Systematically reviewing servant leadership

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature concerning servant leadership. The paper identifies the existing themes present within the servant leadership literature. This allows it to determine where the research concerning servant leadership lies at present and make recommendations as to further potential areas for research. It further identifies the skills necessary for servant leadership. Design/methodology/approach The paper follows a rigorous three-step systematic literature review (SLR) process to identify the relevant evidence to answer the research questions. The paper disseminates the results and presents them by way of a descriptive analysis. It also conducts a thematic analysis to further determine answers to the research questions. Findings The paper found that the most prominent themes in the servant leadership literature are values, literature reviews, behaviour, assessments, performance, characteristics and antecedents. Additionally, the paper finds that the skills necessary for servant leadership are empathy, listening, communication and trust. The review also identified gaps in the research both methodologically and empirically. It showed that more qualitative research is needed with regard to servant leadership. Furthermore, the development of empirically tested frameworks is necessary within the phenomenon. Originality/value Servant leadership is a phenomenon which is lacking in a reliable, validated SLR, which this paper presents. Additionally the originality of this paper lies in its recommendations for further research which are based upon the findings of a thematic analysis. As of yet, such recommendations have not yet been made within the field of servant leadership.

The impact of servant leadership and perceived organisational and supervisor support on job burnout and work–life balance in the era of teleworking and COVID-19

“…As a leadership style, servant leadership is principled, selfless and anthropocentric (Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002), integrating values of integrity, humility and self-awareness, which are all primary components of a healthy working environment (Page and Wong, 2000). A comprehensive literature review found that the necessary skills for servant leadership are empathy, listening, communication and trust (Mcquade et al, 2021).…”

“…Servant leadership has been linked to several individual, team and organisational outcomes. At the individual level, the most saturated area of research pertains to performance, and it is generally accepted that servant leadership improves employee job performance (for a comprehensive review, see Mcquade et al, 2021). Building on social exchange theory, it has been found that servant leadership reduces turnover intentions (Jang and Kandampully, 2018).…”

“…Our study offers empirical data from Greece, a country in which it is important to study job burnout and worklife balance because research reports indicate increases in working hours, adverse impacts on personal lives and mental balance and an overall negative impact of employees' work-life balance during the pandemic (Eurofound, 2021). In addition, Greece is a country that has received little research attention in terms of servant leadership, with a recent review finding that more than 50% of servant leadership studies have been conducted in the USA, followed by China and Australia (Mcquade et al, 2021). Second, we make a theoretical contribution to the literature that assesses how servant leaders influence outcomes (Huning et al, 2020), such as job burnout and work-life balance, by investigating POS and PSS as mediating mechanisms.…”

“…Despite its intuitive appeal, leadership scholars contend that servant leadership is a phenomenon of relative obscurity (Russell, 2016), which lacks strong theoretical foundations and empirical support, as well as having methodological gaps (Mcquade et al, 2021). Past research has demonstrated the impact of servant leadership on several employee outcomes such as employee performance, turnover intentions, loyalty and discretionary effort (Huning et al, 2020;Mcquade et al, 2021;Shah et al, 2019). However, few studies have explored the impact of servant leadership on work-life balance (Wang et al, 2017) or job burnout (Imran, 2019).…”

“…In doing so, we seek to make four contributions. First, we add to the extant literature examining the impact of servant leadership on workplace outcomes (Mcquade et al, 2021) by offering empirical evidence for the impact of servant leadership on two less explored but important individual outcomes, job burnout and work-life balance. Our study offers empirical data from Greece, a country in which it is important to study job burnout and worklife balance because research reports indicate increases in working hours, adverse impacts on personal lives and mental balance and an overall negative impact of employees' work-life balance during the pandemic (Eurofound, 2021).…”