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Compassionate Love as a Cornerstone of Servant Leadership: An Integration of Previous Theorizing and Research

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  • Dirk Dierendonck
  • Kathleen Patterson

Abstract

Servant leadership is increasingly gaining interest inside and outside academia. This article builds and extends current theorizing by describing the process that introduces compassionate love as a practical translation for the need to serve, which was positioned by Greenleaf (Servant leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, Paulist Press, New York, 1977 ) as the core of servant leadership. This article takes a virtues perspective and shows how servant leadership may encourage a more meaningful and optimal human functioning with a strong sense of community to current-day organizations. In essence, we propose that a leader’s propensity for compassionate love will encourage a virtuous attitude in terms of humility, gratitude, forgiveness and altruism. This virtuous attitude will give rise to servant leadership behavior in terms of empowerment, authenticity, stewardship and providing direction. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Dierendonck & Kathleen Patterson, 2015. "Compassionate Love as a Cornerstone of Servant Leadership: An Integration of Previous Theorizing and Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 119-131, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:128:y:2015:i:1:p:119-131
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2085-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lora Reed & Deborah Vidaver-Cohen & Scott Colwell, 2011. "Erratum to: A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 507-508, July.
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    3. Kathleen Patterson, 2010. "Servant Leadership and Love," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Dirk van Dierendonck & Kathleen Patterson (ed.), Servant Leadership, chapter 6, pages 67-76, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Brown, Michael E. & Trevino, Linda K. & Harrison, David A., 2005. "Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 117-134, July.
    5. Antonio Argandoña, 2011. "Beyond Contracts: Love in Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 77-85, March.
    6. Lynne Andersson & Robert Giacalone & Carole Jurkiewicz, 2007. "On the relationship of hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 70(4), pages 401-409, February.
    7. Dirk van Dierendonck & Laurens Rook, 2010. "Enhancing Innovation and Creativity through Servant Leadership," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Dirk van Dierendonck & Kathleen Patterson (ed.), Servant Leadership, chapter 13, pages 155-165, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Hannah, Sean T. & Avolio, Bruce J. & Walumbwa, Fred O., 2011. "Relationships between Authentic Leadership, Moral Courage, and Ethical and Pro-Social Behaviors," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 555-578, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tuan, Luu Trong, 2020. "Coach humility and player creativity: The roles of knowledge sharing and group diversity," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 284-301.
    2. Zarei, Mohammad & Supphellen, Magne & Bagozzi, Richard P., 2022. "Servant leadership in marketing: A critical review and a model of creativity-effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 172-184.
    3. Farida Saleem & Yingying Zhang Zhang & C. Gopinath & Ahmad Adeel, 2020. "Impact of Servant Leadership on Performance: The Mediating Role of Affective and Cognitive Trust," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440199, January.
    4. Claude-Hélène Mayer & Rudolf M. Oosthuizen, 2020. "Sense of Coherence, Compassionate Love and Coping in International Leaders during the Transition into the Fourth Industrial Revolution," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Ziyang Qiang & Jigan Wang & Kaiyuan He & Lin Xu, 2022. "Potential of Passive Employees: How Servant Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation among Control-Oriented Employees," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Jorge Linuesa-Langreo & Pablo Ruiz-Palomino & Dioni Elche-Hortelano, 2018. "Integrating Servant Leadership into Managerial Strategy to Build Group Social Capital: The Mediating Role of Group Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(4), pages 899-916, November.
    7. Helena Liu, 2019. "Just the Servant: An Intersectional Critique of Servant Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1099-1112, June.
    8. Muel Kaptein, 2022. "The Moral Duty to Love One’s Stakeholders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 813-827, October.
    9. Mitchell J. Neubert & Emily M. Hunter & Remy C. Tolentino, 2022. "Modeling Character: Servant Leaders, Incivility and Patient Outcomes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 261-278, June.
    10. Xin Qin & Xin Liu & Jacob A. Brown & Xiaoming Zheng & Bradley P. Owens, 2021. "Humility Harmonized? Exploring Whether and How Leader and Employee Humility (In)Congruence Influences Employee Citizenship and Deviance Behaviors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 147-165, April.
    11. So Young Song & Youn-Kyung Kim, 2018. "Theory of Virtue Ethics: Do Consumers’ Good Traits Predict Their Socially Responsible Consumption?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(4), pages 1159-1175, November.
    12. Junting Lu & Zhe Zhang & Ming Jia, 2019. "Does Servant Leadership Affect Employees’ Emotional Labor? A Social Information-Processing Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 507-518, October.
    13. Naveed Ahmad Faraz & Fawad Ahmed & Ma Ying & Sultan Adal Mehmood, 2021. "The interplay of green servant leadership, self‐efficacy, and intrinsic motivation in predicting employees’ pro‐environmental behavior," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(4), pages 1171-1184, July.
    14. Arménio Rego & Miguel Pina e. Cunha & Ace Volkmann Simpson, 2018. "The Perceived Impact of Leaders’ Humility on Team Effectiveness: an Empirical Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 205-218, March.
    15. Tim Brouns & Kai Externbrink & Pablo Salvador Blesa Aledo, 2020. "Leadership beyond Narcissism: On the Role of Compassionate Love as Individual Antecedent of Servant Leadership," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-10, March.
    16. Athanasios Drigas & Chara Papoutsi & Charalabos Skianis, 2023. "Being an Emotionally Intelligent Leader through the Nine-Layer Model of Emotional Intelligence—The Supporting Role of New Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, May.
    17. Alma Acevedo, 2018. "A Personalistic Appraisal of Maslow’s Needs Theory of Motivation: From “Humanistic” Psychology to Integral Humanism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(4), pages 741-763, April.
    18. Sarah Kimakwa & Jorge A. Gonzalez & Hale Kaynak, 2023. "Social Entrepreneur Servant Leadership and Social Venture Performance: How are They Related?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 95-118, January.
    19. Yushan Wu & Rita Yi Man Li & Sher Akbar & Qinghua Fu & Sarminah Samad & Ubaldo Comite, 2022. "The Effectiveness of Humble Leadership to Mitigate Employee Burnout in the Healthcare Sector: A Structural Equation Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-20, October.
    20. Neale J. Slack & Gurmeet Singh & Jashwini Narayan & Shavneet Sharma, 2020. "Servant Leadership in the Public Sector: Employee Perspective," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 631-646, December.
    21. Andrea L. Micheaux & Valentina Stan & Annabel Martin-Salerno, 2019. "Knowledge sharing through enterprise social network : the key roles of servant leader virtues and eudaimonic well-being," Post-Print hal-02333035, HAL.
    22. Jiménez-Estévez, Pedro & Yáñez-Araque, Benito & Ruiz-Palomino, Pablo & Gutiérrez-Broncano, Santiago, 2023. "Personal growth or servant leader: What do hotel employees need most to be affectively well amidst the turbulent COVID-19 times?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

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