Servant Leadership: Practices, Experiences, and Effective Ways to Mitigate Barriers

In a multidisciplinary and multicultural global economy, there is a dire need for those equipped with critical thinking, analytical, and technical skills necessary to meet the needs of business and industry. It has been established in the extant literature that leadership has a decisive role in shaping organizational performance and outcomes. Yet few efforts have provided a better understanding centered on servant leadership and its impact on teams in the workplace. Using servant leadership approaches and principles through the lens of positive organizational scholarship (POS), this chapter highlights practices, experiences, and effective ways to mitigate the barriers to servant leadership. Capturing the emerging tenets of POS, with emphasis on mindfulness, character strengths, positive relationships and belongingness is one phrase, and generative dynamics across levels of analysis in organizations will be explored. Irrespective of the leadership style, organizational leaders who do not espouse elements of POS may find efforts to create working and learning cultures that enable members to realize their full potential challenging. It is vital to reflect on organizational leaders whose values, assumptions, and strategies aim to deliver solutions for outdated practices. There is a gap in this body of work around servant leadership approaches and operating frameworks business leaders and educators can employ for applicability and sustainability. As such, this chapter concludes with a brief outlook of a promising future ahead for this growing field that has the potential to substantially increase the viability of servant leadership and followership dynamics.