Comprehensive Literature Review: Servant Leadership and Impact

This literature review examines servant leadership, a leadership style focused on serving employees and prioritizing their needs for workplace satisfaction and organizational development. It explores the characteristics of servant leadership, including listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, foresight, commitment to growth, stewardship, and community building. The review analyzes the impact of servant leadership on team effectiveness, highlighting increased clarity, trust, productivity, team spirit, and personal growth. It also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this leadership style, such as fostering diverse mentalities, loyalty, employee involvement, and productivity, while acknowledging potential challenges. Practical examples from organizations are included to illustrate the application of servant leadership. The review concludes by emphasizing the importance of servant leadership in enhancing employee engagement and organizational success.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW ON SERVANT LEADERSHIP
LITERATURE REVIEW ON SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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LITERATURE REVIEW ON SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Servant Leadership..........................................................................................................................2
Characteristics of Servant leadership...............................................................................................3
Impact of Servant leadership on team effectiveness........................................................................6
Advantage and disadvantages of Servant leadership.......................................................................8
Practical examples from organizations..........................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

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LITERATURE REVIEW ON SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Introduction
There are several organizations persist in the global market that enhances their business
for the first ten years with their first generation of leader and after the change of a particular
segment or session when new leaders came in the action companies performance frequently falls.
The reason behind the section is very crucial as the new engagements are not accustomed in the
proper way and that is the reason employees are not properly associated with the new leader. The
major concern has come when the change in customer preference, climate change, economic
recessions and organizational infrastructure has changed and leaders have to change their
strategic overview to gain the competitive advantage (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). A
leader needs to take this challenge and implement decision-making process for the development
of the organization.
The thesis statement of the essay is to analyze the importance of servant leadership and
highlighting the importance of this process for the development of employee engagement and
organization development. Leaders have to take care of conflict situation and inspire employee
and maintain a behavioral administration in the organization.
Servant Leadership
The form of leadership influences the unmet demand of the market and willing to serve
the employees and trying to provide them ultimate workplace satisfaction so that employees are
getting involved with the company. Employees need and desire is the first priority or this kind of
leaders and that is the Servant leadership has been named (Eva & Sendjaya, 2013). Some of the
well-known companies are using this form of leadership so that employee retention policy will

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sustain. In this leadership form, employees can feel their position in the organization. They
engaged in the organization and development process has flowed. The leadership form increases
the employee effectiveness as well and company can process their objectivity through this. The
need of this process is also aligned with the business and organizational development and
efficacy is the major aspect of this (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). The understanding and
interpretation of business is the key aspect of leadership process and through this leadership
better engagement with employees has been persisted. In case of follower-oriented, spiritual and
the moral development of the organization this type of leadership is essential and important. The
classical and contemporary of leadership aspect is concise in this leadership theory and that
impacted on the business outcome too.
The major aspect of leadership purpose encourages employees to measure the
organizational activity and develop the sufficient amount of support for the development of the
business (Hu & Liden, 2011). The provided evidence of reliability, internal consistency,
unidimensionality and discriminated validity are the major concern of this process and that is the
reason, this kind of leaders are important for the organization.
Characteristics of Servant leadership
There are some characteristic features are important in this servant leadership process.
These will help the leadership aspect to process the forefront business and make some needful
aspect of motivating the employee for the development of the organization.
Listening is the key aspect of this leadership process and to make a good servant leader a
good listener is always important. If the leader has not had the ability to listen and understand the
want from their employees, then it is very difficult to evaluate their standard and deliver the best

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solution for that time (Liden et al., 2014). The ability of listening provides the foundation of the
business and that is the key issue that founded the business establishment as well. In case of
gaining knowledge listening form, the others are important and servant leaders have to maintain
that.
The second factor is empathy and the process strives to connect and understand people.
Leaders have to understand the situation of the employees and in which situation they are in.
Enough appreciation will be gained by the leader if they maintained the empathy process and
that is the major reason these leaders posted employees at first and then signifies their position in
the organization (Liden et al., 2015). This is the kind of position that employees also want that
from the leader and that will encourage them to deliver extra effort for the organization rather for
the leader.
The next aspect is the healing aspect and through the healing aspect, leader understands
the employees' heart and the fragile manner of the heart. In most of the cases, employees are
working hard for the organization but the appreciation is not coming from the leader. These are
quite a common situation also and in those cases, employee and the servant leadership is the best
way to treat the situation (Yoshida et al., 2014). In case of achieving more opportunities from
employees and enhance the productivity. Situation leaders understand the employees’ heart
situation and know that what obstacles they can face in this process and allocated them in the
right job section.
Awareness is another important factor that enables moral ethics and delivers ethical
issues in business and these aspects help in case of mitigating conflict situations. In case of
establishing better business strengthen situation, vicarious attributes from employees are

