IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v156y2019i4d10.1007_s10551-017-3633-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Just the Servant: An Intersectional Critique of Servant Leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Helena Liu

    (University of Technology Sydney)

Abstract

Servant leadership offers a compelling ideal of self-sacrificing individuals who put the needs of others before their own and cultivate a culture of growth in their organisations. Although the theory’s attempts to emphasise the moral, emotional and relational dimensions of leadership are laudable, it has primarily assumed a decontextualised view of leadership untouched by power. This article aims to problematise servant leadership by undertaking an intersectional analysis of an Asian cis-male heterosexual senior manager in Australia. Through in-depth interviews with the manager and his staff, the article shows how his attempts to practice servant leadership were informed by intersecting power dynamics of race, gender, sexuality, age and class that subordinated him to white power. The findings demonstrate the ways servant leadership is necessarily embedded in wider power structures that shape who gets to be a “servant leader” and who remains merely a “servant”.

Suggested Citation

  • Helena Liu, 2019. "Just the Servant: An Intersectional Critique of Servant Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1099-1112, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:156:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3633-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3633-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3633-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3633-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lora Reed & Deborah Vidaver-Cohen & Scott Colwell, 2011. "Erratum to: A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 507-508, July.
    2. Dirk Dierendonck & Kathleen Patterson, 2015. "Compassionate Love as a Cornerstone of Servant Leadership: An Integration of Previous Theorizing and Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 119-131, April.
    3. Helena Liu, 2017. "Sensuality as Subversion: Doing Masculinity with Chinese Australian Professionals," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 194-212, March.
    4. Lora Reed & Deborah Vidaver-Cohen & Scott Colwell, 2011. "A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 415-434, July.
    5. David Knights & Majella O’Leary, 2006. "Leadership, Ethics and Responsibility to the Other," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 125-137, August.
    6. Denise Parris & Jon Peachey, 2013. "A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 377-393, March.
    7. Jenny Rodriguez & Evangelina Holvino & Joyce K. Fletcher & Stella M. Nkomo & Jenny K. Rodriguez & Evangelina Holvino & Joyce K. Fletcher & Stella M. Nkomo, 2016. "The Theory and Praxis of Intersectionality in Work and Organisations: Where Do We Go From Here?," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 201-222, May.
    8. Jenny Rodriguez & Evangelina Holvino & Joyce K. Fletcher & Stella M. Nkomo & Melanie Knight, 2016. "Race-ing, Classing and Gendering Racialized Women's Participation in Entrepreneurship," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 310-327, May.
    9. Deborah Kerfoot & David Knights, 1993. "Management, Masculinity And Manipulation: From Paternalism To Corporate Strategy In Financial Services In Britain," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 659-677, July.
    10. Mats Alvesson & Hugh Willmott, 2002. "Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 619-644, July.
    11. Alvesson, Mats & Sveningsson, Stefan, 2003. "Managers Doing Leadership: The extra-ordinarization of the mundane," Working Paper Series 2003/5, Lund University, Institute of Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zarei, Mohammad & Supphellen, Magne & Bagozzi, Richard P., 2022. "Servant leadership in marketing: A critical review and a model of creativity-effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 172-184.
    2. Vincent J. Giolito & Robert C. Liden & Dirk Dierendonck & Gordon W. Cheung, 2021. "Servant Leadership Influencing Store-Level Profit: The Mediating Effect of Employee Flourishing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 503-524, September.
    3. Mohamed Nazhif bin Ramlan & Nursaadatun Nisak Ahmad & Murni Zarina Mohamed Razali & Azlina Hanif, 2024. "A Study of the Relationship Between Servant Leadership, Micro-Aggression and Intention to Leave in IT Sector: Employee Resilience as Mediating Variable," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(11), pages 984-994, November.
    4. Farida Saleem & Yingying Zhang Zhang & C. Gopinath & Ahmad Adeel, 2020. "Impact of Servant Leadership on Performance: The Mediating Role of Affective and Cognitive Trust," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440199, January.
