CEO Servant Leadership: Exploring Executive Characteristics and Firm Performance

Abstract

This study offers an examination of the relationships between chief executive officer (CEO) servant leadership, the executive characteristics of narcissism, founder status, and organizational identification, and firm performance in a sample of 126 CEOs in technology organizations. Analysis of data gathered over multiple periods revealed a negative relationship between CEO narcissism and servant leadership, and a positive relationship between founder status (i.e., founder or nonfounder) and servant leadership. Furthermore, CEO organizational identification served as a partial mediating mechanism linking narcissism and founder status to servant leadership. In turn, CEO servant leadership predicted subsequent firm performance (measured as return on assets). The results of this study have implications for researchers interested in better understanding the predictors and consequences of servant leadership and for practitioners concerned with combating negative or selfish executive leadership behaviors and employing servant leadership for the organization's benefit.

Narcissism: An Integrative Synthesis and Dominance Complementarity Model

“…Narcissism is an increasingly popular topic in organizational research, as evidenced by several recent articles in top organizational journals (e.g., Galvin, Waldman, & Balthazard, 2010;Harms, Spain, & Hannah, 2011;Judge et al, 2006;Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009;Nevicka, Ten Velden, De Hoogh, & Van Vianen, 2011b;O'Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012;Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012;Wu & LeBreton, 2011). This recent research has documented the importance of narcissism by establishing its relation to workplace outcomes, particularly leadership and CWB.…”

“…For example, a sample of CEOs from the technology sector revealed that narcissism negatively predicted servant leadership (a form of leadership that focuses on followers' needs and personal integrity), and that servant leadership subsequently predicted firm financial performance (Peterson et al, 2012). Other complementary research found that supervisors rate their narcissistic employees negatively on the interpersonal and ethical components of leadership, but narcissism was unrelated to task-specific components of leadership such as judgment and decision making (Blair et al, 2008).…”

“…• Job identification: If narcissists identify their job as an important part of their self-worth, the relationship may be positive (Peterson et al, 2012).…”

Leader Purposefulness within Servant Leadership: Examining the Effect of Servant Leadership, Leader Follower-Focus, Leader Goal-Orientation, and Leader Purposefulness in a Large U.S. Healthcare Organization

“…Servant leadership instruments have been used to examine the effect of servant leadership on diverse dependent variables such as job satisfaction [11,[17][18][19][20], organizational citizenship behavior [21,22], team performance [23,24], and firm performance [25]. This growing body of empirical research demonstrates the value of servant leadership not only as a positive ideal, but also as an effective approach to leadership practice.…”

Servant Leadership: The Exemplifying Behaviours

“…Coinciding with business interest in a more caring and responsible style of leadership, organizational scholars have shifted their attention away from leadership based on individualistic, self-serving tendencies towards more relational styles of leadership (Avolio et al, 2009 as cited in Peterson & Galvin, 2012). There has been tremendous conceptual and empirical research that has focused on servant leadership (Peterson & Galvin, 2012). It is a leadership style that transcends self-interest to serve the needs of others by helping them grow professionally and personally (Lussier & Achua, 2007 as cited in Carder, 2012).…”