Servant Leadership in relation to Project Management - Literature review Example

Servant Leadership in relation to Project Management Servant Leadership in relation to Project Management In the year 1977, Robert Greenleaf came up with the notion of servant leadership. The reason for coming up with this notion was because numerous leaders in the business world had lost trust. As a result, Greenleaf proposed a technique that was applicable and one that would aid in correcting the issues that business leaders lacked trust. In accordance with his notion, Greenleaf suggested that the leader of whatever organisation is initially a servant. Why did Greenleaf suggest so? Greenleaf suggested so as he argued that in the beginning, the likely leader aims at service. Service to the people the leader so wishes to lead. After that, the leader consciously seeks to lead. The leader aims to lead so that he or she can serve the people. However, it is in this aim that service comes in. For an individual who aspires to be of service, the individual must put his or her needs behind the needs of the people he or she will lead (Wallace, 2007). Thus, when the leader assumes leadership, servant leadership traits, and features are evident among the persons he leads. The question is, are these persons developing and growing under his or her leadership? In answer to this question, Greenleaf asserts that the people led by the said leader become wiser, healthier, select servant like traits, and gain self-sufficiency. Hence, in accordance with Greenleaf, the resolutions and deeds of a servant leader affect the society as a whole. It is especially so when the needy in the society are considered. Servant leadership is seen to influence them positively and improve their situations. Van Dierendonck supports Greenleaf’s proposition and notes that such effects on society describe servant leadership. The effects are a sign that a leader is leading, not based on his or her interests, but on the interests of his or her people (Smith, 2005). The relation between successful project management and servant leadership cannot be overemphasised. In project management, emphasis on resources optimisation and cautious strategizing in order to attain certain goals effectively and finish the project is vital. Thus, project management requires that the talents, the skills, and the whole efforts of the team under the leader be maximised. Thus, for project management to be successful, servant leadership has a key role to play in ensuring that the skills, talents of the individuals involved, along with their collective efforts are maximised. Spears (2005) noted that in project management, servant leaders learn how to obtain and maximise the interests of the people, their ability to learn concepts and ideas behind the project or organisation, and their obligation to the project. Thus, it is noted that servant leadership in project management does not find fault in the errors of the persons involved; instead, it embraces the errors and seeks to find ways and means to mitigate them for the improvement of the said persons. Hossenlopp (2010) proposes that in project management, for the success of the project to be assured, the business leader has to act like or be a servant leader. The servant leader in project management has to show his or her optimistic perspective to the successful completion of the project. Thus, as part of the quality of servant leaders, the leader has to ask the appropriate questions to the managers of the project. One important question that is proposed in project management and is attributed to servant leadership is the leader asking the project managers what he or she can do to assist. The question is an efficient and supportive management approach that is related to servant leadership. As per the research conducted by Thompson (2010), servant leadership is said to be the foundation of the current project management aspect that has leaders leading the team based on their needs. In project management, the leader’s role is boosted when he or she functions as a servant leader through offering support to the managers of the project. Through such traits, the leader will ensure that the excellence of the project management develops and grows. It also ensures that the best of the team is retained and utilised efficiently and effectively. Thus, the relation between servant leadership and project management adds to the success rate. Now that the relation between servant leadership and project management has been assessed. The arising question is what makes servant leadership special that it is regarded as the foundation of project management. The thing that makes servant leadership special is the attributes that it avails. According to Russell and Stone (2002), servant leadership has distinctive features that are evident in leaders who practice it. The authors note of various attributes that make servant leadership special. These attributes include listening, stewardship, persuasion, commitment to the growth of the team, foresight, societal building, healing just to name but a few. It is for this special attributes of servant leadership that various authors have investigated the impact of servant leadership. Not only in project management, but also in other forms of management. Neubert et al. (2008) undertook a study on the effect of having servant leadership and structure in one project. The authors found that, commitment to the growth of the team functioned to enhance the behaviours that led to creativity within the organisation’s project. Thus, they said that servant leadership shifts the emphasis from the mistakes to amendment of the mistakes. It indicates that the focus is on nurturing and development of the individual. Nurturing and development is an attribute of servant leadership that makes it special. Hu and Liden (2011) are in support of the idea that the features of servant leadership make it special. They assert that by aiding the society through creation of value for the community where the organisation operates in, servant leadership changes the society on a broader perspective. The change that the society experiences due to servant leadership is said to be exceptional as it is transformational and stays on for a long time. The authors also proposed that servant leadership is exceptional because it enhances ethical conducts among the members of the organisation through behaving with integrity and honesty. Ethics is a vital component of any leadership model. As such, servant leadership is at the forefront in ensuring that the ethical aspects of any project are followed to the letter. Servant leadership promotes this ethical aspect by doing away with criticisms from the leader and ensuring that the leader listens to the individual for corrective purposes. Mahembe and Engelbrecht (2014) note that the speciality of servant leadership is accentuated by the association that