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Leading by Serving: Redefining the Roles of Leaders and Followers in Today’s Workplace

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Servant Leadership and Followership

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Leadership and Followership ((PASTLEFO))

Abstract

The competencies the scholarly literature has ascribed to effective leaders and effective followers are surprisingly similar. Due to economic and workplace trends, today’s followers are increasingly being tasked with carrying out work responsibilities traditionally assigned to leaders. Consequently, leaders are increasingly being tasked with a higher-order, superordinate responsibilities. Thus, it is important that theory and research catch up with practice in recognizing this shift. We present servant leadership as a starting point for understanding the superordinate leadership role. We integrate existing literature to present a parsimonious model of key servant leadership competencies and compare these to existing models of followership and leadership. Finally, we discuss work characteristics in which the superordinate leadership role, and consequently servant leadership competencies, will likely present the greatest utility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Strategic Leadership Studies, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA

    Tiffany Brutus & Adam Vanhove

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  1. Tiffany Brutus
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  2. Adam Vanhove
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  1. University of Phoenix, Junction City, Kansas, USA

    Crystal J. Davis

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Brutus, T., Vanhove, A. (2017). Leading by Serving: Redefining the Roles of Leaders and Followers in Today’s Workplace. In: Davis, C. (eds) Servant Leadership and Followership. Palgrave Studies in Leadership and Followership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59366-1_11

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