Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader, inspired by the servant character Leo in Hermann Hesse's Journey to the East, who is later revealed to be the organization's real leader. The philosophy holds that a leader exists to serve the people rather than the reverse. Its early empirical support was thin, which made it hard to distinguish from transformational leadership, and later critique, including from feminist and Black scholars, has argued the framing echoes historical patriarchal patterns of servitude and can leave the standard for what counts as ethical leadership resting entirely on followers' own moral framework. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Disputed
Core ClaimA leadership philosophy that inverts the ordinary hierarchy: the leader's primary role is to serve the people they lead, sharing power and prioritizing employees' needs and growth, on the premise that the test of leadership is whether those served grow as persons. 1 Classification
Topic (Functional Area) Servant Leadership
Filter Results1 entry
Connections
Addresses Topic
Associated With
Source Wikipedia, Management
Servant Leadership and Transformational Leadership are both follower-centered leadership approaches commonly compared in leadership literature.
Source Wikipedia, Servant Leadership
Developed By
Source Wikipedia, Robert K. Greenleaf
Sources
1. Wikipedia, Servant Leadership
WikipediaLead section
Greenleaf, a servant leader should be focused on "Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" When leaders shift their mindset and serve first, they benefit as well as their employees in that their employees acquire personal growth, while the organization grows as well due to the employees' growing commitment and engagement.
Criticism
Researchers Farling, Stone, and Winston noted the lack of empirical evidence for servant leadership.
Introduction, functional area topic classification
Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the goal of the leader is to serve.
- Associated With: Transformational Leadership
View the Source 2. Wikipedia, Robert K. Greenleaf
WikipediaArticle text
Greenleaf first popularized the phrase servant leadership in "The Servant as Leader", an essay published in 1970.
- Developed By: Robert K. Greenleaf
View the Source Wikipedia, Management
Associated With: Management, Classified by subject-matter domain within management theory (w-bbfill-business-other-0926); cites the discipline definition.View the Source Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Core Claim
Servant leadership's inverted-hierarchy framing is not universally accepted as a straightforward good. Early formulations lacked empirical support, making the model hard to distinguish from transformational leadership in practice, and feminist and Black scholars have separately argued the language of a leader who "serves" echoes historical patriarchal patterns in which service and servitude were imposed rather than freely chosen, and that the model detaches ethical leadership from any external standard by resting it entirely on the moral framework of whoever is being served.
A dissenting reading, from Feminist and Black leadership scholarship critiqueWikipedia, Servant Leadership, Wikipedia
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.