Servant Leadership

Abstract

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 The ideal of a heroic, hierarchical-oriented leader with primacy to shareholders has quickly been replaced by a view on leadership that gives priority to stewardship, ethical behaviour and collaboration through connecting to other people.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.