Servant vs. Authentic Leadership Styles Essay

Introduction

In the modern world, the choice of how an organization will motivate its employees to achieve their goals and objectives is of great importance.

Servant leadership can be of particular value as part of positive leadership, as it primarily takes into account the needs and desires of employees. Therefore, with its help, the most favorable and productive workplace is created. Thus, servant leadership, in comparison with authentic leadership, is a more promising and effective way to achieve the goals of the organization, as it focuses on meeting the needs of the most valuable human resource.

Discussion

First of all, it is essential to determine what the servant leadership style is. The need is that there is currently too much research on this topic (Eva et al., 2019; Garger, 2008). This necessitates a more thorough consideration of this aspect. Therefore, it will help to gain a concrete understanding of servant leadership for his further examination.

Further, servant leadership has many advantages that distinguish it from other styles of personnel management. Therefore, Huning et al. (2020) emphasize that “it is based on the premise that leaders subordinate their own interests and, presumably, those of the organization, for the interests of their followers” (p. 177). Thus, a workplace is formed in which the needs of employees are respected, and the well-being of employees is maintained (Ortiz-Gómez et al., 2022; Su et al., 2020). Taking into account these aspects will help to entrench the opinion that servant leadership is the most effective.

It also becomes essential to gain awareness of why servant leadership is the most appropriate alternative to the authentic style. It is worth noting that authenticity, in many ways, as well as the management style under study, contributes to improving the efficiency and productivity of personnel. The research defines it “as a higher-order construct comprising four sub-constructs: self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing of information, and internalized moral perspective” (Alok, 2014, p. 268). The main disadvantage of authentic leadership is the fact that employees can form an unhealthy attachment to the leader (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2014). On the other hand, with the servant management style, employees gain an understanding of the value of their work and are more motivated to achieve the goals of the organization.

In addition, regardless of what style of leadership an organization chooses, it should first work to build trust and psychological contracts in its environment (Begley, 2006; Erkutlu & Chafra, 2013). Nevertheless, in this case, servant leadership can be the result of building “trusting relationships” for all employees (Draina, 2013, p. 263). Hence, the study of this phenomenon will contribute to gaining a more detailed and consistent understanding of what leadership style a company should employ.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper examined servant leadership and how effective it can be for organizations. Moreover, on the basis of the studied literary sources, a comparison of the servant and authentic leadership styles was carried out. The analysis showed that the first type provides a higher level of motivation and employee engagement, which contributes to higher productivity indicators for the company.

References

Alok, K. (2014). Authentic leadership and psychological ownership: Investigation of interrelations. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 35(4), 266-285. Web.

Begley, P. T. (2006). Self‐knowledge, capacity and sensitivity: Prerequisites to authentic leadership by school principals. Journal of Educational Administration, 44(6), 570-589. Web.

Draina, L.K. (2013). Insights on leadership: Service, stewardship, spirit, and servant-leadership. Journal of Catholic Education, 3(2), 263-265. Web.

Emerald Group Publishing Limited. (2014). It matters to me! How authentic leadership generates psychological ownership in organizations. Strategic Direction, 30(8), 9-11. Web.

Erkutlu, H., & Chafra, J. (2013). Effects of trust and psychological contract violation on authentic leadership and organizational deviance. Management Research Review, 36(9), 828-848. Web.

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., Van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), 111-132. Web.

Garger, J. (2008). Developing authentic leadership in organizations: some insights and observations. Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 22(1), 14-16. Web.

Huning, T. M., Hurt, K. J., & Frieder, R. E. (2020, April). The effect of servant leadership, perceived organizational support, job satisfaction and job embeddedness on turnover intentions: An empirical investigation. Emerald Publishing Limited, 8(2), 177-194. Web.

Ortiz-Gómez, M., Molina-Sánchez, H., Ariza-Montes, A., & de Los Ríos-Berjillos, A. (2022). Servant leadership and authentic leadership as job resources for achieving workers’ subjective well-being among organizations based on values. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 15, 2621-2638. Web.

Su, W., Lyu, B., Chen, H., & Zhang, Y. (2020). How does servant leadership influence employees’ service innovative behavior? The roles of intrinsic motivation and identification with the leader. Baltic Journal of Management, 15(4), 571-586. Web.