Christian Servant Followership Principles and Employee Development

Christian servant followership is at the core identity of Christian servant leadership ((Roberts, G., Christian scripture and human resource management: Building a path to Servant leadership through faith. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015)). The universality of the “Golden Rule” principles of human conduct promoted in Christian scripture is reflected in servant leadership’s theory and practice. This chapter will provide a conceptual foundation for an employee followership development program based upon Christian servant leadership principles that can be applied to enhance both leaders’ and employees’ emotional and spiritual intelligence. The chapter summarizes the essential elements of servant leadership that symbiotically produce servant followers and servant followership’s specific attributes, including the central values, behaviors, character elements, and emotional and spiritual intelligence characteristics. To cultivate servant followership in a sustained fashion, the chapter outlines the foundational human resource management and leadership elements that promote Christian servant followers, including selecting, training, and rewarding employees on servant followership featuring the systematic integration of 360-degree appraisals linked to counseling, coaching and administrative decisions, and the employment of qualitative research methods (surveys, focus groups, interviews) for targeted retention and exit interviews. The chapter concludes with an outline of key servant follower training program attributes based upon adult learning principles.