The Art of Giving Away Leadership: A Qualitative Study of Servant Leadership in Practice
The Art of Giving Away Leadership: A Qualitative Study of Servant Leadership in Practice
Ritchard George Bergen | 2024
Abstract
This qualitative study explored the research question: How do servant leaders give away leadership while retaining a respectful organizational culture? Servant and shared leadership theories informed the 13 exploratory interview questions. The data revealed that servant leaders balance the challenge of putting the best interest of their followers first while simultaneously cultivating new servant leaders. The data also revealed that servant leaders understood how shared leadership functions best within a hierarchical structure. The emergence of seven themes in the data suggested that servant leaders rely heavily on servant leadership behavior and social skills, as these two themes appeared more often than the combined totals of the other five themes. The themes of long-term perspective, intentional leadership development, cultural awareness, and organizational leadership were not as prominent but still highly valued by the participants. The least conspicuous of the seven themes was spiritual perspective, which was sometimes included in the literature as an attribute of servant leadership but kept separate in this study because most participants worked in faith-based environments, and I desired to learn how they included their belief system. The fact of its minimal presence among this group suggested they practiced their spiritual perspectives through servant leadership. Thirteen interview questions were developed from servant leadership and shared leadership theory to explore the phenomenon. Ten participants who self-identified as servant leaders, had a minimum of 10 years of senior leadership experience, and lived in six different countries on three continents participated in the study. The interviews were conducted and recorded on Zoom, transcribed, coded, and analyzed to discover seven main themes. The seven themes were all comprised of the descriptive codes from the data. The descriptive codes were discussed, as well as how the responses to the interview questions supported the scholarly and practitioner literature, enriching the conceptual theories with current and nuanced examples of how servant leaders practice the art of giving away leadership while retaining respectful organizational cultures. Recommendations for future research included the development of a servant leadership training program, and more diverse participant sampling, comparing and contrasting their responses in various contexts.
Keywords: organizational culture, servant leadership, shared leadership