Servant leadership across cultures

Journal of World Business 47 (2012) 555–570

Servant leadership across cultures

Rakesh Mittal *, Peter W. Dorfman 1

College of Business, Department of Management, MSC 3DJ, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003 – 8001, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

Cross-culture

Servant leadership

GLOBE

Culture clusters

A B S T R A C T

Servant leadership is anchored in the human drive to bond with others and contribute to the betterment

of the society. An emphasis on service motivation, as demonstrated by empowering and developing

people with empathy and humility, differentiates servant leadership from other leadership frameworks.

In this study, we analyzed the degree to which five aspects of servant leadership, Egalitarianism, Moral

Integrity, Empowering, Empathy and Humility were endorsed as important for effective leadership

across cultures. While each of these dimensions was found to be associated with effective leadership,

there was considerable variation in degree of endorsement of components of servant leadership across

different GLOBE culture clusters. The dimensions of Egalitarianism and Empowering were endorsed

more strongly in Nordic/European cultures but less so in Asian and similar cultures. On the other hand,

servant leadership dimensions of Empathy and Humility were more strongly endorsed in Asian cultures

than European cultures. Further, significant relationships were found between several societal cultural

values and aspects of servant leadership which help us understand why nations differ in endorsing this

leadership construct.

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1. Introduction

A number of new perspectives on leadership, such as authenticleadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2005) and ethical leadership (Brown,Trevino, & Harrison, 2005) have emerged in the recent pastfollowing many scandals and leadership failures in the businessworld. The erosion of confidence in the contemporary businessleadership has also led to an increased interest in theory of servantleadership, which promotes setting aside self-interest of leadersfor the betterment of their followers. Servant leadership is arelatively new construct in the leadership literature appearing inthe writings of Greenleaf (1970), but has its origin far earlier, inreligion and philosophy. The concept finds an explicit mention inthe Bible, ‘‘. . .But whoever would be great among you must be your

servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For

even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. . .’’ (Mark 10,pp. 43–45). Likewise, an Indian scholar in 4th Century B.C. wrote,‘‘the king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state

together with the people’’ (Rangarajan, 1992).Current models of servant leadership are anchored in the

human drive to bond with others and contribute to the bettermentof the society. An emphasis on service motivation as demonstrated

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 575 646 5053; cell: +1 347 366 0013.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Mittal), [email protected]

(P.W. Dorfman).1 Tel.: +1 575 646 4086; cell: +1 575 644 2421.

1090-9516/$ – see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2012.01.009

by empowering and developing people with empathy and humilitydifferentiates servant leadership from other leadership frame-works. Since cross-cultural research confirms that differentcultural groups have different values (Schwartz, 1994), which inturn lead to differing conceptions of ideal leadership processes(Dickson, Den Hartog, & Mitchelson, 2003), we examined theendorsement of servant leadership across cultures in this study. Todate, there is an almost complete absence of country comparisonson servant leadership. To fill this void, using data from the GlobalLeadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE)project, we analyzed the degree to which five aspects of servantleadership (Egalitarianism, Moral Integrity, Empowering, Empathyand Humility) were endorsed as important for effective leadershipacross cultures. Further, we examined the correlations betweensocietal cultural values and servant leadership dimensions tounderstand why different societies might endorse the concept ofservant leadership differently.

Acknowledging the fact that the concept of leadershipencompasses a diverse range of meanings and from differentpoints of reference (House & Javidan, 2004), this study is anattempt to investigate how servant leadership is viewed acrosscultures in terms of its importance for effective leadershipbehaviors. It is worth mentioning that this study is the firstcomprehensive empirical examination of servant leadership acrosscultures. Although there have been a few attempts to study servantleadership across societies, these have been limited to twocountries, for example, Ghana and U.S.A. (Hale & Fields, 2007),U.S.A. and Philippines (West & Bocarnea, 2008), and Australia and

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R. Mittal, P.W. Dorfman / Journal of World Business 47 (2012) 555–570556

Indonesia (Pekerti & Sendjaya, 2010). We hope that this analysis ofthe endorsement of the five dimensions of servant leadership indifferent cultures would provide us with a clearer comprehensionof cross cultural leadership in general, and of servant leadership inparticular. Further, our efforts to correlate cultural values todimensions of servant leadership would contribute to ourunderstanding of the linkage between cultural values and traitsperceived to be important for effective leadership.

This study contributes to the field of leadership across culturesinto four ways. First, this study enhances our understanding of theperception of servant leadership across cultures. Second, this studycontributes to the field of cross-cultural leadership by confirmingthat culture specific styles of preferred leadership exist side by sidewith universally endorsed behaviors. Third, it helps in unpackingthe social dynamics which may be responsible for the differentialendorsement of leadership traits in different cultures. Fourth, itprovides valuable inputs to practitioners in their quest fordesigning culturally appropriate leadership development pro-grams.

This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 defines anddelineates constructs typically found in servant leadership. InSection 3 we differentiate servant leadership from other modes ofleadership. Section 4 contains our hypotheses about the likelyrelationship between servant leadership dimensions and culturalvalues. Section 5 specifies our methodology for developing scalesfor servant leadership. In Section 6 we describe societal culturevalues and culture clusters. In Sections 7 and 8 we present anddiscuss the results of our examination of servant leadership acrosscultures. Section 9 highlights the managerial relevance of thisstudy. Section 10 contains our concluding remarks and directionsfor future research.

