ServantLeadershipandtheEffect.pdf

Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between
Humility, Action, and Hierarchical Power on Follower
Engagement

Milton Sousa1 • Dirk van Dierendonck2

Received: 24 January 2015 / Accepted: 13 June 2015 / Published online: 2 July 2015

� The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Abstract Servant leadership has been theorized as a

model where the moral virtue of humility co-exists with

action-driven behavior. This article provides an empirical

study that tests how these two apparently paradoxical

aspects of servant leadership interact in generating follower

engagement, while considering the hierarchical power of

the leader as a contingency variable. Through a three-way

moderation model, a study was conducted based on a

sample of 232 people working in a diverse range of com-

panies. The first finding is that humble leaders showed the

highest impact on follower engagement regardless of their

hierarchical position. Less humble leaders in lower hier-

archical positions seem to be able to compensate for that

through a strong action-oriented leadership style. Most

notably for leaders in high hierarchical positions, the moral

virtue of humility seems to strengthen the impact of their

action-oriented leadership the most. These findings provide

empirical support and a better understanding of the inter-

play between the moral virtue of humility and the action-

oriented behaviors of servant leadership.

Keywords Servant leadership � Virtue � Action �
Humility � Power � Engagement

Introduction

When servant leadership was first introduced through the

seminal work of Greenleaf (1977), it brought a moral

dimension to the leadership field, which for many years had

been somehow subordinated to behavioral and contingency

type of approaches (e.g., Fiedler 1967; Hersey and Blan-

chard 1969; Lewin et al. 1939). In a similar vein, Burns

(1978) advanced the notion of transforming leadership that

later evolved into transformational leadership, likewise

with a strong moral emphasis and in contrast with trans-

actional leadership (Bass 1985; Bass and Avolio 1994).

Accelerated by the corporate scandals of the 1990s and

2000s (e.g., Adler 2002; Carson 2003; Crane and Matten

2007; Fombrun and Foss 2004), this moral side of leader-

ship has gained interest as a way of ensuring performance

while addressing ethical concerns in business, leading to

the first empirical data on servant leadership (Russell and

Stone 2002; van Dierendonck 2011), ethical leadership

(Brown and Treviño 2006), and the birth of other theories

like authentic (Gardner et al. 2005) or spiritual leadership

(Fry 2003), to name a few. Additionally, scholars have

recently tried to capture and operationalize this moral

dimension of leadership into constructs of virtue (Arjoon

2000; Cameron 2011; Dale Thompson et al. 2008; Hackett

and Wang 2012; Pearce et al. 2006). Virtues represent

attributes of moral excellence, which aggregate into an

overall dimension of virtuousness that can instill respon-

sible leadership behavior (Cameron 2011). For Greenleaf

(1977), this moral side or virtuousness was essential in

forming the core motivation to serve of the servant leader,

but it was not that morality should replace effective action,

but instead that both should co-exist and reinforce each

other. In practice, this translates into a dual mode of virtue

and action which was captured, albeit not always explicitly,

& Milton Sousa
[email protected]

Dirk van Dierendonck

[email protected]

1
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University,

Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, J Building, 3062 PA Rotterdam,

The Netherlands

2
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University,

PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

123

J Bus Ethics (2017) 141:13–25

DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2725-y

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in some servant leadership models (e.g., Barbuto and

Wheeler 2006; Dennis and Bocarnea 2005; Laub 1999; van

Dierendonck 2011; van Dierendonck and Patterson 2015;

Wong and Davey 2007). Most noticeably, the model of van

Dierendonck (2011) makes this split between these two

types of behaviors more apparent, with some empirical

evidence of this being shown through a second-order factor

analysis in a later study (van Dierendonck and Nuijten

2011). This study shows one cluster with the dimensions of

humility and standing-back, which could be associated

with a moral side and another cluster with the dimensions

of empowerment, accountability, and stewardship, which

could aggregate into an action side. Despite this co-exis-

tence, little is in fact known about how these two aspects

interact with each other. Following on the work of Nielsen

et al. (2010), who advanced a conceptual model whereby

the follower attributions of the leader’s humility would

moderate the socialized charismatic leader’s effectiveness

in motivating followers, this study aims to further elaborate

on this potential interaction for the specific case of servant

leadership. The original question therefore that triggered

this study was as follows: how does a humble attitude of

being of service affect a servant leader’s ability to instill

effective action?

