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6-2006
Scale Development and Construct Clari9cation of Servant Scale Development and Construct Clari9cation of Servant
Leadership Leadership
John E. Barbuto
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
, jbarbuto@unlnotes.unl.edu
Daniel W. Wheeler
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
, dwheeler1@unl.edu
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Barbuto, John E. and Wheeler, Daniel W., "Scale Development and Construct Clari9cation of Servant
Leadership" (2006).
Faculty Publications: Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communication
Department
. 51.
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Published in Group & Organization Management 31: 3 (June 2006), pp. 300–326;
doi: 10.1177/1059601106287091 Coyright © 2006 Sage Publications. Used by permission.
Scale Development and Construct
Clarication of Servant Leadership
John E. Barbuto, Jr.
Daniel W. Wheeler
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Abstract
This article presents an integrated construct of servant leadership derived from a
review of the literature. Subscale items were developed to measure 11 potential
dimensions of servant leadership: calling, listening, empathy, healing, awareness,
persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, growth, and community
building. Data from 80 leaders and 388 raters were used to test the internal con-
sistency, conrm factor structure, and assess convergent, divergent, and predic-
tive validity. Results produced ve servant leadership factors—altruistic calling,
emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and organizational steward-
ship—with signicant relations to transformational leadership, leader-member
exchange, extra effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness. Strong factor
structures and good performance in all validity criteria indicate that the instru-
ment offers value for future research.
Keywords: servant leadership, scale development, construct clarication
Since Greenleaf’s (1970) thought-provoking essay, several scholars and
practitioners have embraced the concept of servant leadership. Although
this concept is elusive, there appears a practical credibility that has
spawned increased attention to servant leadership. This demand stems
entirely from the intuitive appeal of the philosophies surrounding ser-
vant leadership because no empirical operationalization exists. Servant
leaders are described as categorically wise, and their decision processes
and service orientations appear to be vehicles for invoking organizational
wisdom, described as the meshing of applied knowledge and informed
experience to make both optimal and altruistic choices (Bierly, Kessler,
& Christensen, 2000). A service-oriented philosophy of and approach to
leadership is a manifestation of and an antecedent to enabling a wise or-
ganization. Servant leaders have been described as capable of managing
the various paradoxes of decisions, which may foster the development
of organizational wisdom (Srivastva & Cooperrider, 1998). Although spe-
cic links between servant leadership and wisdom have been both vague
300
Scal e Dev e l opm e n t a n D con S t ruc t cla r i fic a t ion o f Se r v ant leaD e r Ship 301
and conjectural, their philosophical compatibilities are noteworthy. To
advance this dialogue, a more precise clarication of the servant leader-
ship construct is necessary.
Most academic research efforts have focused on conceptually sim-
ilar constructs such as altruism (Grier & Burk, 1992; Kanungo & Con-
ger, 1993; Krebs & Miller, 1985), self-sacrice (Choi & Mai-Dalton,
1998), charismatic (Conger & Kanungo, 1987; Weber, 1947), transform-
ing (Burns, 1978), authentic (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Price, 2003), spir-
itual (Fry, 2003), and, to a lesser extent, transformational (Bass, 1985;
Bass & Avolio, 1994) and leader-member exchange (LMX; see Graen &
Uhl-Bien, 1995). In recent years, greater attention has been paid to the
conceptual underpinnings and development of servant leadership as a
viable construct (see Graham, 1991; Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). However,
the empirical examination of servant leadership has been hampered by
a lack of theoretical underpinnings and no suitable measure.
This work addresses the conceptualization and measurement of the
servant leadership construct. A review of the servant leadership literature
and that of similar constructs has led to the development of operational
denitions for 11 servant leadership dimensions. Scale development pro-
cedures are described in several stages, leading to empirical examination
of internal reliability and convergent, divergent, and predictive validity.
A renement of the construct of servant leadership results from the scale
development and validation process.
Servant Leadership
Greenleaf (1970) described a new leadership philosophy, one that ad-
vocates the servant as leader:
It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve rst.
Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference mani-
fests itself in the care taken by the servant—rst to make sure that other
people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test is: Do those
served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier,
wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become ser-
vants? (p. 4)
Several scholars have tackled the construct since Greenleaf’s seminal
work, but no consensual framework has emerged.
Servant Leadership Viewpoints
Graham (1991) conceptualized servant leadership, distinct from char-
ismatic and transformational leadership, framed within four classica-
302 BarB u t o & Whee l e r i n Grou p & or G ani z a tio n Mana G e Men t 31 (2006)
tions of charismatic leadership: Weberian charismatic authority, personal
celebrity charisma, transformational leadership, and servant leadership.
