Servant Leadership

Introduction:

Servant leadership is based on the premise that leaders who are best able to motivate followers are those who focus least on satisfying their own personal needs and most on prioritizing the fulfillment of followers’ needs (Greenleaf, 1970). Leaders who are more concerned about others than themselves are humble, and their humility stimulates strong relationships with followers and encourages followers to become fully engaged in their work (Owens & Hekman, 2012). We propose that because servant leaders tend to be respected and admired by followers, they become motivated to emulate their leaders’ behaviors. Follower modeling of the helping and supportive behaviors displayed by servant leaders are further strengthened as followers solidify their identification with the group. As they begin to view and project themselves to others as a proud member of the group, their positive work behaviors become part of how they see themselves as individuals (Ashforth, 2001). We thus rely on social learning and social identity theories in explaining the emergence of a serving culture and the 2014 Liden, Wayne, Liao, and Meuser 1435 positive effects this culture has on key individual and unit outcomes.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND SERVING CULTURE: INFLUENCE ON INDIVIDUAL AND UNIT PERFORMANCE ROBERT C. LIDEN SANDY J. WAYNE University of Illinois at Chicago CHENWEI LIAO Michigan State University JEREMY D. MEUSER

Servant Leadership The servant leadership has the advantage because the relationship between a leader and followers has the orientation on the serving nature and giving more emphasis to the moral strength in leading. A leader has responsibility to serve for the interest of his followers in order to make them more prosperous. Greenleaf (1990) states that servant leadership emphasizes increased service to others, a holistic approach to work, promoting a sense of community and sharing of power in decision making. Achua and Lussier (2004:363) reveal that the servant leadership is seen as an opportunity to serve at the ground level, not to lead from the top. Whereas Rezaei et al. (2001)states that the definition of servant leadership is leader who insisted on his follower benefits compare to personal benefit. School headmaster has a very big demand upon the service values to his stakeholders, especially for the benefits of teachers, employees, students, community and government. That is why this type of servant leadership is required. Stone and Petterson (2005) declares that servant leadership often focus on follower development with the intention of increasing follower capacity to exercise creative approaches ad take on greater responsibilities at work. Achua and Lussier (2004:362) state the servant leadership that transcends self-interest to serve the needs of others by helping them grow professionally and emotionally. Achua and Lussier (2004:364) declare that the serving leadership has some indicators, among others: 1) Helping other discover their inner spirit. 2) Earning and keeping others’ trust. 3) Service over self-interest. 4) Effective listening. Stone, Russel & Patterson in Patterson (2003) say that serving leadership is about focus. The focus of the leader is on follower and his/her behaviors and attitudes are congruent with this follower focus. When it is implemented at the school organization, it will be closely related to the position of school headmaster as a leader who should always pay attention to the condition of teachers and other educational staffs. Ford (1991) in Russell (2002) states about teaching that a leadership who wants toempower must be teacher. One of the tasks of a leader is being as a teacher. A school headmaster as a leader at his school should have been able to establish work satisfaction for teachers, because such work satisfaction should have been able to improve the work satisfaction of the teachers. Irving (2005) declares that the positive relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction has been confirmed in multiple studies. The serving leadership is used in research, because the school headmaster should become the servant to his stakeholders.

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