Please discuss and compare the concept of Servant Leadership to Adaptive Leadership.? Further, please discuss the ten characteristics of a Servant Leader and the applicability of these

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Servant Leadership in the Public Sector: Employee Perspective

Neale J. Slack1 & Gurmeet Singh2 & Jashwini Narayan3

& Shavneet Sharma3

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore how servant leadership affects public sector employee engagement, organisational ethical climate, and public sector reform, of two public enterprises, in the under-researched public sector of a Small Island Developing State (SID) – Fiji. Qualitative, longitudinal, case studies examined the servant leader- ship experience of employees of two public enterprises. Data was collected from employees of both public enterprises through in-depth interviews and participant observations, and was thematically analysed. Pre-existing conditions of both enter- prises, and lack of employee familiarity with servant leadership, resulted in different levels of employee acceptance of servant leadership, which affected employee engage- ment, organisational ethical climate, and public sector reform.

Keywords Servant leadership . Public sector . Small Island developing states . Fiji

Public Organization Review https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-019-00459-z

* Gurmeet Singh [email protected]

Neale J. Slack neale.slack[email protected]

Jashwini Narayan [email protected]

Shavneet Sharma [email protected]

1 College of Business, Hospitality and Tourism Studies, Fiji National University, Suva, Fiji 2 Graduate School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of The South

Pacific, Suva, Fiji 3 School of Management & Public Administration, Faculty of Business and Economics, The

University of The South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

Published online: 16 December 2019

Introduction

Leadership has been and continues to be one of the most thoroughly researched social influence processes in the organisational sciences and the related professional practices (Yammarino 2013). This is because effective leadership is foundational to an organi- sation’s ability to rapidly and continuously adapt to the ever-changing local and global environmental conditions that challenge the status quo (Zorn et al. 2000). Consequent- ly, “a critical factor to understanding the success of an organisation, then, is to study its leaders” (Parris and Peachey 2012: 377).

However, due to a general degradation of confidence in present-day leadership (Mittal and Dorfman 2012) and leaders’ self-serving focus (O’Reilly et al. 2014), there has emerged a growing concern for an alternative form of leadership (Mittal and Dorfman 2012). Also, an increasing number of academics argue effective leadership is based on self-sacrificing motives and service to followers (subordinates), rather than service to self and maximising leader benefits (Liden et al. 2014).

Servant leadership is suggested to be an alternative form of leadership in which the leader overwhelmingly respects other human beings and yet still operates to achieve organisational goals (Bell and Habel 2009; Ehrhart 2004). Servant leaders tend to place the needs of their followers before the leader’s own needs (Greenleaf 1970, 1977). This leadership is considered a natural model in the public sector. This is mainly due to the reason that the leaders in public organisations are thought to have stronger intentions to serve in comparison to leaders who lead private organisations (Gabris and Simo 1995).

Increasing numbers of such studies suggest servant leaders promote positive em- ployee engagement, more contented and better-performing followers (Carter and Baghurst 2013), and foster perceptions of an ethical climate (Burton et al. 2017), resulting in positive organisational outcomes (Liden et al. 2014) that enable organisa- tions to establish and maintain a competitive advantage. But most of the research carried out by researchers on servant leadership has been mainly undertaken for developing theoretical frameworks and also for establishing reliable and valid mea- surement tools for researching servant leadership empirically. There is, also limited research on servant leadership in the public sector (Miao et al. 2014), and of the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement (Coetzer et al. 2017) and ethical climate (Burton et al. 2017).

Hence, numerous gaps exist in literature in relation to servant leadership. Re- searchers have predominantly considered this style of leadership in western contexts (Winston and Ryan 2008), but given little attention to examination of the same in other cultural contexts (Han et al. 2010). We are also unaware of any previous published research on servant leadership in Small Island Developing States (SIDs) such as Fiji. Finally, servant leadership as a construct, still remains an underdeveloped and obscure phenomenon, still to be organized into an assembly of congruous management prac- tices (Brumback 1999).

