The ideas and concepts for servant leadership have been around for centuries in different forms. Even when Aristotle and later Aquinas discussed leadership, they pondered the concepts of virtues as an important component of human life and leadership. Other philosophers such as Plato discussed leadership but with some different ideas that became mainstream ideas for ruling and power . This focus on power carried the day in leadership thinking with concepts of leadership like in Machiavelliās The Prince that endorsed a power center to leadership. This power focus on leadership developed over the centuries, while in other contexts alternative concepts for leadership became part of the lived experiences of leaders. Diverse concepts for leaders were lived and developed, but the power focus of leadership rose to ascendancy over the years.
Servant Leadership According to Greenleaf
In the 1970s, in the midst of a hotbed of leadership theory development, Robert Greenleaf proposed an idea about the servant being the leader. According to Greenleaf (2002), his book on servant leadership was written through a process of 20 years of talks and articles with the hope and design that leaders would learn to serve their followers with skill, understanding, and spirit. This idea grew into a concept of leadership in the writings of Greenleaf that was developed and popularized in the writings of Greenleaf and later with several other authors like Larry Spears. Greenleaf (2002) believed that there were students who were looking for a better way to lead and there were others as well like trustees and clergy in the churches who wanted more effective models for leadership. He introduced this way of leading as leading as a servant. He summarizes his concept of this type of leader as one who is servant first and this begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve but then there is a conscious choice from there that one wants to lead (Greenleaf, 2002). The movement then is not from leading to serving but from serving to leading.
This way of thinking calls for a new kind of leadership model that puts serving others as the top priority including employees, customers, and the community at large and a number of institutions have adopted this servant-leader approach (Spears, 1998). This model has been adopted, discussed, and lived by many in several different fields. As this model has moved from theory to practice, there are others who have developed and adapted this model in many different contexts. There are business leaders who have practiced this model for over 25 years and continue to use it, and this leadership thinking has also influenced many noted writers, thinkers, and leaders (Spears, 1998). The influence and popularity of this way of thinking about leadership grew through the later twentieth century.
In this process, ten characteristics for servant leadership were developed from the writings of this model. The ten characteristics of servant leadership were identified as listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (Spears, 1998). These ten concepts have been researched and developed for use as components of servant leadership with good progress of this model as an effective form of leadership. Servant leadership is viewed as a leadership model that is helpful to organizations by engaging and developing employees and beneficial to followers by engaging people as whole persons with heart , mind, and spirit and it is not limited to Western culture (Van Dierendonck & Patterson, 2010). Greenleaf (2002) even discusses many different contexts in his later chapters as he addresses the issues of cross-cultural leadership.
Then his final chapter turns to the inward journey through the use of poetry and Scripture . Though this is the foundation of servant leadership from an organizational perspective, it has some beginnings of looking to Scripture and particularly the life and ministry of Jesus as a model for leadership. These early concepts have been the fountainhead of much discussion and debate about this philosophy or model or principle of leadership. This thinking began in the 1970s with Robert Greenleaf however; others in the twenty-first century began to think and do research on this way of leading to develop a robust model for effective leadership.
Servant Leadership in Twenty-First-Century Literature
In the twenty-first century, there was an explosion of literature in many areas of leadership theory and thinking. Some of these areas included virtues and even spirituality as an important component of leadership and leadership development. It was in the early years of this century that authentic leadership was developed as a result of the large scandals in the business world of this time period. As it was developed, there was a spiritual component of this model developed by Klenke (2007). There were other theories as well like adaptive leadership theory (Northouse, 2015).
In this context, there emerged several new ideas and models concerning servant leadership. Just before the turn of the century, Spears (1998) had already been developing some of the concepts of servant leadership in cooperation with other leadership scholars and practitioners such as Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, James Kouzes, Margaret Wheatley, and others. They were exploring different aspects of servant leadership based on the Greenleaf model of leadership.
As the twenty-first century dawned, there were ideas and new priorities in leadership thinking and development. Northouse (2015) described servant leadership as a theory that did not have much empirical evidence with most of the writing on this model being prescriptive rather than focusing on the practice of this way of leadership however; in the twenty-first century, more evidence and research had substantiated and clarified this model. Servant leadership was used by different organizations and endorsed by leadership thinkers and writers, but it still needed further development for use as a theory of leadership. So, the twenty-first century brought an explosion of research in new areas of leadership and leadership development . In this explosion of research, several scholars developed different and diverse attributes and measurements for servant leadership (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006; Dennis & Bocarnea, 2005; Laub, 1999; Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011; Wong & Davey, 2007). In these studies, the characteristics were both extensive and diverse with a lack of agreement on the characteristics that define servant leadership (Northouse, 2015).
In the midst of this time period, Patterson (2003) developed a model that is virtue based for leadership. This model was further clarified and explained by Winston (2003), who defined and expanded some of the terms used in this model of leadership. The literature concerning servant leadership continues to grow with more variations. However, since this Patterson model is virtue based, it has potential for more development and growth.
In addition, the issues of the twenty-first century have focused on developing ethical models of leadership or at least developing models with ethics in mind for the process of leadership development . This focus of leadership studies in general brings this model of servant leadership to an important place to be examined and developed for use in this present context. The question remains as to how leadership models can be developed that can produce effective and ethical leaders. Ciulla (2014) proposes that leadership needs to be good in two senses, ethical and effective . It is this search for good leadership in these two senses that drives the passion for the development of this model for servant leadership. But is this enough? Is there more beyond this model that serves leaders in their pursuit of good and even great leadership that includes virtues as well as effectiveness? Then the question goes even farther in asking if these are the only two components of good leadership. To answer these questions it takes a deeper look at this Patterson model.
Servant Leadership According to Patterson and Winston
Some of the foundational ideas for the further development of servant leadership came from Winston and Patterson. Winston gave some new terminology for this construct in using the word agapao for the leadership idea of love . Patterson developed a virtue-based model for servant leadership that built upon the ideas of Greenlea...