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important and the values are coming from the employees also. Servant leadership promotes this
very unusual nevertheless exceptional human excellence.
The traditional leaders are making their decision as per the position and title of the
employees rather than employees’ persuasion to do better work in future. The situation persists
over here is the demand of experienced people an organization has some effective results from
that. The motion of effective lineup is under threat if new and inexperienced employees have
been recruited by the organization (Van Dierendonck, 2011). In that case, the effective use of
persuasion is important and relevant for the far fetching goals and opportunities. Added value in
a workplace is considered by servant leadership process as they evaluate the situation and
delivering their experience for providing mental support to employees and to fulfill the vision of
the leader.
Foresight is another aspect of servant leader as the leader identifies the mistakes from the
past. In case of learning curve, every employee had done some mistakes at the initial stage, and
senior executives repay the matter (Sun, 2013). But employees have to learn from their previous
mistakes and servant leaders can see the limitation of the employee and that amount of work is
also allocated for the employee and this is one of the high chances of mitigation of this mistake.
Commitment to the growth of people is another aspect of leadership. This is a process
of correlation between the effectiveness of an employee and intelligence of that same person.
Knowledge of an important aspect of resources and that is the reason it is the essential aspect to
learn and think when the innovation is persisted. Servant leaders comprehend the dynamics of
communal obligation and designation. Leaders comprehend employee's assets and flaws and
allocate tasks that emulate individual assets (Parris & Peachey, 2013). The vigor behind

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leadership is to dwell factions in conditions that encourage victory. In case of organizational
growth and development, this is the most common way of building leadership.
Stewardship is another aspect that responsible for the success and failure parameter in
the organization. The leader has to take care of that permutation and combination of victory and
catastrophe issue (Peterson, Galvin & Lange, 2012). In most of the cases, there are some
highlighted factors in business and employees’ commitment is the major aspect that persuaded
the process in a significant way.
The last aspect is the most important and positive aspect of servant leadership and this is
considered to engage most of the employees. The aspect is building community. In an
organization, it is very important to have employees from different sectors and that is the reason
communal maintenance is important (Kim et al., 2014). There is some conflict situation may
arise but leaders rebuild the community through their interpersonal communication process. The
community is a replication of the organization's workforce and servant leader's provision grasps
beyond the limitations of the organization. Service leaders subsidize the expansion of society's
ethical fortitude.
Impact of Servant leadership on team effectiveness
In case of employee retention process, servant leadership is the key aspect that can
encourage the departmental process as well as connect in with employees and maintain a good
relation. The basic fulfillment of employees to have a good workplace environment has
maintained by the leaders and in every form of help, the leader used to ready for employees
(Brewer, 2010). This is the most crucial fact that eventually comes in case of employee
satisfaction and helps to justice the perception of the employees to have good culture and

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Servant Leadership
Clarity
Trust
Team Productivity
Team Spirit
Personal Growth
Team Effectiveness
management that help employees in all sorts of progress. The basic agenda of the business
process is to deliver the ethical position of the employees and they become happy for that reason
and that is the concerning aspect of business also (Van Dierendonck, 2011). Through the use of
Likert scale, servant leadership behavior can be accessed and that showcases the theoretical
framework of the leadership and aligning of an empirical finding of business process
maintenance.
Figure 1: Impact of Servant leadership in team effectiveness
(Source: Created by Author)
The clarity in leadership helps the process to maintain a good productivity of the team.
The clear focus of the vision and reality persisted in that case. Employees trust over their leader
is an important factor to be convinced for the better team effectiveness, and that is the reason
most of the strategic generic decisions are accepted by the employee and good productivity has
maintained by the team in every occasion.

