Servant Leadership
Discuss about the Literature Review on Servant Leadership for Applied Psychology.
There are several organizations persist in the global market that enhances their business for the first ten years with their first generation of leader and after the change of a particular segment or session when new leaders came in the action companies performance frequently falls. The reason behind the section is very crucial as the new engagements are not accustomed in the proper way and that is the reason employees are not properly associated with the new leader. The major concern has come when the change in customer preference, climate change, economic recessions and organizational infrastructure has changed and leaders have to change their strategic overview to gain the competitive advantage (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). A leader needs to take this challenge and implement decision-making process for the development of the organization.
The thesis statement of the essay is to analyze the importance of servant leadership and highlighting the importance of this process for the development of employee engagement and organization development. Leaders have to take care of conflict situation and inspire employee and maintain a behavioral administration in the organization.
The form of leadership influences the unmet demand of the market and willing to serve the employees and trying to provide them ultimate workplace satisfaction so that employees are getting involved with the company. Employees need and desire is the first priority or this kind of leaders and that is the Servant leadership has been named (Eva & Sendjaya, 2013). Some of the well-known companies are using this form of leadership so that employee retention policy will sustain. In this leadership form, employees can feel their position in the organization. They engaged in the organization and development process has flowed. The leadership form increases the employee effectiveness as well and company can process their objectivity through this. The need of this process is also aligned with the business and organizational development and efficacy is the major aspect of this (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). The understanding and interpretation of business is the key aspect of leadership process and through this leadership better engagement with employees has been persisted. In case of follower-oriented, spiritual and the moral development of the organization this type of leadership is essential and important. The classical and contemporary of leadership aspect is concise in this leadership theory and that impacted on the business outcome too.
Characteristics of Servant leadership
The major aspect of leadership purpose encourages employees to measure the organizational activity and develop the sufficient amount of support for the development of the business (Hu & Liden, 2011). The provided evidence of reliability, internal consistency, unidimensionality and discriminated validity are the major concern of this process and that is the reason, this kind of leaders are important for the organization.
There are some characteristic features are important in this servant leadership process. These will help the leadership aspect to process the forefront business and make some needful aspect of motivating the employee for the development of the organization.
Listening is the key aspect of this leadership process and to make a good servant leader a good listener is always important. If the leader has not had the ability to listen and understand the want from their employees, then it is very difficult to evaluate their standard and deliver the best solution for that time (Liden et al., 2014). The ability of listening provides the foundation of the business and that is the key issue that founded the business establishment as well. In case of gaining knowledge listening form, the others are important and servant leaders have to maintain that.
The second factor is empathy and the process strives to connect and understand people. Leaders have to understand the situation of the employees and in which situation they are in. Enough appreciation will be gained by the leader if they maintained the empathy process and that is the major reason these leaders posted employees at first and then signifies their position in the organization (Liden et al., 2015). This is the kind of position that employees also want that from the leader and that will encourage them to deliver extra effort for the organization rather for the leader.
The next aspect is the healing aspect and through the healing aspect, leader understands the employees’ heart and the fragile manner of the heart. In most of the cases, employees are working hard for the organization but the appreciation is not coming from the leader. These are quite a common situation also and in those cases, employee and the servant leadership is the best way to treat the situation (Yoshida et al., 2014). In case of achieving more opportunities from employees and enhance the productivity. Situation leaders understand the employees’ heart situation and know that what obstacles they can face in this process and allocated them in the right job section.
Awareness is another important factor that enables moral ethics and delivers ethical issues in business and these aspects help in case of mitigating conflict situations. In case of establishing better business strengthen situation, vicarious attributes from employees are important and the values are coming from the employees also. Servant leadership promotes this very unusual nevertheless exceptional human excellence.
The traditional leaders are making their decision as per the position and title of the employees rather than employees’ persuasion to do better work in future. The situation persists over here is the demand of experienced people an organization has some effective results from that. The motion of effective lineup is under threat if new and inexperienced employees have been recruited by the organization (Van Dierendonck, 2011). In that case, the effective use of persuasion is important and relevant for the far fetching goals and opportunities. Added value in a workplace is considered by servant leadership process as they evaluate the situation and delivering their experience for providing mental support to employees and to fulfill the vision of the leader.
