SERVANT LEADERSHIP: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF PRACTICES, EXPERIENCES, ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AND BARRIERS - Information

SERVANT LEADERSHIP: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF PRACTICES,
EXPERIENCES, ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESSAND BARRIERS
Amy R. Savage-Austin, PhD
Oris Guillaume, DBA
International Journal of Business and Social Research (IJBSR), Volume -2, No.-4, August 2012

http://www.ijbsr.org/images/archive_articles/August2012/4.pdf


This study gathered lived experiences of 15 organizational leaders who practice
the servant leadership philosophy, and explored how business leaders link their servant leadership
practices to their organization’s effectiveness. The qualitative responses obtained during this study
indicated that the perceived organizational barriers that prevent the servant leadership practices are
the organization’s culture, the fear of change, and the lack of knowledge regarding the servant
leadership philosophy.


References

Foster, B. A. (2000). Barriers to servant leadership: Perceived organizational elements that impede servant leader effectiveness. Dissertation Abstracts International, 61 (05), 1935. (UMI 9974230)
Greenleaf, R. K. (1972). The institute as servant. Indianapolis, IN: The Robert K. Greenleaf Center Press.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1996). On becoming a leader. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Greenleaf, R. K., Covey, S. R., & Senge, P. M. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power & greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Klenke, K. (2003). The “S” factor in leadership education, practice, and research. Journal of Education for Business, 79(1), 56–61.
Lynham, S., & Chermack, T. (2006). Responsible leadership for performance: A theoretical model and hypotheses. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 12(4), 73–88.

Spears, L. C. (2002). Focus on leadership: Servant-leadership for the twenty-first century. New York: Wiley.
Spears, L. C. (2004). Practicing servant leadership. Leader to Leader, 34, 7–11.
Washington, R. R. (2007). Empirical relationships between theories of servant, transformational, and transactional leadership. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1–6. Retrieved December 13, 2007, from Business Source Complete database.

Positive Attributional Theory of Leadership - Review of Research Papers

Summary Attributional Theory of Leadership: a model of functional attributions and behaviors
C. Lakshman

C. Lakshman, (2008),"Attributional theory of leadership: a model of functional attributions and
behaviors", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 29 Iss: 4 pp. 317 - 339


Lakshman pointed out that till this paper, attributional leadership theory focused on biases in attribution and the resulting consequences. He took a positive approach and developed propositions based on accurate attributions and the resulting consequences.


P1. The degree to which managers analyze multiple causes, identifying those
with augmenting schema, ruling out those with discounting schema, with
special attention given to those causes with most augmenting schema or least
discounting schema in complex situations, will lead to more accurate and less
biased attributions of poor performance events.

P2. Managers that are more accurate in their causal analysis have higher and
more positive levels of interactive behaviors, lower feedback latencies, and
develop better strategies for correcting performance deficiencies, thereby
leading their units to higher effectiveness.

P3a. Managers who are not susceptible to gender biases in making performance
attributions are more effective in correcting performance deficiencies and thus
more effective and managers who are perceived to be non-susceptible to
gender biases in making performance attributions obtain higher perceptions
of leadership from their subordinates.

P3b. Managers who are not susceptible to racial biases in making performance
attributions are more effective in correcting performance deficiencies and thus
more effective and managers who are perceived to be non-susceptible to racial
biases in making performance attributions obtain higher perceptions of
leadership from their subordinates.

P3c. Managers who are not susceptible to self-serving attributional biases are
more effective in correcting performance deficiencies and thus more effective
and managers who are perceived to be non-susceptible to self-serving
attributional biases obtain higher perceptions of leadership from their
subordinates.


P4a. Managers who make (self) internal attributions for poor unit performance
look more within themselves for reasons for poor unit performance, develop
plans to correct performance deficiencies, and thereby are more effective.

P4b. Managers who make (self) internal attributions for poor unit performance
look more within themselves for reasons for poor unit performance, and
develop plans to correct performance deficiencies, obtain higher leadership
perceptions from their unit members.

P5a. Managers who attribute unit successes to unit members, enhance the
motivation and satisfaction of those members and are thus more effective.

P5b. Managers who attribute unit successes to unit members obtain higher
perceptions of leadership from them.

P6. Managerial interactive behaviors resulting from accurate attributions are
positive, and help remove subordinate uncertainty and apprehension, thereby
contributing to subordinate self-efficacy, satisfaction and motivation.

P7. Low feedback latency and undistorted feedback on the part of leaders,
resulting from their accurate attributions, serve to enhance subordinate
self-efficacy and remove uncertainty and apprehension.


P8. Managerial strategies for correcting performance deficiencies, resulting from
an internal focus and accurate attributions, serve to enhance subordinate
satisfaction, and motivation.

