Management and Organisational Change

Value of Servant Leadership in Today’s Organisational Environment

1.1.        Introduction

In today’s competitive organisational environment, business entities’ major concerns are associated with progress, survival, performance, and employee satisfaction (Mirshekar & Haddadi, 2017; Sadeghi, 2015; Yaghoobi, 2011). Specifically, many organisations’ concerns involve how to motivate their employees to improve organisational performance and efficiency. Based on the analysis by Foote and Tang (2008), contemporary organisations strive to ensure that their employees develop a set of behaviours that promotes organisational citizenship behaviour and aims to improve their overall performance and that of the entire organisation. As a solution, several firms have considered the concept of servant leadership to solve various 21^st-century organisational challenges, including the issue of employee motivation. 

1.2.        Servant Leadership Theory

Smith (2005) defined the theory of servant leadership as a model of leadership that prioritises service to others and a holistic approach to work to promote a sense of community within an organisation and a sense of power-sharing in decision making. The theory posited that servant leaders could achieve these tenets by being selfless, demonstrating strong leadership ethics, values, and principles, and pursuing organisational motivation (Greenleaf, 991). Autocratic and traditional leadership models entail power accumulation by an organisation s top management; however, servant leadership focuses on the needs of others, shares power, and helps followers grow and develop to perform in the organisation s interest (Maharaj, 2015). In other words, the servant leadership theory emphasises that an organisation’s leaders should demonstrate the core individual beliefs and characteristics over any other specific leadership techniques. Maharaj (2015) explained that servant leadership is centred on the democratic principle that a leader s human dignity, authority, and value stems from their subordinates.