exists between organisational citizenship behaviour and servant leadership. The authors are of the opinion that servant leadership enhances fairness in the organisation’s project and the environment within which the members of the organisation operate. Through promotion of fairness, flexible and free positive habits are boosted among the team of workers or followers. The boost goes a long way in ensuring that the organisation attains success. Attributes aside, servant leadership is special because it is not self-centred, but it is other-centred. Koshal (2005) conducted a research on how the servant leadership theory is accepted and applied among Kenyan managers and leaders. In the findings, the author indicates that servant leaders pay special attention to people who are not privileged in the society. His findings are in agreement with the findings of other authors like Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) who also undertook a study on servant leadership. In their findings, the authors state that the servant leadership survey avails evidence that servant leadership supplements leadership with special components. Apart from developing other-centred leaders, it is noted that servant leadership goes beyond other forms of leadership like transformational leadership. The explanation behind this note is that servant leadership makes the aims of the leader and those of the followers to be in harmony (van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Since its inception, servant leadership has been discussed and written about in many studies. Researchers have tried to evaluate its strength and weakness to determine its efficacy and usefulness. However, since it was first put forward as a theory by Greenleaf in 1970, the experimental evidence to illustrate how useful it is has been minimal (Reed, Vidaver-Cohen, & Colwel 2011). Thus, in the light of this knowledge, servant leadership does not lack studies that have found a reason to oppose it. Authors who argue against servant leadership are of the opinion that servant leadership is only applicable to cases where there is an elected leader as opposed to the business. They argue that leaders in business owe their service to the owners and the customers. In reality, the employees and followers are a means to serving the customer (Marques, 2007). Hence, it is argued that even if the managers and leaders strive to motivate and involve the followers, it does not add up to servant leadership. Shekari and Nikooparvar (2012) argue that servant leadership involves terms and descriptions that are contradictory. Opponents of servant leadership state that utilisation of the two terms, leader and servants is an inconsistency. As explained by Barbuto and Gifford (2010), it is an inconsistency of two conflicting ideas. The concepts arouse inharmonious feelings. Using the two terms together has consequences that do not auger well when gender is taken into consideration. Thus, the gender aspects of servant leadership have been questioned. They are questioned because the term leader is normally associated with males, authoritative, and superiority. However, when it is seen to be a privilege, then the term servant is viewed as one of been under coercion, female, and lower. It is in this conflicting evaluation that the opposition to servant leadership arises. It is discussed that there exists a power disparity within the organisation and the meaning that servant leadership is applied. As noted before, servant leadership lacks enough empirical evidence to illustrate servant leadership substantially. Servant leadership studies have taken a more theoretical approach, and most of them have only tried to elaborate more on Greenleaf’s theory. It is the reason most studies have gone on to write about the attributes of servant leadership not in a consistent manner, but in the form of numbers. Some have five attributes, others seven, and some have more than seven attributes. The explanations and definitions of these attributes in the studies have only differed in the way they utilise the verbs to describe servant leadership. Hence, a gap exists between the numerous theoretical explanations and definitions given in the studies and empirical evidence to support these definitions and explanations of servant leadership. References Barbuto, J. E. & Gifford, G. T., 2010. Examining Gender Differences of Servant Leadership: An Analysis of the Agentic and Communal Properties of the Servant Leadership Questionnaire. Journal of Leadership Education, 9(2), 4-22. Hossenlopp, R., 2010. Organizational Project Management: Linking Strategy and Projects. Vienna: Managements Concepts Inc. Hu, J. & Liden, R. C., 2011. Antecdents of team potency and team effectiveness: An Examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 851-862. Koshal, J. O., 2005. Servant Leadership Theory: Application of the Construct of Service in the Context of Kenyan Leaders and Management. [pdf] Regent University. Available at: [Accessed 03 January 2015]. Mahembe, B. & Engelbrecht, A. S., 2014. The relationship between servant leadership, organisational citizenship behaviour and team effectiveness. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), p. Marques, J. F., 2007. On Impassioned Leadership: A Comparison Between Leaders from Divergent Walks of Life. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 3(1), 98-125. Neubert, M. J., Kacmar, K. M., Carlson, D. S., Chonko, L. B., & Roberts, J. A., 2008. Regulatory focus as a mediator of the influence of initiating structure and servant leadership on employee behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1220-1233. Reed, L. L., Vidaver-Cohen, D., & Colwell, S. C., 2011. A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research. Journal of Business Ethics, 101, 415-434. Rusell, R. F. & Stone, A. G., 2002. A review of servant leadership attributes: developing a practical model. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 23(3), 145-157. Shekari, H. & Nikooparvar, M. Z., 2012. Promoting Leadership Effectiveness in Organizations: A Case Study on the Involved Factors of Servant Leadership. International Journal of Business Administration,3(1), 54-65. Smith, C., (2005). The Leadership Theory of Robert K. Greenleaf. [pdf] UK: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. Available at: [Accessed 03 January 2015]. Spears, L. C., 2005. Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1), 25-30. Thompson, K. N., 2010. Servant Leadership: An Effective Model for Project Management. PhD. Capella Univeristy. Available at: [Accessed 03.01.2015]. van Dierendonck, D. & Nuijten, I., 2011. The Servant Leadership Survey: Development and Validation of a Multidimesnional Measure. Journal of Business and Psychology, 26(3), pp. 249-267. Wallace, J. R., (2007). Servant Leadership: A Worldwide Perspective. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 2(2), 114-132. Read More