Graham identied servant leadership as the most moral of charismatic
effects. Graham identied its salient characteristics as humility, rela-
tional power, autonomy, moral development of followers, and emulation
of leaders’ service orientation. Servant leadership was described as syn-
onymous with Burns’s (1978) original conceptualization of transforming
leadership. Graham’s discussion distinguished between transformational
leadership, described by Bass and associates (see Bass, 1985, 2000; Bass &
Avolio, 1994), and servant leadership by focusing on moral development,
service, and enhancement of common good.
Akuchie (1993) explored the biblical roots of servant leadership and
explored the religious and spiritual articulations of the construct. How-
ever, this work did not articulate a clear framework for understand-
ing servant leadership, as distinct from other forms of leadership. Oth-
ers have drawn close ties to biblical gures (see Hawkinson & Johnston,
1993; Snodgrass, 1993), but this approach has been tangential to the larger
body of servant leadership literature.
Spears (1995) extended Greenleaf’s work by articulating 10 charac-
teristics of a servant leader—listening, empathy, healing, awareness,
persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to
the growth of people, and community building. This work did not con-
nect to or distinguish itself from other conceptualizations of leadership
as Graham’s (1991) work had; however, it did provide the closest rep-
resentation of an articulated framework for what characterizes servant
leadership.
Farling, Stone, and Winston (1999) presented a hierarchical model of
servant leadership as a cyclical process, consisting of behavioral (vision,
service) and relational (inuence, credibility, trust) components. It was
unclear how this conceptualization differed from better-understood lead-
ership theories such as transformational leadership (Bass, 1985).
Bass (2000) discussed transformational leadership and its relationship
with other theories, including servant leadership. In this work, servant
leadership was described as having a number of parallels with transfor-
mational leadership (vision, inuence, credibility, trust, and service), but
it moved beyond transformational leadership with its alignment of lead-
ers’ and followers’ motives.
Polleys (2002) explored servant leadership and distinguished it from
three predominant leadership paradigms—the trait, the behavioral,
and the contingency approaches to leadership. Polleys’s views closely
aligned transforming leadership (Burns, 1978) with servant leadership
but made no distinctions among charismatic, transformational, and ser-
vant leadership.
Scal e Dev e l opm e n t a n D con S t ruc t cla r i fic a t ion o f Se r v ant leaD e r Ship 303
Sendjaya and Sarros (2002) examined the research viability of servant
leadership, studying its philosophy dating back to religious scriptures.
They argued that servant leaders view themselves as stewards and are en-
trusted to develop and empower followers to reach their fullest potential.
However, this work did not develop or propose a testable framework, and
no connection to or distinction from other constructs were described.
Barbuto and Wheeler (2002) described servant leadership as com-
posed of 11 characteristics built on the more inuential works in the eld
(e.g., Greenleaf, 1970; Spears, 1995). This framework specied calling as
fundamental to servant leadership and consistent with Greenleaf’s orig-
inal message. This work was geared for practitioners and lacked the the-
oretical development necessary to advance the servant leadership con-
struct to an operational level.
Tangential Concepts
Many scholars have written about similar concepts, using terms such
as self-sacrice (Choi & Mai-Dalton, 1998), egalitarianism (Temkin, 1993),
prosocial behavior (Bar-Tal, 1976; Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Eisenburg,
1982), altruism (Avolio & Locke, 2002; Grier & Burke, 1992; Kanungo
& Conger, 1993; Krebs & Miller, 1985), spiritual leadership (Fry, 2003),
authentic leadership (Price, 2003), and stewardship (Block, 1996; Davis,
Schoorman, & Donaldson, 1997). Notions of service, selessness, and
positive intentions are tantamount to each of these concepts.
Among the most researched theories of leadership is the full range
model, conceived under the auspices of transforming (Burns, 1978) and
later operationalized as transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Bass &
Avolio, 1994). Transformational leadership now consists of intellectual
stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and
idealized inuence (Bass, 2000). Servant leadership, which was conceived
8 years earlier than was transforming, has received minimal attention in
the eld. Our review of the eld yielded more meta-analyses of transfor-
mational leadership than original empirical studies of servant leadership.
LMX theory shares some tenets with servant leadership, particularly
in the context of high-quality exchanges, represented by the in-group
(Graen & Uhl- Bien, 1995). In LMX theory, high-LMX leaders develop
trusting and mutually benecial relationships with employees, just as
servant leaders develop strong supportive relationships with all employ-
ees and colleagues (Greenleaf, 1996). This framework explicitly delineates
the leader’s characteristics in the relationship, whereas LMX theory pro-
vides a normative description of the relationship.
Smith, Montagno, and Kuzmenko (2004) compared transformational
with servant leadership and identied differences based on the types of
