•  
  •  
 

International Journal of Servant-Leadership

Abstract

Motivation to serve is conceptualised as an antecedent of servant-leadership but is mostly studied from the leaders’ perspective. Yet, as in any dyadic relationship, exploring the followers’ perspective is crucial, particularly as servant-leadership is an acclaimed follower-centric leadership theory. Hence, this quantitative study is a departure from the norm with a focus on the followers’ motivation to serve (MTS). Premised on the social learning theory, data was collected from 208 respondents in UK private and public organisations using existing and adapted questionnaire surveys that were statistically analysed. The results show a correlation between motivation to serve and servant-leadership but suggest that followers’ motivation to serve is independent of their experience of servant-leadership. It also shows that some followers have a higher or natural congruence to serve than others. Practically, highly motivated followers can be potential candidates for development into servant-leadership roles. Other implications, recommendations and areas for future investigation are discussed.

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.