Individual differences in servant leadership: the roles of values and personality

Abstract

PurposeThe paper seeks to address the lack of empirical research on servant leadership by investigating relationships between servant leadership and four individual differences – values of empathy, integrity, and competence and the five‐factor model's personality factor of agreeableness.Design/methodology/approachDennis and Winston's servant leadership scale (a revision of Page and Wong's servant leadership instrument), Braithwaite and Law's Goal and Mode Values Inventories, Mayer and Davis' integrity scale, and Costa and McCrae's NEO Five‐Factor Inventory were used with 288 followers and 126 leaders in three organizations in order to measure relationships between followers' ratings of leaders' servant leadership, followers' ratings of leaders' values of empathy, integrity, and competence and leaders' ratings of their own agreeableness.FindingsFollowers' ratings of leaders' servant leadership were positively related to followers' ratings of leaders' values of empathy, integrity, and competence. Followers' ratings of leaders' servant leadership were also positively related to leaders' ratings of their own agreeableness.Research limitations/implicationsCommon method bias is a potential limitation due to respondents' tendency toward consistency in responses.Practical implicationsOrganizations embracing servant leadership may benefit from selecting leaders partly on the basis of certain personal attributes such as those investigated in the present study. Furthermore, in order to maintain a servant leadership culture and to retain leaders in a servant leadership organization, recruiters and trainers in servant leadership organizations would likely benefit from communicating accurate information about attributes valued in a servant leadership culture – e.g. attributes explored in the present research.Originality/valueThe study extends our understanding of servant leadership research by offering support for individual attributes related to the practice of servant leadership.

The psychological consequences of power on self-perception: implications for leadership

“…Thus, individuals high in agreeableness might see higher levels of interdependent selfconstrual, and consequently of democratic / transformational leadership style. Washington et al (2006) also previously related servant leadership with agreeableness. Finally, conscientiousness is likely to be related to independent self-construal, since it fosters selfreliance and persistence in ones' initiatives and current work (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991).…”

Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions

“…Joseph & Winston (2005) examined the relationship between employee perceptions of servant leadership and organizational trust, and reported a positive relationship with both trust in the leader as well as trust in one's organization. Washington et al (2006) examined the relationship between servant leadership and the leader's values of empathy, integrity, competence, and agreeableness, and reported that "followers' ratings of leaders' servant leadership were positively related to followers' ratings of leaders' values of empathy, integrity, and competence" (p. 700).…”

Serving from the top: police leadership for the twenty-first century

“…Servant leaders are suggested to be able to engender trust in organisations and their leaders (Washington et al, 2006). To able to trust senior officers and to be able to make mistakes in order to learn can be important within future policing initiatives.…”

“…(Herzberg, 1966). Washington et al (2006) and Parris and Peachey (2013) illustrate that servant leaders tend to have a genuine concern for others arguing that they build trust through honesty and integrity and gain credibility through people's confidence in their knowledge, skills and abilities. Facilitating trust and integrity can only benefit a constable starting out in his/her career as it is trust, integrity and honesty that they too must exude to the public as part of their role as a police constable.…”