Organizational identity: An exploration of organizational values and perceived leadership behaviors

Abstract

Congruency is a challenge for leaders and for organizations alike. Due to servant leadership's values orientation, the organization whose identity claims include being servant led becomes even more pressed to evidence its congruency. How can the veracity of these claims be tested, especially when there is a lack of common definition among servant leadership scholars? The research at hand addressed this by exploring the relationship between servant-led organizational identity (OI) claims and the subject's organizational behaviors (OB). Attention was given to identifying and evaluating the servant-led nature of the subject's organizational values (OV) and perceived leadership behaviors. In order to evaluate the OV, Aust's (2004) modified version of Rokeach's Value Survey, in conjunction with Laub's (1999) framework, articulated a baseline of servant leadership values. This baseline also measured organizational artifacts for their congruency. DICTION software was used to complete content analysis on the organizational artifacts. Perceived leadership behaviors were evaluated using Laub's (1999) Organizational Leadership Assessment. In particular, the study looked for the alignment of perceived leadership behaviors and the degree to which those aligned behaviors reflect Laub's definitional characteristics of servant leadership (SL). These characteristics included providing leadership, sharing leadership, displaying authenticity, building community, valuing people, and developing people. Findings revealed the degree to which the values of this organization and perceived leadership behaviors were aligned with identity claims related to being servant led.