve their goals.

For example, product leaders often contribute to driving product forums, knowledge-sharing networks, and learning workshops within the organization. As a result, they are recognized for building a culture of sharing, guidance, and empowering others.

5. Encourage cross-functional relationships

Servant leadership fosters cross-functional relationship culture through open communication, empathy, understanding, and applying shared vision and goals.

For instance, by clearly emphasizing company vision and objectives, a good servant leader promotes alignment by putting themselves in the shoes of customers and considering other perspectives within the team. This approach breaks down silos and promotes collaboration.

Another example is celebrating cross-functional achievements and reinforcing the value of collaboration by giving credit to the team and others.

By promoting a culture of collaboration, empathy, teamwork, team development, and cross-functional relationships, servant leaders break down barriers and enable an environment where everyone works together toward measurable goals rather than dictating steps for execution to the product team.

As a result, servant leadership fosters innovation, high retention rates, improved performance, effective communication within teams as well as with cross-functional teams.

In today’s world where product-led growth is every company’s ambition, servant leadership fits this strategy perfectly. Embracing this leadership style can help organizations achieve greater success while creating a positive work environment that values employee well-being and development.

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5 qualities of servant leadership in 2024.

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Servant leadership is an age-old concept that has its root in Biblical times, such as when Jesus ... [+] made reference to leaders being servants first

Of late in business circles, you might be hearing the buzzword, "servant leadership." And it shouldn't come as a surprise. There are numerous scientific studies and corporate research that validate the effectiveness of this style of leadership.

One such study, led by the University at Buffalo in 2023, revealed that this style of leadership directly impacts improved decision-making, resulting in more dollars to the company. "A one-point increase in servant leadership scores (on a seven-point scale) resulted in $11.3 million in additional revenue for the company, about a 6% increase. And, at the same time, employees who were more other-oriented were giving more to charities."

This study proves that servant leadership leads to tangible successes such as boosted profits, improved productivity, and positive corporate social responsibility (CSR) outcomes.

But what exactly is servant leadership? And what are its core defining characteristics?

What Is Servant Leadership?

The term servant leadership is a timeless concept that was exemplified in history, for example when Jesus referenced leading as a servant in the Bible. However, it was coined and swelled into a movement, by the scholar Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 essay appropriately titled, "The Servant As Leader."

Servant leadership differs from the more traditional view of leadership as being an authoritarian, autocratic business-first approach, and it occurs when the primary goal of the leader is to serve their people—not their profits. This concept was perhaps best summed up concisely in a 2020 study published in Sage Journals:

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"Servant leaders strongly believe that they have a duty of stewardship. They are people-centric and value services to others in general and more specifically to their followers. In organizational settings, servant leaders believe in every employee and treat them with respect and humility. The employee is given an opportunity to do meaningful work. Favorable attitudes of employees toward their supervisors were found to be related to the productivity of employees."

The study continued to note that its findings proved that there was significant and positive association between servant leadership and performance levels, high levels of engagement and productivity, and loyalty to the leader and organization.

One might argue that nowhere is this more essential than in the turbulent workforce of 2024, in which already we are witnessing changes that are upheaving employees' identity, confidence, and trust in their employers—changes such as widespread layoffs, the adoption (or lack of adoption) of artificial intelligence, inter-generational working, and DEI-related matters.

There are a number of values, behaviors, and qualities that characterize servant leaders. Here are a few the core principles listed below:

Servant leaders exemplify empathy towards their team members and followers. This means that they possess a deep understanding and compassion for others. To demonstrate empathy as a servant leader, you need to prioritize actively listening to your team members, seeking to understand their unique perspectives, and empathize with their circumstances and needs. This will help shape your policies and decision-making, and will reinforce a positive employer brand image.

Servant leaders believe in their employees and empower them to be their best version of themselves

2. Humility

Perhaps the most important aspect of servant leadership is recognizing that you don't know everything, and recognizing that the world does not revolve around you or your leadership/management team. Your primary purpose is not to fill your pocket with profits, or to ensure you continue to maximize revenue.

Although it may seem counterintuitive initially, the profits will follow when you put your ego aside and put your team members first. Recognition and power become secondary when you are focused on empowering and uplifting your team.

3. Selflessness

When the COVID19 pandemic struck and employees were forced to go on furlough or even lose their jobs entirely, there were some leaders and senior managers of organizations who voluntarily decided to take a pay cut, by way of supporting their employees, instead of being inconsiderate and continuing to subsist on their already six-figure salaries.

Now, this does not mean that every leader or manager should take a pay cut in times of crisis, as this will not be practical for everyone. However, the underlying principle remains.