Knowing more about this interaction effect is important

for two main reasons. First of all, it allows understanding

leadership from within its complex behavioral relationships

and not just as a linear aggregated concept. Secondly, it

helps clarifying the apparently paradoxical mix of humble

service and effective action, so markedly part of servant

leadership (Morris et al. 2005; Patterson 2003; Russell

2001; van Dierendonck 2011) but also present in other

models like authentic leadership, level 5 leadership, and

transformational leadership (Morris et al. 2005).

Given also the potential interaction between power and

humility (Collins 2001; Owens and Hekman 2012), we

proposed to further investigate if the effect of a humble

service attitude would be more salient for servant leaders in

higher hierarchical positions of power in an organization.

In sum, our study aims to confirm the three-way interaction

between the action side of servant leadership (captured in

the dimensions of empowerment, accountability and

stewardship), the humble service-oriented side (captured in

the dimensions of humility and standing-back), and the

hierarchical rank of the leader in inducing follower

engagement (see Fig. 1).

Servant Leadership: A Balancing Act Between
Humble Service and Action

For Greenleaf (1977), the moral foundation of the servant

leader is built on a motivation to serve. As eloquently put

by Greenleaf himself (2002, p. 7), ‘‘The servant-leader is

servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one
wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings

one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from

one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to

assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material

possessions.’’ However, while Greenleaf (1977) clearly

highlighted the importance of the moral backbone of the

servant leader, he also emphasized that being a servant

leader is not the same as servitude and that such leaders

need also to show initiative, assume risks and take own-

ership for action in order to be truly effective. The fol-

lowing statement testifies that ‘‘…the leader needs more
than inspiration. A leader ventures to say, ‘I will go; come

with me!’ A leader initiates, provides the ideas and the

structure, and takes the risk of failure along with the chance

of success.’’ (Greenleaf 2002, p. 29). This means that

servant leadership implies a balancing act between an

overall humble attitude of service and behaviors that instill

action and efficacy. So, whereas it may be possible to speak

about servant leadership as one specific way of leadership,

at a deeper level, and as mentioned before, there seem to be

two overarching encompassing dimensions: a humble ser-

vice-oriented side and an action-driven side, both co-ex-

isting and complementing each other.

While some measures (e.g., Liden et al. 2008; Sendjaya

et al. 2008) put a stronger focus on moral, ethical, and

service-oriented dimensions, a closer look at other servant

leadership measures shows more or less explicitly these

Empowerment,
Stewardship and
Accountability
(SLACTION)

Hierarchical Rank of
the Leader (RANK)

Engagement
(ENGAGE)

Humility & Standing-
Back (SLHUMBLE)

Fig. 1 Conceptual three-way
interaction

14 M. Sousa, D. van Dierendonck

123

two sides of humble service and action-driven orientation,

as shown ahead. For example, Laub’s (1999) conceptual

model and measure include both sharing and providing

leadership. Sharing leadership requires accepting that oth-

ers are equipped to take responsibility themselves, and

therefore implies an overall attitude of humility with regard

to the leader’s own ability. At the same time, the servant

leader is pro-active in providing leadership, not retracting

from acting when necessary. Barbuto and Wheeler (2006)

refer to both altruistic calling and stewardship. According

to the authors, ‘‘altruistic calling describes a leader’s deep-

rooted desire to make a positive difference in others’

lives… Because the ultimate goal is to serve, leaders high
in altruistic calling will put others’ interests ahead of their

own and will diligently work to meet followers’ needs’’

