Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Establishing a Robust Qualitative Process for the Identification of Contemporary Servant Leaders

Abstract

Much has been written about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What has not been written about Dr. King is whether he can be considered a contemporary example of a servant leader. The concept of servant leadership was created by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1977. From that period forward, several books and articles from a qualitative perspective have been written by many scholars as to what constitutes a servant leader. Additionally, several quantitative attempts have been made to establish measurability of servant leadership. Winston (2010) stated that while much has been written on the theoretical and quantitative development of servant leadership, a gap exists within the qualitative realm regarding “deepening our understanding of the theories [servant leadership] we proffer” (p. 180) and that we “should use in-depth interviews and case studies of exemplary servant-leaders in order understand the theory” (p. 180). This dissertation set out to create and establish a repeatable robust qualitative process to identify servant leaders and to determine if Dr. King can be considered a contemporary example of a servant leader. An in-depth look into Dr. King’s life provides the platform from which the analysis is conducted. The research methodology and analysis were conducted through a detailed qualitative and quasiquantitative quadratic approach to answer the central question of whether Dr. King can be considered a contemporary example of a servant leader while trying to establish a repeatable robust qualitative process for the identification of contemporary servant leaders, which currently does not exist in the qualitative servant leadership identification arena.