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Introduction
Servant leadership is a puzzling leadership style and a dynamic research topic (van Dierendonck, 2011). It is also commonly viewed as being a strong employee-oriented type of leadership practice that has the potential to cultivate positive organizational outcomes. Indeed, the empirical literature suggests that servant leaders favorably influence outcomes across multiple organizational levels (i.e. the individual level, team level, unit level and firm level) (Bavik et al., 2017; Williams et al., 2017). Research also suggests that the positive effects of servant leadership flow to the bottom line. For example, Ling et al. (2016) found that middle-level servant leadership had a positive spillover effect on service-oriented behavior.
Compared with other forms of leadership (e.g. transactional, transformational and charismatic), servant leadership is regarded as a more harmonious and effective leadership style in the hospitality industry (Brownell, 2010). Servant leaders are also vital resources within the hospitality industry because servant leadership is predominantly people-centered toward maintaining the well-being of employees and serving employees, the organization and the community. Moreover, the hospitality industry is heavily dependent on human resources and the close relationships formed between leaders and their peers (Hemmington, 2007), and the quality of these leader-peer relationships is a critical element of guest satisfaction.
The hospitality industry is predicated on human interaction and “serving” in nature. Specifically, the central aim of the hospitality industry is to create positive memories for the guests (Bavik, 2016). Furthermore, because hospitality businesses seek to provide genuine care for their guests, their employees value people (Dawson et al., 2011; Woods, 2016), the customers (Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002) and their peers (Dawson et al., 2011). In addition to receiving empirical support as a critical factor in hospitality, some hospitality organizations have explicitly and proudly identified service as their primary purpose. For instance, Horst Schulze, the President of the Ritz-Carlton, described the company’s organizational culture using the motto “we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen, and in doing so we create exceptional memories for our guests and for each other” (Ritz-Carlton, 2009).
Given the practical importance of servant leadership, numerous studies have attempted to develop scales and have accumulated substantial empirical evidence on the role that it plays in hospitality. A number of review studies have also examined...