Foresight is another aspect of servant leader as the leader identifies the mistakes from the past. In case of learning curve, every employee had done some mistakes at the initial stage, and senior executives repay the matter (Sun, 2013). But employees have to learn from their previous mistakes and servant leaders can see the limitation of the employee and that amount of work is also allocated for the employee and this is one of the high chances of mitigation of this mistake.
Commitment to the growth of people is another aspect of leadership. This is a process of correlation between the effectiveness of an employee and intelligence of that same person. Knowledge of an important aspect of resources and that is the reason it is the essential aspect to learn and think when the innovation is persisted. Servant leaders comprehend the dynamics of communal obligation and designation. Leaders comprehend employee’s assets and flaws and allocate tasks that emulate individual assets (Parris & Peachey, 2013). The vigor behind leadership is to dwell factions in conditions that encourage victory. In case of organizational growth and development, this is the most common way of building leadership.
Stewardship is another aspect that responsible for the success and failure parameter in the organization. The leader has to take care of that permutation and combination of victory and catastrophe issue (Peterson, Galvin & Lange, 2012). In most of the cases, there are some highlighted factors in business and employees’ commitment is the major aspect that persuaded the process in a significant way.
The last aspect is the most important and positive aspect of servant leadership and this is considered to engage most of the employees. The aspect is building community. In an organization, it is very important to have employees from different sectors and that is the reason communal maintenance is important (Kim et al., 2014). There is some conflict situation may arise but leaders rebuild the community through their interpersonal communication process. The community is a replication of the organization’s workforce and servant leader’s provision grasps beyond the limitations of the organization. Service leaders subsidize the expansion of society’s ethical fortitude.
In case of employee retention process, servant leadership is the key aspect that can encourage the departmental process as well as connect in with employees and maintain a good relation. The basic fulfillment of employees to have a good workplace environment has maintained by the leaders and in every form of help, the leader used to ready for employees (Brewer, 2010). This is the most crucial fact that eventually comes in case of employee satisfaction and helps to justice the perception of the employees to have good culture and management that help employees in all sorts of progress. The basic agenda of the business process is to deliver the ethical position of the employees and they become happy for that reason and that is the concerning aspect of business also (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Through the use of Likert scale, servant leadership behavior can be accessed and that showcases the theoretical framework of the leadership and aligning of an empirical finding of business process maintenance.
Figure 1: Impact of Servant leadership in team effectiveness
(Source: Created by Author)
The clarity in leadership helps the process to maintain a good productivity of the team. The clear focus of the vision and reality persisted in that case. Employees trust over their leader is an important factor to be convinced for the better team effectiveness, and that is the reason most of the strategic generic decisions are accepted by the employee and good productivity has maintained by the team in every occasion.
There are some advantages and disadvantages of servant leadership process. The leadership advantages are:
- The diversified mentality of the leader and make a communal balance in the workplace is the most interesting aspect of the leader. In most of the cases, the diverse community makes an understatement of conflict cases as the culture of the employees are different so as the positional perspective of them will be different but they are experts from their field and that is the reason most of the cases when different cultural people came together conflict will come (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Servant leader used to listen to all the aspects and then thorough the communication and explain them about the team cohesiveness that maintains their positional aspect also.
- Loyalty is the key matter that servant leaders have in their attitude and behavior. In most of the cases, leaders are allowing the process of the strong sense of employees and that is the reason most employees have made their position in the organization.
- Involvement is the key aspect that leaders committed to the employees and for that reason employee engagement is the key issue that creates the great drive to the organizational solution. The change and innovation in the organization are coming from the leader, however, employees are so much attached to the leader; every change will be accepted by them.
- In case of productivity, this form of leadership is the key issue in business. The best productive manner has come in this form of leadership (Hu & Liden, 2011). The engaged employees are the key factor for the organization and that is the reason more productive outcome has come through the process.
