Personalism and moral leadership: the servant leader with a transforming vision

TLDR

Personalism centers on the dignity of each human person, yet critics argue that servant leaders may be vulnerable to manipulation by their followers. The article evaluates transformational, postmodern/postindustrial, and servant leadership against five themes of personalism. Servant leadership is grounded in personalism’s focus on human dignity, builds participatory communities, and may be strengthened by integrating altruistic transformational behaviors to prevent manipulation and promote a shared vision. Servant leadership aligns most closely with personalism.

Abstract

After briefly describing the philosophy of personalism this article assesses each of three normative leadership paradigms (transformational leadership, postmodern or postindustrial leadership, and servant leadership) in terms of five major themes of this phenomenological philosophy. Servant leadership appears to be closest to personalism. The critical ingredient for servant leadership is also personalism’s starting point, i.e. the dignity of each human person. A genuine servant leader works with his followers in building a community of participation and solidarity. However, some claim that servant leaders are subject to manipulation by their followers. If so, and if transformational leaders, when too successful, gain too much power or manipulate using bogus empowerment, a superior approach might be provided by a combination in which a morally tough servant leader adopts certain transforming behaviors of Bass’s altruistic transformational leader. The leader and the followers would focus on a jointly formulated and refined vision, avoiding manipulation by any party through a mutual commitment to participation, solidarity of community, and respect for each person.