When you understand that your own interests come secondary as a leader or manager, prioritize the well-being and development of your team members, and are willing to make personal sacrifices for the greater good of your team—this will undoubtedly lead to a greater sense of connection, rapport, and understanding, which enhances their own wellbeing as employees.

While it is essential to have a people-first mentality as a leader, it's equally important to have a strong vision and mission for the organization. This will serve as a motivation alongside your efforts to be a servant leader, and will inspire all towards greater efficiency and achievement of business objectives. You should be able to create this clear vision and a strategy to achieve it, and be persuasive enough to inspire and motivate your team members towards this common end goal.

5. Empowerment

Last but not least, as a servant leader it should be your mission to empower your employees. Empowerment leans towards a focus on their own personal wellbeing and professional development, so they can excel within their roles, and have the flexibility to pursue their career goals and discover other career paths within the organization.

Empower your team by providing them with adequate learning and development resources, and all-round support, wile granting them autonomy and coaching to take accountability for their own work.

Servant leaders understand that their own interests and profits come secondary

These attributes are what make you competent and persuasive as a leader. Through a focus on building healthy work relationships, empowering individuals to reach their full potential while setting challenging goals, and being empathetic enough to lay your ego aside, you can embody what it takes to be a servant leader, and weather the storms of organizational change effectively.

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SERVANT LEADERSHIP 101

What is servant leadership, to download a pdf of this section of the website, click here ..

Contents of this section:

A. Robert Greenleaf and The Servant as Leader

B. Greenleaf’s writings

C. Definitions of servant leadership by authors

D. Definitions of servant leadership by scholars

E. How is servant leadership unique?

F. Other resources

The idea that leaders should serve others is an idea that goes back thousands of years and can be found in a number of traditions. However, there is a modern servant leadership movement. It was launched in the United States in 1970 by Robert K. Greenleaf, who coined the words “servant-leader” and “servant leadership.”

Greenleaf worked for AT&T from 1926 to 1964. During that time, AT&T had more than a million employees and was one of the largest corporations in the world. Greenleaf became involved in teaching, training, and personnel assessment. Eventually, he became AT&T’s Director of Management Research. It was his job to train and educate the senior leaders of this huge corporation. What he concluded after thirty-eight years of experience was that the most effective leaders were focused on serving others.

In 1970, Greenleaf published his classic essay, The Servant as Leader. He revised it and republished it in 1973. The essay has been read by hundreds of thousands of people since then.

• You can order a copy of the book  here.

The Contemporary Servant as Leader was published in 2016. Dr. Keith lightly edited Greenleaf’s original essay to make it easier to read, and invited leaders in the servant leadership movement to add their comments on various parts of the essay.

• You can order a copy of his essay here.

In his classic essay, Greenleaf defined servant leadership by saying:

The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…

The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types…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, and difficult to administer, 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 not be further deprived?

Greenleaf focused on growing people. He said that whatever business we are in, we should be in the business of growing people. Growing people is a triple win. When people grow, they benefit personally and professionally. Their capacity grows, so the capacity of the organization grows. When the capacity of the organization grows, it can do things better, or do things it was never able to do before. Individuals benefit, the organization benefits, and those served benefit.

Greenleaf was also concerned about the impact that a leader’s decisions have on those whom he referred to as the least privileged. He asked: “ And , what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

In addition to the desire to serve, Greenleaf mentioned other characteristics of the servant leader, such as listening and understanding; acceptance and empathy; foresight; awareness; persuasion; conceptualization; self-healing; and rebuilding community. Greenleaf said that servant-leaders initiate action, are goal-oriented, are dreamers of great dreams, are good communicators, are able to withdraw and re-orient themselves, and are dependable, trusted, creative, intuitive, and situational.

Dr. Don Frick wrote an excellent biography of Greenleaf, titled Robert K. Greenleaf: A Life of Servant Leadership.

• You can order a copy of the book   here.

B. Greenleaf’s Writings

Greenleaf’s second major essay on servant leadership was The Institution as Servant, in which he discussed conceptual and operating skills, and argued for a council of equals or team at the top of the organization.

His third major essay on servant leadership was Trustees as Servants, in which he encouraged trustees (board members) to truly lead their organizations and to make judgments that add value and help their organizations become servant-institutions that care about everyone the organization touches.

In 1977, Greenleaf published a collection of essays, including his first three servant leadership essays. In 2002, a 25th Anniversary Edition of the book was published:  Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (New York: Paulist Press, 2002).

