•  
  •  
 

International Journal of Servant-Leadership

Abstract

In an attempt to make sense ofthe often difficult task of being called to "protect and serve" society, I begin this article by setting the stage for servant-leadership as vital to the police endeavor. The world is ever-changing. It is becoming more complex and diverse. In an effort to better manage in a multicultural environment, leadership styles are evolving. Researchers Mayer, Bardes, and Piccolo indicated "a growing interest in ethical styles of leadership" (Mayer, Bardes, and Piccolo 2008, 180), and one such leadership style is servant-leadership. I have found in my thirty-two years as a public servant that servant-leadership is an ideal leadership model for police officers, which complements their "Serve and Protect" attitudes. The term servant-leadership was conceived by Robert K. Greenleaf (1903-1990). This term was revealed in Greenleaf's 1970 article The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf proposed that a leader is one who serves his or her followers, and spent most of his sixty five year career as a researcher in the fields of management, development, and education. He believed that a servant-leader "first makes sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served" (Mayer et al. 2008, 180).

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.