Servant Leadership

Within a few short years, our view on what accounts for good leadership has changed dramatically. The ideal of a heroic, hierarchical-oriented leader with primacy to shareholders has quickly been replaced by a view on leadership that gives priority to stewardship, ethical behaviour and collaboration through connecting to other people. Never before has the call been louder for leadership that is virtuous, while followers seek leaders who lead with behaviours that do not ignore them, but embrace them as whole individuals. This sort of leader is one whose decisions take all stakeholders into account. The short-term and personal bonus-oriented focus has given way to a long-term societally responsible focus that begins with the focus on the follower. As such, it should come as no surprise that interest in servant leadership has risen, and is continuing to rise. Intriguingly, the term ‘servant leadership’ was already coined four decades ago by Robert K. Greenleaf (1904–1990) in his seminal work The Servant as Leader (1970, 1977). It took that long for his ideas to start reaching mainstream organizational thinking, research and practice, and it is interesting to note that his ideas are as fresh and interesting today as they were in the beginning. At the start of the second decade of the twenty-first century, academic research on servant leadership is increasingly finding its way into international journals; organizations are redefining their leadership models incorporating – explicitly or implicitly – the ideas behind servant leadership; politicians emphasize the importance of building a more caring society. This book hopes to inspire the timeless ideology of service to others in the leadership context (and maybe beyond), with a look into servanthood and the legacy that servant leadership leaves behind in the lives, and hearts, of both followers and organizations.

Greenleaf’s concept of the servant-leader is garnering increasing attention in the leadership literature of the present day. With many of Fortune magazine’s ‘Best Companies to Work For’ ascribing to servant leadership, organizations have experienced not only a sustaining excellence regarding the bottom line, but also the kind of communal resilience and commitment to humanity that accompanies people of foresight and confidence everywhere. But what are some of the most salient components of the servant-leader, and what is the interior nature of those who serve? Several chapters of this book go into components that may characterize servant leadership. Here, we specifically posit forgiveness and gratitude as hallmarks of those whose lives are committed to servant leadership.

Given the fallout from the global financial crisis and the plethora of corporate scandals around the world in the past decade, many citizens are fed up with organizational leaders who they perceive to be corrupt. Perhaps as a response to public sentiment, many organizational scholars have started developing and examining leadership that has an ethical component (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Brown and Treviño, 2006; Northouse, 2001; van Knippenberg et al., 2007). One leadership style – servant leadership – has been the subject of several theoretical and empirical articles as of late and, of course, is the focus of this entire book. Servant leadership is distinct from related styles of leadership, as the leader is viewed as a ‘servant’ to help satisfy the needs of his or her followers (Graham, 1991; Greenleaf, 1970, 1977). At a time in history when business leaders have damaged reputations and are overwhelmingly thought of as selfish and greedy, the increased interest in servant leadership is refreshing, relevant, and important.