Scale Development and Construct Clarification of Servant Leadership

TLDR

The study develops an integrated construct of servant leadership based on a literature review. The authors created subscale items for 11 dimensions and tested them with 80 leaders and 388 raters to confirm internal consistency, factor structure, and validity. The validated instrument yielded five factors—altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and organizational stewardship—that correlated with transformational leadership, leader‑member exchange, extra effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness, demonstrating strong factor structure and validity.

Abstract

This article presents an integrated construct of servant leadership derived from a review of the literature. Subscale items were developed to measure 11 potential dimensions of servant leadership: calling, listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, growth, and community building. Data from 80 leaders and 388 raters were used to test the internal consistency, confirm factor structure, and assess convergent, divergent, and predictive validity. Results produced five servant leadership factors—altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and organizational stewardship—with significant relations to transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, extra effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness. Strong factor structures and good performance in all validity criteria indicate that the instrument offers value for future research.