In attempting to address these research gaps, this study sheds light on the phenom- enon of servant leadership (Brown and Bryant 2015) as employed in two uniquely different reforming public enterprises in Fiji, namely the Fiji Islands Maritime Safety Administration (FIMSA) and the Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (MSAF). This paper first provides a review of contemporary literature on servant leadership, and further highlights the gaps in current literature. The research objectives and questions,

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methodology and background for this study follow. Findings and interpretation are then discussed, and conclusions and research implications close the article.

Literature Review

Servant leadership was suggested to have been introduced in the USA based on American research (Hannay 2009). However well before this, servant leadership can be accredited to Christianity and biblical teachings (Zou et al. 2015). Since its intro- duction, servant leadership has re-surfaced over the past two decades as an ethical and moral leadership style (Dinh et al. 2014). Recent conceptual and empirical leadership research has focused on the servant leadership style (e.g., Burton et al. 2017; Coetzer et al. 2017; Lacroix and Pircher Verdorfer 2017; Miao et al. 2014), as organisational scholars shift their attention from self-serving leadership styles to more relational ones (Avolio et al. 2009) that emphasise leader-follower relationships (Wang et al. 2014).

Literature informs of various definitions as well as a lack of consensus on what servant leadership entails (Mittal and Dorfman 2012). Notwithstanding, the definition that is upheld in this research, and the understanding that was shared with the interviewees, is based on the definition suggested by the servant leadership pioneer Greenleaf (1977): a leadership style that emphasises a leader’s responsibility towards the success of an organisation, but also includes a leader’s moral responsibility to his or her subordinates (‘followers’) and other stakeholders (Peterson et al. 2012). Other researchers (Hale and Fields 2007: 397) express this leadership style as “places the good of those led over the self-interest of the leader, emphasizing leader behaviours that focus on follower development, and de-emphasizing glorification of the leader.” While even other researchers (Sendjaya and Sarros 2002; Van Dierendonck 2011) provide differing definitions of servant leadership.

Empowerment, stewardship, authenticity, humility, interpersonal acceptance, and providing direction are the characteristics of servant leadership as developed by van Dierendonck (2011) and his colleagues van Dierendonck & Patterson (2015), and van Dierendonck and Patterson (2015). Other characteristics of servant leadership as identified by Greenleaf (1998) include listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persua- sion, conceptualisation, foresight, commitment to the growth of people, and community building. There are also other scholars who continue to redefine servant leadership characteristics (Brown and Bryant 2015; Russel and Stone 2002; Van Dierendonck 2011).

In addition, empirical evidence highlights conceptual differences between servant leadership and the other leadership styles (Van Dierendonck 2011). The transformational leadership style (which appears to have many similarities with the servant leadership style) (Mittal and Dorfman 2012) argues follower inspiration as being dependent on leadership charisma and emotions. However, servant leadership focuses on enabling a learning organisation where individual appreciation adds value (Van Dierendonck 2011), and fosters high levels of trust in management, leading to smoother organisational operations (Ehrhart 2004). On the contrary, transformational leaders’ key responsibility is to their organisations and to themselves, and for them, follower growth and develop- ment should be in line with what is best for the organisation (Graham 1991).

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Such a linear focus on organisational outcomes may not cater fully for the follower needs (Burton et al. 2017: 231).

Also, minimal research into the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement is available (Coetzer et al. 2017). Nonetheless, some studies (Carter and Baghurst 2013; De Clerq et al. 2014) suggest a strong correlation between servant leadership and employee engagement, while other studies identify the mediating effect of goal congruence on the correlation between servant leadership and employee engagement (De Clerq et al. 2014).