(Barbuto and Wheeler 2006). Such selflessness can be

translated into an attitude of humble service. At the same

time, servant leaders are also stewards, ensuring that action

is taken toward a greater purpose. Wong and Davey (2007)

incorporate both humility and selflessness together with

inspiring and influencing others while Dennis and Bocar-

nea (2005) mention both humility and vision. In both cases,

there is an apparent dichotomy between humility and tak-

ing a pro-active role in setting direction and instilling

action. In this regard, the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS)

of van Dierendonck (2011) seems to be perhaps the one

that most explicitly and accurately captures Greenleaf’s

original dual mode of humble service and effective action.

Two particular studies (Asag-Gau and van Dierendonck

2011; van Dierendonck and Nuijten 2011) based on the

SLS seem to confirm, through a second-order factor anal-

ysis, a potential sub-set of 5 core dimensions that could be

split between humble service (humility and standing-back)

and action (empowerment, accountability and steward-

ship). As such, our research was focused on this core set of

5 servant leadership behaviors and the potential interaction

between the two sub-groups. The different dimensions will

now be explained in more detail.

As mentioned before, humility forms the essential

backbone of the servant leader (Patterson 2003; Russell

2001). As incorporated in the servant leadership construct

of van Dierendonck (2011), humility is translated into three

essential aspects: (1) the ability to put one’s accomplish-

ments and talents in perspective (Patterson 2003), (2)

admitting one’s fallibility and mistakes (Morris et al.

2005), and (3) understanding of one’s strong and weak

points. As such, ‘‘servant leaders acknowledge their limi-

tations and therefore actively seek the contributions of

others in order to overcome those limitations’’ (van

Dierendonck and Nuijten 2011). Morris et al. (2005) sug-

gested that humility ‘‘might be the operating mechanism

through which servant leaders function’’ and that it forms

the essential marker of a leader’s motivation to serve.

Humility is further supported by the leader’s ability of

standing-back (van Dierendonck 2011), which ‘‘is about

the extent to which a leader gives priority to the interest of

others first and gives them the necessary support and

credits… (and) is also about retreating into the background
when a task has successfully been accomplished’’ (van

Dierendonck and Nuijten 2011). Standing-back could be

seen as a synonymous of modesty, which is essentially a

‘‘moderate estimation of one’s merits and achievements’’

(Peterson and Seligman 2004, p. 463). As defended by

several scholars (e.g., Morris et al. 2005; Nielsen et al.

2010; Peterson and Seligman 2004), humility and modesty

are related constructs but differ insofar as humility is

internally focused and modesty externally focused. As

such, humility likely leads to modesty while the reverse

might not always be true. For example, a leader could still

acknowledge and give credit to others (modesty) while

internally believing he or she was in fact the one respon-

sible for success (no authentic humility). For this reason,

we posit that an overall attitude of humble service will be

reflected in both humility and modesty (or standing-back).

Such position is in agreement with the findings of van

Dierendonck (2011) where these measurement variables

were combined into one overarching conceptual dimen-

sion. In summary, we suggest that humility and standing-

back are closely related dimensions underpinning the moral

concern for others above the self, forming this way the

fundamental foundation of the servant-first leader (the

humble side).

The other 3 dimensions of servant leadership used in this

study can be combined into a second overarching dimen-

sion of action. Starting with empowerment, this construct

has many similarities with the notion of empowering

leadership (Pearce and Sims 2002) and is essentially about

encouraging autonomous decision making, sharing infor-

mation, and the coaching and mentoring of individuals for

increased innovative performance (Konczak et al. 2000).

