Serving You Depletes Me? A Leader-Centric Examination of Servant Leadership Behaviors

• Published in: Journal of management 2021-05, Vol.47 (5), p.1185-1218
• Main Authors: Liao, Chenwei, Lee, Hun Whee, Johnson, Russell E., Lin, Szu-Han (Joanna)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Depletion; Ecological momentary assessment; Individual differences; Leadership; Perspective taking; Self regulation; Servant leadership
• ISSN: 0149-2063; 1557-1211
• DOI: 10.1177/0149206320906883

Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ramifications for their subsequent behavior. Taking such a dynamic perspective on leader behaviors, we examined daily servant leadership behavior and its downstream effects on the leaders themselves from a within-person self-regulation perspective. Results from two experience sampling studies consistently revealed that engaging in daily servant leadership behavior can come at a cost for the leaders. Specifically, for leaders who are low in perspective taking, engaging in servant leadership behavior was associated with increases in same-day depletion and next-day withdrawal from their leadership role (i.e., greater laissez-faire behavior). However, for leaders who frequently exercise perspective taking, engaging in daily servant leadership behavior was instead associated with decreases in depletion and subsequent laissez-faire behavior, suggesting that servant leadership behaviors are replenishing for these individuals. Experience in perspective taking is therefore a key individual difference that determines whether enacting servant leadership behavior is beneficial or detrimental for leaders. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide avenues for future leadership research.