- Employee satisfaction is the key issue in this leadership process. This leadership process improves the rate of employee satisfaction and makes some effective decision for the development of the organization. Employees’ engagement and change satisfied employees for the better change.
- Motivation is the key aspect that servant leaders deliver to their employees and that is the reason more productive chances have come from this perspective. Achievements are expected by the key pace setting and leadership process and the way to give motivation is also important in that case, so this kind of leader has to take some motivation classes for employee and analyze them the position of employees in the organization and that is the key perspective of business (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013).
There are some disadvantages of this leadership also:
- The change in attitude and mentality is the key concern for this leadership process and that is the reason the simplicity of the leadership sometimes turns into the complex process. The mentality changes of the employees and change in perception from leader make a huge problem for the organizational productivity.
- Adaptation in style of the leadership is another concern aspect and leader’s approach needs to be understood by the employees. If the approach is not swallowed in the proper way, then haphazard mentality is persisted in business and that is the reason most of the employees have to adopt the changes.
- The lack of authority is another concerning aspect of business and that the reason this form of leadership sometimes goes wrong. The form is the best form in which employees are pursuing same mentality and concern about the leader’s respect and organization reputation (Kim et al., 2014). However, this scenario is not possible in each and employees are behaving like leader and want to do whatever they want and that is the con concern disadvantage of that leadership.
- The goals are confusing in this leadership form as servant leaders used to take care of employees and feel the same empathy (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). The problem has come in this form that sometimes it overturned and deviate the goal. The fixed goal assumption deviates from the process and it certainly losses the objective of the organization.
Servant leadership is the ideal style of leadership in case of same behavioral association. The most important fact in this leadership theory is to manage the competitive aspect with ease and deliver more sympathetic treatment for employees. In case of practical scenario, CEO of HTC, Peter Chou is one of the servant leaders as the vision of the leader is to provide clarity in the direction that helps to grow the process of HTC brand and also difference the brand with others (Brewer, 2010). The intention of the CEO is to deliver intangible assets and maintain the good reputation in the market and delivering the innovative way to strengthen the business. With the employee, the relation of the CEO is quite good and that is the man concern to make as a servant leader. On the other hand, Mike Faith, the Chief Executive Officer of Greenleaf also believes in the servant leadership process (Brewer, 2010). The basic behavioral characteristic and delivering value to employees is the concerning aspect of that and for that reason, specific conceptual leadership process will be maintained in that case.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that servant leadership is the right way to maintain the leadership process in case of same mentality people and that is the reason most of the employee love and admire this kind of leader. In case of motivational aspect and organizational productivity, this is the right way to following down and that is the reason servant leadership make some bold move in business acceleration. The paper indicates the individualities of a successful servant leader is a mentioning the essential moral personality. The world business standard has become more intricate, and energetic times involvement in active motivated leaders. Servant leadership makes the change in the apparent positive modification in organizations and divergent traditional independent in case of leadership methods.
References
Brewer, C. (2010). Servant leadership: A review of literature. Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development, 4(2), 3.
Choudhary, A. I., Akhtar, S. A., & Zaheer, A. (2013). Impact of transformational and servant leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(2), 433-440.
Eva, N., & Sendjaya, S. (2013). Creating future leaders: An examination of youth leadership development in Australia. Education+ Training, 55(6), 584-598.
Hu, J., & Liden, R. C. (2011). Antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness: An examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 851.
Hu, J., & Liden, R. C. (2011). Antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness: An examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 851.
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Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of business ethics, 113(3), 377-393.
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Sendjaya, S., Sarros, J. C., & Santora, J. C. (2008). Defining and measuring servant leadership behaviour in organizations. Journal of Management studies, 45(2), 402-424.
Sun, P. Y. (2013). The servant identity: Influences on the cognition and behavior of servant leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(4), 544-557.
Van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of management, 37(4), 1228-1261.
Van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of management, 37(4), 1228-1261.
Yoshida, D. T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G., & Cooper, B. (2014). Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), 1395-1404.