Accountability allows the servant leader to provide direc-

tion while considering the specific capabilities of people, as

well as their particular needs and possible areas of contri-

bution. In the end, accountability makes sure that people

feel responsible for their results. This particular aspect is

essential as a control mechanism for both performance

management and learning. From all different servant

leadership measures we identified, SLS is the only one that

incorporates this essential control or feedback mechanism

(van Dierendonck 2011). Finally, stewardship is a dimen-

sion that ensures that the common interest and the good of

the whole are taken in account, while establishing a com-

prehensive framework for providing meaning to work and

ensuring consistent action. In SLS, stewardship is the

dimension that comes closer to the notion of vision or long-

term orientation, which is essential in servant leadership

Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between Humility, Action, and Hierarchical… 15

123

(Dennis and Bocarnea 2005). One can already notice how

these three servant leadership dimensions distinguish

themselves from humility and standing-back in their

action-oriented focus, as they all reflect behaviors that

actively stimulate both individual and organizational per-

formance while ensuring congruent direction. While

humility and standing-back almost imply a detachment

from action, these three highlight the servant leader’s need

to ensure pro-active involvement in setting course and

facilitating others in their tasks. In light of this, we suggest

that the three core dimensions of empowerment, steward-

ship, and accountability form the action-oriented side of

the servant leader (the action side).

In summary, we suggest that the core set of five servant

leadership dimensions as suggested by Asag-gau and Van

Dierendonck (2011) can be split into a humble service-

oriented side, based on the dimensions of humility and

standing-back, and an action side captured in the constructs

of empowerment, stewardship, and accountability.

The Relation Between Servant Leadership
and Engagement

Engagement is considered as the antithesis of burnout

(Maslach et al. 2001). Schaufeli et al. (2006) characterize

engaged employees as demonstrating behaviors of energy

and connection to their work, while being able to deal well

with the demands of their jobs. Schaufeli et al. (2006)

further split engagement into three main components:

vigor, dedication, and absorption. Vigor is shown by the

energy and resilience demonstrated by workers and by their

willingness and persistence in face of difficulties (Schaufeli

et al. 2006). Dedication is explained by Schaufeli et al.

(2006) as those behaviors that demonstrate a ‘‘sense of

significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge’’

in work. Finally, Schaufeli et al. (2006) advance that ab-

sorption is reflected in the involvement shown in work,

which can be characterized by a loss of a sense of time and

an unwillingness to stop when working.

In recent years, several scholars have been able to

empirically demonstrate the importance of engagement in

generating organizational commitment (Hakanen et al.

2006) and work performance (Bakker and Bal 2010;

Xanthopoulou et al. 2009). Other studies, more focused on

aspects of personal well-being, have shown how engage-

ment can contribute toward higher levels of psychological

soundness (Demerouti et al. 2001; Schaufeli and Bakker

2004; Schaufeli et al. 2008; Xanthopoulou et al. 2009).

When looking at the antecedents of engagement, Bakker

and Demerouti (2007) advanced two key individual aspects

that positively contribute to engagement: first, through the

available job resources reflected in aspects like

organizational support, management feedback or the level

of autonomy, among others, and secondly through personal

resources such as resilience, self-efficacy or optimism. At

the same time, Bakker and Demerouti (2007) suggest that

engagement will be negatively influenced by the level of

job demands, including aspects like work pressure and the

emotional, mental, and physical demands of the work at

hand.

When looking at the antecedents presented before, one

can see servant leadership as potentially playing an

important role in creating the conditions for engagement to

flourish in organizations. Servant leadership is oriented to

the followers’ needs and development (van Dierendonck

2011) through pro-active individual support and the cre-

ation of a work environment that fosters personal growth.

This communicates to followers that the organization, in the

person of the leader, cares about them and stimulates their

development through their own work. For the servant lea-

der, work is an instrument of personal growth and realiza-

tion through which the organization fulfills both its business

and social mission. In essence, servant leaders have a

‘‘other’’ focus as opposed to a ‘‘self’’ focus (Morris et al.

2005), which is reflected on serving both the employees of

the organization and its external stakeholders. Such a

serving and empowering attitude can be inductive of

engagement as demonstrated in different empirical studies.