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Advantage and disadvantages of Servant leadership
There are some advantages and disadvantages of servant leadership process. The
leadership advantages are:
 The diversified mentality of the leader and make a communal balance in the workplace is
the most interesting aspect of the leader. In most of the cases, the diverse community
makes an understatement of conflict cases as the culture of the employees are different so
as the positional perspective of them will be different but they are experts from their field
and that is the reason most of the cases when different cultural people came together
conflict will come (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Servant leader used to listen to all the
aspects and then thorough the communication and explain them about the team
cohesiveness that maintains their positional aspect also.
 Loyalty is the key matter that servant leaders have in their attitude and behavior. In most
of the cases, leaders are allowing the process of the strong sense of employees and that is
the reason most employees have made their position in the organization.
 Involvement is the key aspect that leaders committed to the employees and for that reason
employee engagement is the key issue that creates the great drive to the organizational
solution. The change and innovation in the organization are coming from the leader,
however, employees are so much attached to the leader; every change will be accepted by
them.
 In case of productivity, this form of leadership is the key issue in business. The best
productive manner has come in this form of leadership (Hu & Liden, 2011). The engaged
employees are the key factor for the organization and that is the reason more productive
outcome has come through the process.

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 Employee satisfaction is the key issue in this leadership process. This leadership process
improves the rate of employee satisfaction and makes some effective decision for the
development of the organization. Employees’ engagement and change satisfied
employees for the better change.
 Motivation is the key aspect that servant leaders deliver to their employees and that is the
reason more productive chances have come from this perspective. Achievements are
expected by the key pace setting and leadership process and the way to give motivation is
also important in that case, so this kind of leader has to take some motivation classes for
employee and analyze them the position of employees in the organization and that is the
key perspective of business (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013).
There are some disadvantages of this leadership also:
 The change in attitude and mentality is the key concern for this leadership process and
that is the reason the simplicity of the leadership sometimes turns into the complex
process. The mentality changes of the employees and change in perception from leader
make a huge problem for the organizational productivity.
 Adaptation in style of the leadership is another concern aspect and leader's approach
needs to be understood by the employees. If the approach is not swallowed in the proper
way, then haphazard mentality is persisted in business and that is the reason most of the
employees have to adopt the changes.
 The lack of authority is another concerning aspect of business and that the reason this
form of leadership sometimes goes wrong. The form is the best form in which employees
are pursuing same mentality and concern about the leader's respect and organization
reputation (Kim et al., 2014). However, this scenario is not possible in each and

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employees are behaving like leader and want to do whatever they want and that is the con
concern disadvantage of that leadership.
 The goals are confusing in this leadership form as servant leaders used to take care of
employees and feel the same empathy (Sendjaya, Sarros & Santora, 2008). The problem
has come in this form that sometimes it overturned and deviate the goal. The fixed goal
assumption deviates from the process and it certainly losses the objective of the
organization.
Practical examples from organizations
Servant leadership is the ideal style of leadership in case of same behavioral association.
The most important fact in this leadership theory is to manage the competitive aspect with ease
and deliver more sympathetic treatment for employees. In case of practical scenario, CEO of
HTC, Peter Chou is one of the servant leaders as the vision of the leader is to provide clarity in
the direction that helps to grow the process of HTC brand and also difference the brand with
others (Brewer, 2010). The intention of the CEO is to deliver intangible assets and maintain the
good reputation in the market and delivering the innovative way to strengthen the business. With
the employee, the relation of the CEO is quite good and that is the man concern to make as a
servant leader. On the other hand, Mike Faith, the Chief Executive Officer of Greenleaf also
believes in the servant leadership process (Brewer, 2010). The basic behavioral characteristic and
delivering value to employees is the concerning aspect of that and for that reason, specific
conceptual leadership process will be maintained in that case.

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Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that servant leadership is the right way to maintain the
leadership process in case of same mentality people and that is the reason most of the employee
love and admire this kind of leader. In case of motivational aspect and organizational
productivity, this is the right way to following down and that is the reason servant leadership
make some bold move in business acceleration. The paper indicates the individualities of a
successful servant leader is a mentioning the essential moral personality. The world business
standard has become more intricate, and energetic times involvement in active motivated leaders.
Servant leadership makes the change in the apparent positive modification in organizations and
divergent traditional independent in case of leadership methods.