Not only this, but research is also underdeveloped in the relationship be- tween leadership and its function in promoting ethical behaviour and ethical climate (Menzel 2015), particularly in the public sector where ethical leadership style matters much (Heres and Lasthuizen 2012). Burton et al. (2017: 229) recent research attempted to fill this void and found, “servant leadership was directly related to trust in leadership and perceptions of an ethical climate”. They also mention a growing body of research does point out the relationship between an ethical organisational climate enabled by servant leaders and organisational outcomes. It is also suggested servant leaders are in a position to shape the organisational norms and values that explicitly indicate and guide the moral behaviour of all (Schaubroeck et al. 2011), therein improving the ethical culture of public and private sector organisations. This is in stark comparison to other leadership styles (Giampetro-Meyer et al. 1998). The call is now for studies that investigate the scope and magnitude of the influence of servant leadership on a range of multilevel outcomes (Hunter et al. 2013: 316).

Many questions thus remain unanswered (Zou et al. 2015). Furthermore, most prior empirical studies that investigated effects of other leadership styles on firm performance (e.g., Ensley et al. 2006; Ling et al. 2008; Waldman et al. 2004) reported mixed results. All in all, scholars have ignored not only the organisational-level outcomes of servant leadership but also a proper investiga- tion of the relationship between servant leadership and firm performance (Peterson et al. 2012). In his recent article, Peterson et al. (2012) posed a relevant question relating to the organisational-level implications of servant leadership behaviours which is still underexplored. They profess the link be- tween CEO servant leadership and an important organisational-level outcome like firm performance is an interesting issue, worthy of investigation (Peterson et al. 2012) since a CEO’s leadership behaviour can impact seriously on firm profitability (Finkelstein et al. 2009). However, such research, especially em- pirical in nature, is lacking and very much needed (Peterson et al. 2012).

Overall, the nature and importance of servant leadership does need further research to allow for better understanding of what brings about servant leader- ship in [changing public] organisations, and this in turn will help to respond to calls by researchers (Avolio 2007; DeRue et al. 2011) to conceptually and empirically highlight the antecedents and aftermath of different leadership styles (Peterson et al. 2012). As it is, “the complex environment and the formalized organizational structure of public organizations place contradictory demands on the role of public managers as change leaders” (Van der Voet et al. 2016: 858).

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Research Objectives and Questions

This study attempts to fill some of the void mentioned in the aforementioned review of literature by qualitatively investigating various aspects of servant leadership, employee engagement, organisational ethical climate, and public sector reform, in the under- researched public sector of SIDs such as Fiji. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no prior published research on servant leadership in the public sector of SIDs such as Fiji; and research on servant leadership in the public sector worldwide in top-tier journals is also sparse. Interestingly, some studies on other leadership styles like transformational leadership state in public organisations “the transformational leader- ship of direct supervisors is central in the implementation of change” (Van der Voet et al. 2016: 858). In this respect, this study may bring to the forefront certain overlooked critical aspects of leadership relevant to public sector performance (Peterson et al. 2012). Like Peterson et al. (2012), we draw arguments from the importance of servant leadership to public sector performance, both practically and from the servant leadership literature. Burton et al. (2017: 238) have called for the use of “qualitative methodology to help understand the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of the relationships among servant leadership, trust, organizational justice, and ethical cli- mate.” Hunter et al. (2013: 329) also called for “additional study so that managers and scholars alike may better understand why and how servant leadership affects employees and organizations.”

This study’s results will have important theoretical and practical implications for practicing public sector managers, public organisations and governments that promote reforms in the public sector through effective leadership (Peterson et al. 2012). This study is also significant, considering reforming public sectors have “been wrestling with the best way to address the unethical behavior…for years” (Burton et al. 2017: 236). Servant leadership does make sense in the public sector since it also includes stakeholder concerns. Like the research of Hunter et al. (2013: 328), “the most important contribution of our study is the [qualitative based in-depth case studies] empirical evidence” on the many underexplored or unexplored aspects of servant leadership in the public sector, making this study a wholesome contribution of new knowledge, and adding to the current limited literature on servant leadership in the public sector.

The following seven research questions are posed in this study:

RQ1. How do employees describe their servant leadership experience? RQ2. How do employees’ servant leadership experiences vary from prior leader- ship experiences? RQ3. How do employees perceive the servant leadership traits experienced? RQ4. How do employees perceive the leader-follower behaviour expe