The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, under the leadership of Larry Spears, published a series of books that archived Robert Greenleaf’s writings. Those books include:

Don M. Frick and Larry C. Spears, eds., On Becoming a Servant Leader: The Private Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996).

Anne T. Fraker & Larry C. Spears, eds., Seeker and Servant: Reflections on Religious Leadership: The Private Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996).

Larry Spears, ed., The Power of Servant Leadership: Essays by Robert Greenleaf (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1998).

C. Definitions of Servant Leadership by Authors

Over the years, various authors have provided their definitions of servant leadership and the characteristics of servant leaders.

Larry Spears, who was CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership for many years, selected ten characteristics of servant leadership: Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community.

A 2004 article by Larry Spears, “Practicing Servant Leadership,” discusses the ten characteristics.

•  You can download the article by clicking here.

Dr. James Sipe is a licensed psychologist and executive coach, and Dr. Don Frick is an author, teacher, and the biographer of Robert Greenleaf. They wrote a book titled Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership. In their book, the said that the “seven pillars” of servant leadership are: person of character, puts people first, skilled communicator, compassionate collaborator, foresight, systems thinker, and moral authority.

Juana Bordas, who served on the Greenleaf Center Board for many years, wrote a book titled Salsa, Soul, and Spirit. She said that servant leadership is found in the cultures of Native Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic Americans. She identified three dimensions of servant leadership in those cultures. She said that it is understood in those cultures that leadership positions are conferred by the community and belong to the community, not to the individual leader; that leaders are guardians of public values, not their personal self-interest; and that leaders are community stewards, working for the common good, not for their personal gain.

Dr. Kent Keith, who served as CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership in the United States and then as the CEO of the Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership (Asia) in Singapore, shared the definitions of practitioners and scholars in the first two chapters of his book, The Case for Servant Leadership (2nd edition, 2012).

D. Definitions of Servant Leadership by Scholars

Scholars have developed definitions of servant leadership and the characteristics of servant leaders. For example, Dr. Peter Northouse is the author of a textbook titled Leadership that includes a chapter on servant leadership. In that chapter, Northouse said:

…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… Furthermore, servant leaders are ethical… and lead in ways that serve the greater good of the organization, community, and society at large.

In his textbook, Northouse discusses the model of servant leadership that was developed by Robert Liden, Sandy Wayne, Hao Zhao, and David Henderson. They published their model in an article titled “Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment,” in The Leadership Quarterly in 2008. They use seven domains of servant leadership in their research. Those domains are emotional healing, creating value for the community, conceptual skills, empowering, helping followers grow and succeed, putting followers first, and behaving ethically.

• You can order a copy of their article here.

Dr. Dirk van Dierendonck is a professor at Erasmus University in Holland. After surveying the servant leadership literature, he published an article in 2011 in the Journal of Management that described six characteristics of servant leadership. He said that servant-leaders empower and develop people; they show humility; are authentic; accept people for who they are; provide direction; and are stewards who work for the good of the whole.

• You can read the article  here.

In an article published in 2019, Dr. Nathan Eva, Dr. Mulyadi Robin, Dr. Sen Sendjaya, Dr. Dirk van Dierendonck, and Dr. Robert Liden published an article in The Leadership Quarterly titled “Servant Leadership: A systematic review and call for further research.” They commented that “servant leadership focuses on followers’ growth in multiple areas, such as their psychological wellbeing, emotional maturity, and ethical wisdom.” They said:

…the mindset of servant leadership… reflects that of a trustee… servant leadership is a centrifugal force that moves followers from a self-serving towards other-serving orientation, empowering them to be productive and prosocial catalysts who are able to make a positive difference in others’ lives and alter broken structures of the social world within which they operate.

• You can read the article here.

In 2020, the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership published Inspiration for Servant Leaders: Lessons from Fifty Years of Research and Practice. In Chapter 1 of that book, Dr. James Lemoine and Dr. Terry Blum proposed this definition:

Servant leadership is composed of influence behaviors, manifested humbly and morally within relationships, oriented towards continuous and meaningful improvement for all stakeholders. These stakeholders include, but are not limited to, those being led, communities, customers, and the leader, team, and organization themselves.

What makes servant leadership different from other ideas or theories about leadership? Based on his own reading of the scholarly literature, Dr. Kent Keith believes that there are four elements that are unique to servant leadership.

First, the moral component. Servant leaders treat people right and create an environment in which people can raise moral issues and engage in moral dialogue. Some leadership theories have no moral component— they are just about the skills of leadership that can be used for good or ill. By contrast, the moral component is embedded in servant leadership.