For instance, Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) argued that a

social supportive work environment reduces job demands,

helps in achieving work goals, and stimulates personal

growth, learning, and development which are all part of

servant leadership. In an extensive study to validate their

new measure of servant leadership, van Dierendonck and

Nuijten (2011) found supporting evidence for the potential

impact of servant leadership on workforce engagement. In

other empirical studies, aspects closely related to servant

leadership like humility (Owens et al. 2013) and empow-

erment (Tuckey et al. 2012) were also found to be strongly

related to engagement. We therefore suggest that both the

action side and the humble side of the servant leader as

advanced before will be positively related to engagement,

which constitutes our first hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1 Both the action side and the humble side of

servant leadership will have a significant impact on the

overall level of work engagement among followers.

The Amplifying Effect of Attributed Humility
on Leadership Effectiveness

The etymological origin of humility is based on the Latin

word humilis (on the ground) which is derived from the

word humus (earth) (Online Etymology Dictionary 2010).

16 M. Sousa, D. van Dierendonck

123

In this sense, one can say that humility literally brings

someone down to earth. In accordance, humility was

qualified by Park and Peterson (2003) as a temperance

virtue that grounds and stabilizes one’s self-perception.

Grenberg (2005) further suggests that humility is a sort of

meta-virtue sustaining other virtues like forgiveness,

courage, wisdom, and compassion, while Morris et al.

(2005) define humility ‘‘as a personal orientation founded

on a willingness to see the self accurately and a propensity

to put oneself in perspective.’’

The importance of humility for leaders was captured by

scholars like van Dierendonck and Patterson (2015),

Morris et al. (2005), Nielsen et al. (2010), and Snyder

(2010). In particular, humility seems to be essential in

keeping the leader’s achievements and strengths in per-

spective, while focusing more on others than on self-in-

terest (Morris et al. 2005; Fairholm and Fairholm 2000;

Sandage and Wiens 2001), which is congruent with the

tempering effect suggested by Park and Peterson (2003)

and Morris et al. (2005). In addition, van Dierendonck and

Patterson (2015) propose that the virtuous attitude of ser-

vant leaders, based on humility, gratitude, forgiveness, and

altruism, will give rise to other behaviors like empower-

ment, stewardship or providing direction.

Owens and Hekman (2012) propose that the leader’s

humility can be split essentially around ‘‘three categories:

(1) acknowledging personal limits, (2) spotlighting fol-

lowers’ strengths and contributions, and (3) modeling

teachability.’’ In a later study, these three categories have

been captured in a quantitative instrument of leader

expressed humility, which was shown to correlate with

aspects like job engagement, job satisfaction, and team

learning goal orientation (Owens et al. 2013). One can

observe that these three aspects suggested by Owens and

Hekman (2012) coincide in many ways with the combined

notions of humility and standing-back presented before

(underpinning the humble service side). As suggested by

van Dierendonck (2011), these two dimensions are reflec-

ted in putting one’s accomplishments and talents in per-

spective, admitting one’s errors, understanding own

strengths and weaknesses, and valorizing the strengths and

achievements of others. Based on an empirical qualitative

study, Owens and Hekman (2012) further propose that a

leader’s humble behaviors can have two main outcomes:

(1) at the individual level, it can increase the sense of

personal freedom and engagement among followers by

legitimizing their developmental journey, and (2) at the

organizational level, it increases the fluidity of the orga-

nization by legitimizing uncertainty. This emphasizes that

the leader’s humility can affect performance both by

improving the quality of the leader–follower relationship

(individual level) and through the creation of a learning and

adaptive organization (systemic level). Based on these

conceptualizations and empirical findings, it seems that

humility operates on the leader’s effectiveness at multiple

levels, but its specific mechanisms still seem somehow

unclear, both in terms of the internal psychological pro-

cesses of the leader and in terms of the psychological effect

that perceived humility can create in the follower. The

work of Nielsen et al. (2010) might provide some inter-

esting clues into this.

