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Relationships between servant leadership theory and the more empirically supported theories of transformational leadership and transactional leadership were examined using questionnaire data from 207 employees. Employees' perceptions of their supervisors' servant leadership were found to be positively related not only to employees' perceptions of their supervisors' transformational leadership but also their supervisors' transactional contingent reward leadership and transactional active management-by-exception leadership. Perceived servant leadership was negatively related to both perceived transactional passive management-by-exception leadership and laissez faire leadership. It appears that servant leadership theory shares much in common with other modern theories of leadership, especially transformational leadership theory.
INTRODUCTION
The topic of servant leadership has received growing attention in the leadership literature. First introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1977, servant leadership emphasizes the good of followers over the self-interest of the leader by (a) valuing and developing people, (b) practicing authenticity in leadership, (c) building community, (d) providing leadership for the good of followers, and (e) sharing status and power for the common good of followers, the total organization, and persons served by the organization (Laub, 1999). Since its conceptual inception, servant leadership has been espoused by a growing number of researchers as a valid theory of organizational leadership (Chin & Smith, 2006; Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008; Neubert, Carlson, Roberts, Kacmar, & Chonko, 2008; Russell & Stone, 2002; Tebeian, 2012; Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011).
The surge of empirical and practical interest in servant leadership theory can be attributed to a movement away from traditional hierarchical and patriarchical leadership (Crippen, 2005; Nwogu, 2004). Traditional hierarchical leadership is often represented by a pyramid model characterized by a top-down authority structure with leaders located at the top and all decisions flowing from the top down to organizational members (Magoni, 2003). Such a traditional model of leadership clearly indicates that organizational members are expected to serve their leaders (see Sergiovanni, 2000). In direct opposition to the pyramid model, the inverted pyramid calls for leaders to be located at the bottom of the organizational pyramid in order to serve the organization. Consequently, the inverted pyramid model is the essence of servant leadership-that is, leadership emphasizing the good of followers over the self- interest of the leader (Laub, 1999).
The emergence of this approach to leadership...