Second, the focus on serving followers for their own good as well as the good of the organization. Some leadership theories allow leaders to exploit followers for the good of the organization. Servant leaders don’t do that. They encourage the growth of their colleagues so that they can reach their fullest potential while serving the organization.

Third, concern with the success of all stakeholders, broadly defined. Servant leaders care about employees, customers, business partners, shareholders or members, communities, and society as a whole— including those who are the least privileged. This is the only ethical position a leader can take. Leaders should care about the impact their organization has on all the people their organization touches.

Fourth, self-reflection, as a counter to the leader’s hubris. Servant leaders know that the focus is not on them, it is on identifying and meeting the needs of others. As a result, servant leaders tend to be more humble.

F. Other Resources

Ken Blanchard, Scott Blanchard, and Drea Zigarmi, “Servant Leadership,” Chapter 12, in Ken Blanchard and Associates, Leading at  Higher Level (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2007).

Kent M. Keith, “Frequently Asked Questions about Servant Leadership”

This article provides short answers to the following questions: What is the basis for servant leadership? What are the characteristics of a servant leader? Isn’t servant leadership a contradiction in terms? Can servant leaders be effective? Do servant leaders get results? Does servant leadership work in all kinds of organizations? Can I be a servant leader if the person I report to is not? Won’t people take advantage of me if I’m a servant leader? Can servant leadership work when times are tough? Are there common misperceptions about servant leadership? Is there a downside or disadvantage of servant leadership?

• To download a PDF of the text, click here .

Dr. Kent M. Keith, “What is servant leadership?”

Dr. Keith made this presentation to the Servant Leadership Summit on June 9, 2021. His talk provides an overview of servant leadership, including Robert Greenleaf and the modern servant leadership movement, the characteristics of the servant leader, scholarly definitions of servant leadership, what is unique about servant leadership, and anecdotal and research evidence that servant leadership works. He explains that servant leaders hold Theory Y assumptions about people in the workplace, they promote intrinsic motivation, and they enhance the meaning and purpose that help people to perform at their highest levels.

• To download a PDF of the text, click here.

• For a link to the video, click here.

The Main Characteristics of Servant Leadership Essay

Introduction, a leader’s ability to serve and influence.

The theory of servant leadership is sharply different from others, where heads try to influence and motivate employees from a position of power and, in some cases, use leverage or intimidation. Servant leaders seek to empower their subordinates, encourage their development and growth, and build a company culture of camaraderie and mutual support (Eva et al., 2019).

Their foremost characteristics are listening, patronizing, and the ability to build community. The very essence of leadership as a ministry is the desire to meet the needs of others first, and the servant leader must comprehend those essentials. Therefore, the ability to listen is the most crucial characteristic of this type of head (Pawar et al., 2020). By actively listening to the team members, the administrator helps them feel valued, especially if their past leaders did not consider the perspectives of the rank-and-file.

Regarding project management and leadership as a ministry, the concept of stewardship is seen as building, nurturing, and protecting a culture of acceptance, collaboration, and shared interests. While other leadership concepts focus on growing the organization or increasing revenue, supervision as service focuses on the growth of people, not merely professionally but personally (Pawar et al., 2020). The servant leader recognizes that people are valuable in themselves, not just in their skills or contributions. Participants learn to value and respect each other’s contributions, and the leader develops trust to lead the process.

However, along with caring for the growth and development of team members, the servant leader influences participants by shaping their attitudes. The servant leader has a principle to place the needs of employees before their own needs (Kiker et al., 2019). Rather than trying to strengthen their position, power, or influence, such leaders prioritize the development and well-being of their team members. However, they often take on the responsibility of developing the methods and means by which the group achieves its goals (Eva et al., 2019). This role can include immediately identifying steps and developing long-range plans for activities. The administrator knows all the ways and means to achieve the objectives, and because of the properly constructed order within the organization, subordinates easily succumb to the power.

In project organizations and teams, leadership as a service can help to make team members feel more connected to their colleagues and more valued in the eyes of management. As a result, workers will be more confident in offering their ideas for improvement and feel more accountable for the project results (Kiker et al., 2019). Service and influence can work together because, through service, employees value and trust their manager. At the same time, they understand their responsibility and follow the leader’s instructions while considering a leader as their principal advisor.

Culture correspondingly influences the perception of servant leadership theory. On the one hand, an aspect such as collectivism contributes to adopting the theory and its better perception (Northouse, 2022). Every employee wants to feel valued and be part of a team. It is undoubtedly a favorable culture for a servant leader who respects every employee and builds a culture of mutual understanding. At the same time, such a concept as power distance has a negative impact on theory (Northouse, 2022). Some people prefer not to communicate closely with their superiors, sticking to a clear hierarchy. Indeed, in a company with such a culture, the leader-servant will not be influential enough, and the process of theory implementation can be disrupted.

