Healing a Broken Spirit: Role of Servant Leadership

Abstract

Executive Summary

A number of empirical studies have suggested that servant leadership can enhance the well-being/emotional health of its followers by creating a positive work climate ( Black, 2010 ; Jaramillo et al., 2009 a; Neubert et al., 2008 ). The followers’ sense of well-being, in turn, has been found to be related to greater organizational commitment ( Cerit, 2010 ; Hale & Fields, 2007 ; Hamilton & Bean, 2005 ; Han, Kakabadse, & Kakabadse, 2010; Pekerti & Sendjaya, 2010 ). Greater the organizational commitment, higher is the employee job satisfaction ( Cerit, 2009 ; Chung, Jung, Kyle, & Petrick, 2010 ; Jenkins & Stewart, 2010 ; Mayer, Bardes, & Piccolo, 2008 ) and lower is the employee turnover ( Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2011 ; Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Chonko, & Roberts, 2009 b).

A servant leader—with reported behaviour characteristics such as empathy, compassion, and altruistic calling and healing—builds not only a mentally and emotionally healthy workforce but also inculcates a sense of cohesiveness, collaboration, and sustainable relationships among the followers by understanding and addressing their feelings and emotions. It has been reported that cohesiveness and collaboration in a servant-led organization increases pro-social and altruistic behaviour among followers that improves organizational performance ( Ebener & O’Connell, 2010 ; Ehrhart, 2004 ; Hu & Liden, 2011 ; Walumbwa, Hartnell, & Oke, 2010 ) and overall team effectiveness ( Mayer et al., 2008 ; McCuddy & Cavin, 2008 ; Taylor et al., 2007 ).

The significance of understanding and addressing the feelings and emotions of followers and ensuring their well-being becomes evident from the above findings. The aim of this qualitative study is to comprehend how servant leaders understand, empathize with, and address the emotional turmoil of their employees.

Orientation for emotional healing is reported to be a unique characteristic of servant leaders. But there is negligible empirical research to understand the way servant leaders alleviate the suffering of their employees. The present study fills this gap.

Qualitative methods and techniques from different qualitative methodologies were used for data collection and analysis. We conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with leaders in corporate, education, and government sectors to capture personal accounts about their experiences, reflections, and analysis of their approach to emotional healing.

Our results suggest that servant leaders—with their orientation for empathy, compassion, healing, altruistic calling, and listening—adopt a compassionate approach to manage employees’ emotional turmoil. All three parts of the process of compassion, described by Clark (1997) and Kanov et al. (2004) are clearly visible in the narratives of our respondents. The servant leaders, with characteristics of empathy and compassion, are oriented towards the followers’ suffering. This leads to empathic concern and compassion that trigger in them an urge to take action to relieve the followers’ suffering. This action, also termed as compassionate responding, manifests itself in a three-step behaviour: (1) patient listening and discussion; (2) empathetic handling that includes comforting and calming as well as guiding and counselling the suffering employee; and (3) taking personal responsibility and providing support (emotional, social, financial, and administrative).

Insight from this study will guide the working managers to understand and practice the process of alleviating the emotional turmoil of employees such that a culture of compassion and benevolence will emerge and sustain for the long-term health and growth of the organization.