Abstract

Servant-Leadership (SL) has been gaining traction as an evidence-based leadership theory and there are a range of existing measurement tools focused on self-report attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and behaviors. Concordia University Irvine has embedded a SL framework throughout all programs of study offered by the School of Education in order to encourage current and future education professionals in their understanding of servant-leadership as an effective way to lead. It was determined that a published instrument did not exist for measuring knowledge growth as a pre- and post-test focused on increased understanding. Work to define SL in terms of four specific virtues (i.e., honesty, compassion, humility, and courage) has preceded the development of an instrument to assess program effectiveness in teaching about SL virtues. The Rasch measurement model, one of the family of Item Response Theory models, was employed as the means for providing findings that align with the goal of measuring students’ before-and-after knowledge base as well as information useful for gauging program effectiveness. A research agenda is presented as a call for future steps necessary in order to turn the definitions, as described in this paper, into items and a validated measurement instrument with virtue subscales that can be used to generate research-based data regarding students’ knowledge of SL and the effectiveness of programmatic efforts in that direction.

Recommended Citation

Doyle, Lori and Ludlow, Larry H. (2025) "A Reconceptualization of Servant-Leadership and Measurement," International Journal of Servant-Leadership: Vol. 19, Article 16.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64749/2160-8172 & 2160-8164.1440
Available at: https://repository.gonzaga.edu/ijsl/vol19/iss1/16