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., Van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research . The leadership quarterly , 30 (1), 111-132. Web.

Kiker, D. S., Callahan, J. S., & Kiker, M. B. (2019). Exploring the boundaries of servant leadership: A meta-analysis of the main and moderating effects of servant leadership on behavioral and affective outcomes . Journal of Managerial Issues , 31 (2), 172-197. Web.

Northouse, P. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th edition). Sage Publications.

Pawar, A., Sudan, K., Satini, S., & Sunarsi, D. (2020). Organizational servant leadership. International Journal of Educational Administration, Management, and Leadership , 63-76.

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• Servant leadership: How to lead by serv ...

Servant leadership: How to lead by serving your team

Servant leadership is a leadership model developed by Robert K. Greenleaf. Servant leaders display characteristics such as strong listening skills, empathy, self-awareness, and the desire to create a healthy work environment. Read our tips on becoming a servant-first leader and find out what the pros and cons of this leadership style are.

Kurt Lewin (authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire), Daniel Goleman (emotional leadership theory), and Bernard M. Bass (transformational leadership) are all well-known leadership researchers. Perhaps a lesser known but nonetheless interesting approach to leadership was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970s: servant leadership.

What is servant leadership?

Servant leadership is a leadership approach that puts serving others above all other priorities. Rather than managing for results, a servant leader focuses on creating an environment in which their team can thrive and get their highest-impact work done.

Robert K. Greenleaf distinguished between two different types of leaders: servant-first and leader-first.

A leader-first leader will be more likely to focus on being direct and achieving personal and professional goals . Their main focus will be to grow their own career through their team’s performance and output.

A servant-first leader surrenders most of their authority and puts their team first. It’s a selfless type of leadership that focuses on the well-being and long-term growth of team members.

Although the words “leader” and “servant” may seem paradoxical, leaders who serve their team by encouraging growth, offering a sense of purpose, and presenting a clear vision create an environment in which team members feel welcomed and supported.

Servant leadership vs. traditional leadership

So how does servant leadership compare to more traditional leadership styles?

The biggest difference between traditional and servant leaders is where their motivation lies. While traditional leaders care mostly about their own advancement, servant leaders want to see their whole team grow and succeed. 

A traditional leader will measure success through results and prioritize shareholders over their customers and teammates. A servant leader puts their team first, customers second, and shareholders last. While this may not be the fastest way to success, it can be more sustainable. 

Finally, a traditional leader will use their authoritative rank to stand above others, which reflects in their communication style as well. Servant leaders view leadership as an opportunity to serve others, so they’ll focus on listening and understanding their teammates versus speaking to and commanding things from them.

Regardless of what communication style you use, your team can benefit from clear communication and dedicated 1:1 time. Make sure you’re giving team members a space to build trust and be heard, no matter which leadership style you practice. 

Origin of servant leadership

The idea of servant leadership came to Robert K. Greenleaf, a retired AT&T executive, after reading Hermann Hesse’s novel Journey to the East . The storyline is simple: A group of men head out on a mythical journey accompanied by their servant Leo who sustains the group with his song and spirit. After Leo disappears, the group falls apart and the journey is abandoned. Years later, the narrator of the story finds out that Leo was in fact the head of the order that had sponsored the journey. He wasn’t just a servant—he was the guiding spirit, their great leader.

As romantic as this may sound, Greenleaf saw parallels to the corporate world.

In 1970, he used the inspiration of Hesse’s story to write an essay that coined a new style of leadership: “The Servant as Leader.” Greenleaf believed : “The servant-leader is servant first [...] Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” 

In 1964, he founded the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership to advance the awareness, understanding, and practice of this leadership style by organizations and individuals.

Characteristics of servant leadership

Former president and CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, Larry C. Spears , defined the 10 characteristics of effective, caring leaders . They’re based on Greenleaf’s essays and writings and can help you better understand how to be a servant-first leader.

[inline illustration] The first P: Product (infographic)According to Spears, you can learn and develop these 10 characteristics with practice and patience. Here’s how to get started.

1. Listening

Servant leaders prioritize active listening . Communication and decision-making skills are important aspects for all good leaders to practice, but a key characteristic of servant leadership is to listen to their team and gain a deep understanding of what they’re saying.

Robert K. Greenleaf accredited a leader’s listening skills as crucial to an innovative work environment.