P9. Enhanced levels of subordinate self-efficacy, satisfaction, and motivation
mediate the impact of functional attributions and behaviors on subordinate
and unit performance and perceptions of leadership.

This is paper is cited in many further papers.

Charismatic CEO Theory - Research Papers

D.A. Waldman, F.J. Yammarino
CEO charismatic leadership: Levels of management and levels of analysis effects
Academy of Management Review, 2 (1999), pp. 266–285

The paper focused on the charismatic leadership of CEOs and it included the relationship between managers very close to the CEO and CEO and employees far from the CEO and CEO also apart from other concepts or variables of interest. Theoretical Propositions were developed in the paper. The proof of the proposition is given by putting up an argument of plausibility in theoretical papers. They are tested empirically in empirical theory testing papers.

Propositions developed in the paper


Proposition I: Adaptive organizational culture will foster the emergence of leaders predisposed to showing charismatic behaviors. Charismatic behaviors will, in turn, reinforce core values of an adaptive culture while helping to change aspects of culture that become dysfunctional over time.

Proposition 2: Charismatic relationships developed between a CEO and Top Management Team (TMT) members will result in heightened TMT cohesion and effort, especially under conditions of perceived environmental volatility.

Proposition 3: Role modeling and TMT effort and cohesion will promote the cascading of charismatic leadership to lower hierarchical echelons.

Proposition 4; Charismatic leadership at lower management levels will result in heightened effort on the part of organizational members, as well as intragroup and intergroup cohesion.

Proposition 5: Charismatic attributions of CEOs at a distance are a function of symbolic behaviors, articulation of an ideologically based vision, sagas, storytelling, and prior organizational performance.

Proposition 6: Charismatic attributions toward the CEO at lower echelons will result in heightened organizational member effort and intergroup cohesion, especially under conditions of perceived environmental volatility.

Proposition 7: Intergroup cohesion will result in linkages regarding the performance objectives of units within an organization so that the subsequent performance of units will be coordinated toward higher-level organizational performance.

Proposition 8: Coordinated operational performance of subunits will lead to higher organizational performance, especially when units are interdependent.

Charismatic Leadership - Theoretical Propositions

Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership
Boas Shamir, Jane M. Howell
The Leadership Quarterly
Volume 10, Issue 2, Summer 1999, Pages 257–283

The research propositions in this paper were developed out of the argument or premise that while charismatic leadership principles and processes potentially apply across a wide variety of situations, the emergence and effectiveness of such leadership may be facilitated by some contexts and inhibited by others

Proposition 1: Charismatic leaders are more likely to emerge under conditions of turbulence and crisis than under conditions of stability and continuity. However, crisis is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the emergence of charismatic leaders.

Proposition 2: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective in psychologically weak situations than in psychologically strong situations.


Proposition 3: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective in dynamic organizational environments that require and enable the introduction of new strategies, markets, products and technologies.

Proposition 4: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective at the early (entrepreneurial) stage, and the late stages (collaboration stage and renewal crisis) than in the middle stages of the organizational life-cycle.

Proposition 5: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective the lower the analyzability of the organizational or departmental technology.

Proposition 6: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective when the tasks of organizational members are challenging and complex, and require individual and group initiative, responsibility, creativity and intense effort.

Proposition 7: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective when performance goals are ambiguous and extrinsic rewards cannot be strongly linked to performance.

Proposition 8: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective in organic organizations than in mechanistic organizations.

Proposition 9: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective in organizations with a clan mode of governance than in organizations with either a market or bureaucratic mode of governance.

Proposition 10: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective in adaptive than in non-adaptive organizational cultures.

Proposition 11: New leaders are more likely than established leaders to emerge as charismatic and have a charismatic influence on organizational members.

Proposition 12: New charismatic leaders are more likely to emerge and be effective when they succeed non-charismatic leaders than when they succeed charismatic former leaders.

Proposition 13: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge at the top level of the organization than at lower levels. However, charismatic leadership is not restricted to the top organizational level.

Proposition 14: Charismatic leadership at higher organizational levels will rely on image building, articulation of a strategic vision, rhetorical skills and symbolic activities to produce charismatic effects on followers, while charismatic leadership at lower organizational levels will rely on personal role modeling, building a collective identity within the team, and conveying confidence in followers' capabilities.

Proposition 15: Charismatic leadership is more likely to emerge and be effective when the organizational goals and primary tasks are consistent with dominant social values, and offer both leader and followers an opportunity for moral involvement.

The paper quoted D.A. Waldman, F.J. Yammarino,  "CEO charismatic leadership: Levels of management and levels of analysis effects"
Academy of Management Review, 2 (1999), pp. 266–285

This paper also contains theoretical propositions above charismatic leadership at CEO level.