    5. Penelope Muzanenhamo & Rashedur Chowdhury, 2023. "A Critique of Vanishing Voice in Noncooperative Spaces: The Perspective of an Aspirant Black Female Intellectual Activist," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 15-29, February.
    6. Teresa J. Rothausen, 2023. "Diverse, Ethical, Collaborative Leadership Through Revitalized Cultural Archetype: The Mary Alternative," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(3), pages 627-644, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sarah Kimakwa & Jorge A. Gonzalez & Hale Kaynak, 2023. "Social Entrepreneur Servant Leadership and Social Venture Performance: How are They Related?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 95-118, January.
    2. Farida Saleem & Yingying Zhang Zhang & C. Gopinath & Ahmad Adeel, 2020. "Impact of Servant Leadership on Performance: The Mediating Role of Affective and Cognitive Trust," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440199, January.
    3. Rebecca VanMeter & Lawrence B. Chonko & Douglas B. Grisaffe & Emily A. Goad, 2016. "In search of clarity on servant leadership: domain specification and reconceptualization," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 6(1), pages 59-78, June.
    4. A. Newman & G. Schwarz & B. Cooper & S. Sendjaya, 2017. "How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX, Empowerment, and Proactive Personality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 49-62, September.
    5. Sigurdur Ragnarsson & Erla S. Kristjánsdóttir & Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir, 2018. "To Be Accountable While Showing Care: The Lived Experience of People in a Servant Leadership Organization," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440188, September.
    6. Jorge Linuesa-Langreo & Pablo Ruiz-Palomino & Dioni Elche-Hortelano, 2018. "Integrating Servant Leadership into Managerial Strategy to Build Group Social Capital: The Mediating Role of Group Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(4), pages 899-916, November.
    7. David Prottas, 2013. "Relationships Among Employee Perception of Their Manager’s Behavioral Integrity, Moral Distress, and Employee Attitudes and Well-Being," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 51-60, March.
    8. Zarei, Mohammad & Supphellen, Magne & Bagozzi, Richard P., 2022. "Servant leadership in marketing: A critical review and a model of creativity-effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 172-184.
    9. Ravinder Jit & C. S. Sharma & Mona Kawatra, 2017. "Healing a Broken Spirit: Role of Servant Leadership," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 42(2), pages 80-94, June.
    10. Martin Mutschmann & Tim Hasso & Matthias Pelster, 2022. "Dark Triad Managerial Personality and Financial Reporting Manipulation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 763-788, December.
    11. Joanna Samul, 2024. "Linking Spiritual Leadership with Other Leadership Concepts: A Literature Review of Four Decades," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, May.
    12. Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini, 2015. "Is Tone at the Top Associated with Financial Reporting Aggressiveness?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 3-19, January.
    13. Vēvere Velga & Liniņa Iveta, 2016. "Ethical Leadership: Meaning and Measurement. Latvian Retail Traders’ Perspective," Economics and Culture, Sciendo, vol. 13(2), pages 89-96, December.
    14. Zore Mira & Bastič Majda & Mulej Matjaž, 2016. "Seven or Fewer Core Contents of Social Responsibility?," Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, Sciendo, vol. 62(3), pages 29-38, September.
    15. Xiaoyao Yue & Linjiao Zou & Yan Ye & Ting Cai, 2024. "The Impact of Undergraduates Servant Leadership on Their Employability," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, June.
    16. Seema Arora†Jonsson & Bimbika Basnett Sijapati, 2018. "Disciplining Gender in Environmental Organizations: The Texts and Practices of Gender Mainstreaming," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 309-325, May.
    17. Gregorio Guitián, 2015. "Service as a Bridge between Ethical Principles and Business Practice: A Catholic Social Teaching Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 59-72, April.
    18. Hyun-ju Choi, 2021. "Effect of Chief Executive Officer’s Sustainable Leadership Styles on Organization Members’ Psychological Well-Being and Organizational Citizenship Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-29, December.
    19. Ziyang Qiang & Jigan Wang & Kaiyuan He & Lin Xu, 2022. "Potential of Passive Employees: How Servant Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation among Control-Oriented Employees," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Sergio F. Góngora y Moreno & J. Octavio Gutierrez-Garcia, 2018. "Collective action in organizational structures," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-33, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:156:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3633-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.