Example: When a team member comes to you with a problem, listen to them and make them feel heard. This way, they’ll always feel comfortable reaching out to you.

Empathy is another skill Spears deemed important to become a servant leader. He writes: “The servant-leader strives to understand and empathize with others. People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirits.”

Example: Always assume that your team members are doing their work with the best intentions. Keep an open mind to foster creativity and courage in the workplace. 

Servant leaders recognize the negative experiences and habits their team members have developed to cope with unpleasant situations.

Greenleaf talked about “understanding the search for wholeness” as something servant leaders and led teams have in common. By prioritizing a healthy work environment and guiding teammates through their healing process, you can create a culture that strives toward this wholeness.

Example: Create an environment that serves your team by providing resources and support such as weekly 1:1 meetings, a mentorship program, or access to mental health care.

4. Awareness

A servant leader’s awareness includes self-awareness and general awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of their team. It allows servant leaders to understand ethics and values from a more integrated and holistic perspective.

Example: To increase your self-awareness , implement an honest and frequent feedback loop where your team can let you know what works for them and what doesn’t. Keep track of your personal goals and plans. You can also take psychometric tests to gain new perspectives on your personality and reflect on how others see you.

5. Persuasion

Servant leaders persuade others instead of using their authority to make decisions. Convincing their teammates of something rather than coercing compliance is one of the clearest distinctions between the servant leadership style and the authoritarian approach.

Using persuasion also helps in building consensus and a level of trust within a team.

Example: Next time your team is making a decision, try using the word “we” instead of “you” when presenting your strategy to make everyone feel more like it’s a team decision and not just you calling the shots. 

6. Conceptualization

Thinking beyond day-to-day realities requires discipline and practice. However, the ability to look at a project, team, or organization from a conceptualization perspective allows servant leaders to keep dreaming of great things. 

Example: Share dreams and aspirations with your team. Short-term goals are important, but with one eye on the horizon, you can continue to inspire your team members even on difficult days.  

7. Foresight

A servant leader is able to anticipate future events and the impact they’ll have on their team. This characteristic isn’t as magical as it may sound but rather a skill that’s developed over time through experience and intuition. 

Example: Use tools like a SWOT analysis to help you better understand past events, manage upcoming projects, and predict future outcomes. 

8. Stewardship or accountability

Stewardship is “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” In his book on stewardship, Peter Block urges his readers to “act in service of the long run” and in service “to those with little power.”

Inspired by Block’s words, Spears included stewardship as one of the 10 characteristics of servant leadership. It helps servant leaders acknowledge the importance of their responsibilities.

As a servant leader, the stewardship characteristic can help you uphold the trust and confidence given to you by your organization.

Example: If you make a mistake, share the story with your team. Prove that you’re holding yourself accountable, and show your team the steps you took to resolve the issue.

9. Commitment to the growth of people

When you prioritize serving others, your team receives the support and resources they need to succeed. Servant leaders are deeply committed to the growth of their team members. Whether it’s the personal or professional growth of their team members, servant leaders will do anything in their power to support them.

Example: You can show this through concrete actions like allocating funds for professional development , encouraging your team’s decisions, or assisting and supporting your team members beyond their work performance (or even employment).

10. Building community

A servant leader will bring their team together and foster an environment that feels like a community. Connecting your team members with one another will create a level of trust and companionship that will not only help teammates grow on an individual level but also shine through in their performance.

Bringing teams together in a remote world but nonetheless important and possible.

Example: In a virtual team , you can still build a strong community by regularly checking in with your teammates. Whether that’s through weekly 1:1s, virtual coffee chats, or online team-building exercises, it’s important to connect with your team members, regardless of how far away they are.

How to become a servant leader

There are six actionable tips so you can learn to lead as a servant first. 

1. Lead by example

A servant leader will always walk alongside their team members and lead by example . Teams of servant leaders notice that their managers are willing to put the same time and effort into projects as they do and appreciate it. This will encourage teams to work hard and with integrity.

However, leading by example goes beyond working hard together. Servant leaders can also encourage their team members to take time off and recharge by doing it themselves. Teams are more likely to benefit from paid time off or mental health days when their leaders do the same.

Example : As a servant leader you may offer to lend a hand with a task that’s not necessarily part of your job description to support a teammate. This will allow your team members to focus on more important initiatives without worrying that their work isn’t getting done.

2. Show your team why their job matters

Team members tend to care more about their work when they understand how it impacts the larger company goals. Helping a teammate understand that their work matters is a crucial part of being a servant leader.

