Introduction
Society’s perceptions of leadership conduct and style are evolving. Considering the prevailing need for higher morale and person-centric management, servant leadership theory-inspired leadership is what firms need. In recent years, many theories have been posited to explain servant leadership. This approach encourages people to share their thoughts on how to improve the organization. Thus, it enables workers to express their views on the organization, giving them the feeling that they can be themselves at work and impact organizational operations. The essay focuses on Van Dierendonck’s and Liden’s servant leadership models. Comparing both leadership models reveals that management research has significantly shifted from a heavy emphasis on transformational leadership. Currently, leadership research is tilted toward a greater focus on a collective, interactional, and global viewpoint, where the cooperation between followers and leaders is increasingly essential.
Critical Comparison of the Two Servant Leadership Models
The servant leadership paradigm reverses the conventional concept of authority and power by leading from a place of service. Van Dierendonck’s model of servant leadership is based on the idea that servant leaders incentivize and develop individuals and simultaneously hold them responsible for the results of their tasks (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Liden’s model alludes that the servant leader’s capacity is to “articulate community citizenship, in-role performance, and organizational commit” (Liden et al., 2008, p.174). Accordingly, instead of relying primarily on measurements, the models assert that a servant leader emphasizes the importance of dedication and devotion.
The Servant Leadership model by Van Dierendonck comprises 30 questions representing the eight aspects. These are forgiveness, standing back, empowerment, courage, authenticity, accountability, stewardship, and humility (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Unlike the past two versions, it is broader and contains an excellent theory that accounts for the contrast between the ‘servant’ and ‘leader’ sides of this leadership style (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). According to Van Dierendonck, servant leaders operate with a humble disposition exemplified by an openness to learn and a readiness to accept failures, adhere to their inherent beliefs, and prioritize the benefit of the group (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). The earliest research paper demonstrated the validity of its concept. A simplified variant, consisting of 18 questions, was recently developed to illustrate cross-cultural factorial robustness (Van Dierendonck et al., 2017). Consistent with the broad state of leadership theories, metrics of servant leadership emphasize the top-down leader-follower relationship.
In recent times, servant leadership studies have experienced a surge in popularity, owing to a more defined measure and construct. This was proceeded by new attempts to examine the concept and its administrative ramifications (Liden et al., 2008). Given that the concept is testable and quantifiable, the influence of servant leadership may be recognized to a greater extent. The approach emphasizes that leaders influence their followers’ attitudes and behaviour. This way, its emphasis on a positive relationship between the leader and follower is consistent with Van Dierendonck’s model.
Particular leader attributes serve as the main difference between the two leadership models. In contrast to Van Dierendonck, Liden et al. (2008), identified seven essential servant leadership traits including ethical behavior, helping followers develop and prosper, empowering, conceptual skills, emotional healing, and contributing to the community’s well-being. These were based on constructing a seven-dimensional scale with 28 elements (Liden et al., 2008). Within the context of this paradigm, each of the seven categories is represented by four different items. Liden’s model provides three antecedent prerequisites for servant leadership. Antecedent circumstances consider the issue on a personal level, and they are comprised of three elements: leader characteristics, follower receptivity, and context and culture (Liden et al., 2008). The first two antecedent conditions explain the leader’s personal characteristics or features, while the third describes the leadership situation. Van Dierendonck’s model does not have similar antecedent conditions as fundamental for effective servant leadership.
Independent testing of the approaches with other leadership measures revealed that it is critical to consider all leadership attributes to quantify servant leadership on its whole in both models. In this context, the Van Dierendonck methodology used the Rafferty and Griffin (2004) scale to assess transformative leadership. This instrument is divided into five subscales of three items: inspirational communication, vision, supportive leadership, intellectual stimulation, and personal recognition (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Their findings show that the transformational leadership tenets and the eight aspects of the servant leadership style exhibit substantial relationships with humility, empowerment, and stewardship, accompanied by equally robust associations with authenticity and standing back (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). In contrast, Liden et al. (2008) assessed transformational leadership using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire’s (MLQ) 20-item transformational leadership scale (Van Jaarsveld et al., 2019). According to the findings, all seven qualities of servant leadership are associated modestly,.43, to highly,.79, with transformative leadership (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). These findings imply that servant leadership qualities are not incompatible with transformative leadership.
Another key difference between the two models is that Van Dierendonck compares servant leadership with transactional leadership, whereas Liden et al. do not. There was a moderate to low correlation between servant leadership and punishment in the former model. Instead, a greater emphasis was placed on a service-oriented mindset and meeting the followers’ needs under servant leadership. Similarly, the model compares servant leadership with charismatic leadership and the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership which have comparable results with transformational leadership. Although Liden’s model compares LMX with servant leadership, the lack of a direct comparison between the transactional leadership model limits its validity. Such a comparison would help to identify which leadership factors of servant leadership style correlate with transactional leadership. More importantly, it would have provided a good starting point to compare the validity of Van Dierendonck’s outcomes.
Conclusion
In servant leadership, leaders concentrate on achieving the expectations of followers, specifically workers, clients, and other stakeholders, above their interests. The notion is not uncommon among scholars and professionals. In recent years, it has attracted increased attention due to its ability to effectively influence personal and corporate outcomes, such as work fulfillment and organizational engagement. The most recent trend in research has centered on identifying the origins, moderating and mediating processes at the root of this correlation, and developing a standard scale to quantify the concept across varied cultural and economic situations. This goal serves as the basis of two models discussed: Van Dierendonck and Liden. The models use different methods such as scale measurement to verify the authenticity of specific leadership attributes. Although both models underscore the importance of cooperation between follower and leader, they simultaneously highlight the inconsistency in the servant leadership studies in that they provide an uneven set of defining characteristics.
References
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Rafferty, A. E., & Griffin, M. A. (2004). Dimensions of transformational leadership: Conceptual and empirical extensions. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(3), 329-354. Web.
Van Dierendonck, D., & Nuijten, I. (2011). The servant leadership survey: Development and validation of a multidimensional measure. Journal of Business and Psychology, 26(3), 249-267.
Van Dierendonck, D., Sousa, M., Gunnarsdóttir, S., Bobbio, A., Hakanen, J., Pircher Verdorfer, A., Duyan., C., & Rodriguez-Carvajal, R. (2017). The cross-cultural invariance of the servant leadership survey: A comparative study across eight countries. Administrative Sciences, 7(2), 8. Web.
Van Jaarsveld, L., Mentz, P. J., & Ellis, S. (2019). Implementing the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) in a Challenging Context: Results from a Large-Scale Quantitative Study. International Journal of Educational Management, 33(4), 604-613. Web.