Taking a socialized charismatic leadership model,

Nielsen et al. (2010) conceptualize that humility can sup-

port a leader’s effectiveness from two perspectives. First of

all, it can improve the ability of leaders to generate,

implement, and communicate their vision. From this angle,

humility is seen as an internal and personal character trait

(Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez 2004) that will help the leader

incorporate the followers’ viewpoints, self-concepts, and

needs while keeping the leader grounded, hereby improv-

ing the quality of the leader’s aforementioned visioning

behaviors (Nielsen et al. 2010). Secondly, the follower

attributions of the leader’s humility (i.e., being perceived

as humble) will function as a ‘‘critical moderator, either

strengthening or weakening the relationship between’’

these visioning behaviors and diverse follower outcomes,

including motivation and willingness to sacrifice (Nielsen

et al. 2010). Such amplification effect of the attribution of

humility is essentially driven by an increased perception of

trustworthiness, honesty, confidence, and competence,

inducing greater ‘‘loyalty and trust in the leader, which will

in turn inspire greater willingness and commitment to

following the leader’s vision’’ (Nielsen et al. 2010). Here, it

is not so much about the actual humility of the leader but

instead the perceived humility as seen by the followers, and

how it enlarges the feeling of trust toward the leader. It is

important to note that while Nielsen et al. (2010) incor-

porate these direct and indirect effects of leader humility

and follower attributed leader humility within the model of

socialized charismatic leadership, they contend that similar

assertions could be made for servant leadership.

Measuring actual humility is quite hard. Comte-Spon-

ville (2001) and Richards (1992) remind us that humble

people will most likely not call themselves humble, so self-

assessments will always be poor indicators of humility.

While one could operationalize actual humility as the gap

between self and other evaluations (Rowatt et al. 2002),

this was beyond the scope of our study and we concen-

trated instead on the assessment of perceived humility and

the close companion of standing-back (or modesty) as seen

by the followers, which amounts to the notion of attribu-

tions of humility as suggested by Nielsen et al. (2010).

Based on these considerations, we suggest that the humble

service side of servant leaders (as perceived by followers)

can work as catalyst of their action side by improving the

relationship of trust with followers. This interaction

Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between Humility, Action, and Hierarchical… 17

123

between the humble side and the action side of servant

leadership and the impact on the motivational construct of

engagement form the second hypothesis of this study:

Hypothesis 2 The humble service side of servant lead-

ership (as perceived by followers) will work as moderating

variable by amplifying the effect of the action side on work

engagement among followers.

Hierarchical Power as a Contingency Factor

Power and leadership are strongly interrelated, which are

evident in the different definitions given for these two

concepts. For example, Stoner and Freeman (1985) define

power essentially as the capacity to influence and shape the

behaviors and attitudes of individuals and groups. On the

other hand, Yukl (2006, p. 8) defines leadership as ‘‘the

process of influencing others to understand and agree about

what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of

facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish

shared objectives’’. Both definitions share that influence is

the essential defining element of both constructs. From a

systemic point of view however, the difference seems to

rely on the fact that power is seen as a potential to influence

(a relatively stable measure of potency), while leadership

seems to be more associated with the process and dynamics

to exercise that influence (the behaviors that are conductive

of exercising that influencing power). One’s level of power

will influence one’s ability to lead and of course, effective

leadership will increase one’s power or potential to influ-

ence, in a positive and reinforcing feedback loop.

French and Raven (1959) advanced that power can have

5 bases or sources. These evolved later to 6 bases (Raven

1965), namely coercion (the ability to influence based on

the possibility of punishment or penalty), reward (the

power to compensate for achieving certain targets), legiti-

macy (power based on a certain recognized right to influ-

ence, like, for example, a job title), expertise (based on the

perception about one’s level of knowledge and skills for a

certain job), reference (power that stems from a strong

sense of identification and admiration), and information

(essentially the capacity to communicate either through

logical or emotional reasoning, eloquence, or charisma).

The stronger these bases, the more the power one pos-

sesses. We theorize that the moderating role of follower

…