A servant leader can do this by acknowledging smaller milestones but also by consistently reminding their team of the bigger picture they’re all contributing to.

Example : You can share success stories or ways in which a product or service has positively impacted customers to motivate your team and show them that their work is seen. At Asana, we connect our goals and the work to support them in one place so teams can keep track of their work and see the progress at the same time.

3. Encourage teamwork

Servant leaders know that teams are stronger when they’re putting in a combined effort. They will encourage collaboration by giving each team member space to grow, a place to shine, and a group they can rely on. Creating this sense of community will benefit the individuals and the organization.

Example : You can promote teamwork by frequently scheduling team building activities . Whether that’s through a virtual call or an in-person event, spending fun time together will strengthen your team’s relationships.

4. Help your team members grow and develop

One of the 10 characteristics of servant leadership is the commitment to help your teammates grow professionally and personally. By giving their team members plenty of opportunities to take on leadership roles during group projects, participate in education or development programs, and expand their skills, servant leaders actively contribute to their team’s professional growth.

Example : As a servant leader you can help your team grow and develop by asking for their goals. You can then create learning opportunities and milestones to support your team reaching these goals.

5. Care personally for your team

Besides supporting their team members professionally, servant leaders also take a genuine personal interest in them. The knowledge of what’s going on in their team’s personal lives helps servant leaders lead with empathy.

A teammate that’s going through a rough time personally will appreciate extra support at work and likely return with a sense of gratitude that can boost morale and benefit the team and the project down the road. Servant leaders focus on long-term goals—to care personally for the people on their team helps them create a team with a strong work ethic.

I believe someone who is empathetic, passionate, and has good social skills is more likely to be a great leader.” ”

Example : Ask about your team’s personal lives and share stories of your own to create a genuine relationship. This transparency creates a level of trust that will allow team members to share when they’re in need of extra support at work.

6. Always ask for feedback

Only a leader who is open to feedback and encourages it will be able to stay self-aware (another one of the 10 characteristics of servant leaders). Receiving criticism from their team and others in the organization allows servant leaders to constantly improve their leadership skills.

Teammates who feel empowered to provide honest feedback are also more likely to speak up about issues or roadblocks they encounter with projects, which can help to create an innovative and flexible work environment.

Example : You can end meetings or emails with a few simple questions to gather honest feedback: “Do you have any feedback for me? Are there any things that I can improve on? What’s working well for you?”

Pros and cons of servant leadership

As with any leadership style, there are advantages and disadvantages of being a servant leader. Before adopting servant leadership as your leadership style, take a look at a few other pros and cons of being a servant-first leader:

Fosters strong team culture: Servant leaders give ownership to their team  members to increase their motivation, courage, and creativity.

Creates people-focused culture: Servant leaders establish a people-focused culture by fostering deep, trusting relationships with and between their teammates. This level of trust and connection allows teams to make decisions in the best interest of the organization and everyone involved. 

Boosts team morale: A team that feels seen and valued by their leader tends to have stronger integrity and show a higher level of pride in their work. Servant leaders can boost team morale across teams and help develop future leaders by giving them opportunities to shine.

Formal authority may be lost: Because servant leaders get down on such a personal level with their teams, their formal authority is easily lost. This can become difficult when individuals take advantage of their leader’s transparency. It can also cause confusion when other leaders in the organization take a different approach.

Time intensive leadership style: Servant leadership requires a lot of time, energy, and experience. Servant leaders have to know their team members on a professional and personal level so they can support them to the fullest. 

Team members may struggle with decision making: By giving their team members opportunities to prove themselves, servant leaders also risk overestimating and overburdening their teammates. Individuals that don’t have the courage or confidence for data-driven decision making on their own yet may feel discouraged and lost in a work environment that provides them with this much executive power. 

Finally, keep in mind that the servant leadership style may not align with your corporate performance management or incentive systems, which are often focused on short-term goals. However, you can still implement the servant leadership approach by leading with authenticity, providing direction for your teammates, giving them opportunities to grow and develop their skills, and building a strong community within your team.

Serve your team by being the best leader for them

Whether you choose the servant, transformational, or laissez-faire leadership style as the right approach for yourself (or something entirely different) is ultimately up to you.

We believe that the best leaders are capable of adjusting their leadership style depending on the situation, their teammates, and the needs of particular projects. The best thing a leader can do is to identify the motivators and needs of their team to support them in a way that allows them to thrive.

Related resources

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When to use collaboration vs. coordination

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Six Qualities of Effective Servant Leadership

January is full of new beginnings and a renewed sense of purpose. It's also the month that hosts one of my favorite observances: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. On this third Monday in January, people all over the country honor the legacy and impact of this courageous role model's spirited social activism and selfless community service. I can’t think of a more pressing time to be inspired by these tenets, to come together to help our communities and feel a shared responsibility to make our places healthy and vibrant for all.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an iconic “servant leader,” a philosophy that inspires and drives my work in leadership development programs. A servant leader is one who listens, creates solutions that work for everyone, heals divisiveness, builds community, collaborates with others, asks for advice, acts with humility, lifts others up and empowers people. The notion of servant leadership, embedded in many spiritual and faith-based ideologies, was coined by Robert Greenleaf in his 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader . He described it as:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. 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, and difficult to administer, 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 not be further deprived? A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.”

We often look to Dr. King's character and legacy for leadership lessons. And just as important are the many people who make choices every day to act as servant leaders. I see these small acts that accumulate to big impact all the time at Philanthropy Northwest, whether it is member foundations working in community, various stakeholders coming together to collaborate, programs offered to encourage inclusivity and equity, and every day interactions between people and teams listening to each other to develop solutions. Our State of Generosity, a joint project of the Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, outlines six effective skills to be a servant leader every day:

• Listen actively
• Practice empathy
• Be helpful to others
• Build a common vision of the future
• Empower others and steward relationships
• Build community

I hope to explore these skills more intentionally with our staff in 2017.

A Day of Service

Rather than looking at MLK Day as a day OFF, organizations focused on philanthropy and volunteerism encourage Americans to see it as a day ON. Whether you're fighting racism and poverty or preserving nature and wildlife, the MLK Day of Service offers an opportunity to connect with each other and work together to support a healthy and vibrant community.

Last year, a handful of Philanthropy Northwest employees charged the gray and cloudy skies to steward an urban forest to improve air and water quality in south Seattle with EarthCorps . This Monday, we will roll up our sleeves, pull up our rain boots and serve with City Fruit , a Seattle-based nonprofit that promotes urban fruit to nourish people, build community and protect the climate.

As we go into another blustery January day, let's commit to celebrating all the goodness that Dr. King stood for and being ready to respond to his urgent, timeless question: “What are you doing for others?” I hope you can join me and the thousands of others who will be serving community on January 16, and continue working on those six skills to become a more effective servant leader in 2017.

Erin Thomas is Philanthropy Northwest's talent partner. She can be reached at [email protected] .

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Five characteristics of a servant leader 

Servant leadership is one of the most important skills a manager can have. The best leaders are servant leaders. When a leader demonstrates servant leadership, it allows people to feel valued and respected. 

Servant leaders allow people to learn, grow, and become their best. The best leaders share common attributes that allow them to be successful, which I will condense into five characteristics. 

• Servant leaders think of others first  

Servant leaders put the needs of others before their own. They are motivated by selflessness, not by self. Thinking of others first allows leaders to make the right decision for a group, not the decision that is best for the leader. 

When people know that their leaders are others-centered and not self-centered, it creates and builds trust. When people trust their leaders, it motivates them to serve their leader and organization as well. 

• Servant leaders add value to those around them  

Adding value starts with positivity and encouragement. Encourage those around you and let them know when they have done a good job. Be intentional to build others up, express gratitude, and let the people around you know that the work they do matters. When people feel valued and appreciated, they are more likely to produce higher quality work. 

•  Servant leaders are good listeners  

First, be an active listener. Allow people to share their thoughts and opinions, and when they do, give them your full attention. When you give someone your full attention, it shows them that they are important. 

Second, be open to learning from those around you. Servant leaders ought to aspire to understand before they try to be understood. Finally, the best leaders not only listen to those around them, but they then act on what they have heard. They use the input from others to enhance ideas, systems, and processes. 

• Servant leaders lead by example  

They work hard and set an example for those around them. They set the standard for how things should be done. They know, share, and live out their values. 

Servant leaders do not sit around and give orders. They roll up their sleeves and work alongside their employees. They also treat others the way they want to be treated. If they want to be respected and trusted, they must respect and trust the people around them as well. 

•  Servant leaders value both results and relationships  

They are driven towards excellence and achieving high goals, but they also understand the value of prioritizing relationships with those whom they lead. 

They set clear goals and have clear visions for their teams but show compassion and empathy during the pursuit of these goals. They can find a balance between being great and being personal. 

There are many attributes of a servant leader, but these five characteristics are essentials for anyone striving to be a servant leader. 

Peyton Thompson is a fifth-year senior and captain of the volleyball team at Charleston Southern University. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in organizational leadership.  

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