2. Defining servant leadership

Greenleaf (1970) described the leader as a servant:

‘‘It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve

first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The

difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant – first to

make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being

served. The best test is: Do those served grow as persons; do they,

while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autono-

mous, more likely themselves to become servants?’’ (p. 4)

Since Greenleaf’s seminal work, several scholars have workedon refining and defining the construct of servant leadership.Unfortunately, there is no consensus amongst scholars about aprecise definition and theoretical framework of servant leader-ship. Scholars have interpreted servant leadership differently,exemplifying a wide range of behaviors. Graham (1991) identifiedthe salient characteristics of servant leadership as humility,relational power, autonomy, relational development of followersand emulation of leaders’ service orientation. Akuchi (1993)delved into the biblical roots of servant leadership and came upwith a spiritual articulation of the construct. However, thisapproach remained tangential to the larger body of servantliterature. Spears (1995) built up on Greenleaf’s work andidentified ten traits of a servant leader – listening, empathy,healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight,stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and commu-nity building. A hierarchical model of servant leadership wasdeveloped by Farling, Stone, and Winston (1999), describingservant leadership as a cyclical process, consisting of behavioral(vision and service) and relational (credibility and influence)components. This model was not substantially different fromearlier conceptualizations.

Considering that the writing of Greenleaf were not based onresearch or logic but on a keen intuitive sense of people and theirrelationships within institutions, the resulting fuzziness in theinterpretation and conceptualization of servant leadership was tobe expected. Nevertheless, armed with a broad understanding ofthe entirety of servant leadership, scholars directed their attentionto operationalizing the construct and thereby to validate thevarious dimensions of servant leadership through empiricalstudies.

The first empirical study in this direction was done by Laub(1999), who surveyed 847 people from 41 organizations anddeveloped a 43-item instrument measuring six dimensions ofservant leadership: developing people, shared leadership, display-ing authenticity, valuing people, providing leadership and buildingcommunity. Later efforts have included studies by Page and Wong(2000), Dennis and Bocarnea (2005), Barbuto and Wheeler (2006),Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson (2008), van Dierendonck(2011), Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) and Reed, Vidaver-Cohen, and Colwell (2011). Although these operationalizations donot completely converge, the empirical validation of the variousvariables in these studies helped us to identify the corecharacteristics of servant leadership. They are:

2.1. Egalitarianism

An important feature of servant leadership is egalitarianism(Reed et al., 2011), rejecting the notion that leaders are inherentlysuperior to other organizational members. Implicit in thischaracteristic is an understanding that learning and influenceare multi-directional processes. An egalitarian perspective is alsoin consonance with characteristics such as shared leadership(Laub, 1999), putting subordinates first (Liden et al., 2008) andconsulting and involving others (Wong & Davey, 2007).

2.2. Moral Integrity

Greenleaf emphasized the importance of moral man, moralsociety and moral organization. Moral integrity is central toservant leadership and critical for preserving executive legitimacy.A number of empirical studies (Liden et al., 2008; Sendjaya, Sarros,& Santora, 2008; Wong & Davey, 2007) confirm this to be the case.

2.3. Empowering and developing others

Empowerment aims at fostering an environment wherefollowers develop a proactive and self-confident attitude, whichfacilitates their personal growth. The servant leader thus acts like acatalyst, showing from his behaviors that he values people and iscommitted to their positive development. Almost all the empiricalstudies find support for this characteristic (Barbuto & Wheeler,2006; Dennis & Bocarnea, 2005; Liden et al., 2008; Reed et al., 2011).

2.4. Empathy

This characteristic emphasizes listening to members andunderstanding their emotions and needs (Pescosolido, 2002).Compassion and empathy have also been considered important foreffective spiritual leadership (Fry, 2003; Schuster, 1994). Alsolabeled as interpersonal acceptance (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten,2011) this characteristic helps servant leaders to create a fraternaland compassionate atmosphere in the organization.

2.5. Humility

Humility refers to the ability to put one’s own accomplishmentsand talents in a proper perspective (Patterson, 2003). Servant

R. Mittal, P.W. Dorfman / Journal of World Business 47 (2012) 555–570 557

leaders acknowledge the contribution of others, not only towardsachieving organizational goals, but for their development as well.Humility is also demonstrated by the extent to which a leader putsthe interest of others first. Dennis and Bocarnea (2005), Wong andDavey (2007), and Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) haveprovided empirical evidence in favor of this dimension of servantleadership.

2.6. Creating value for community

Another attribute of servant leadership is the ability to buildcommunity, both within and outside the organization. Some of theways in which this is achieved is by building strong personalrelationships, by working collaboratively with others and byvaluing the differences of others (Goffee & Jones, 2001). In addition,external community building entails recognizing that organiza-tions have a moral duty not only to consider the impact oforganizational action on the larger communities in which theyoperate, but also to constructively improve those communities aswell (Reed et al., 2011). Some researchers have referred to thisdimension as providing direction/organizational stewardship(Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006; Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011).

3. Differentiating servant leadership from other frameworks

There are a few other frameworks of leadership which overlapwith servant leadership. These are: transformational leadership,LMX (at the individual level), authentic leadership and ethicalleadership. Transformational leadership seems to have the mostcommonalities with servant leadership. However, a close exami-nation of the core elements of each theory serves to distinguishservant leadership from these frameworks.

Transformational leadership (Bass, 1985) differs substantiallyfrom servant leadership on the issue of growth of members. Theprimary allegiance of transformational leaders is to the organiza-tion; the personal growth of followers is seen within the context ofwhat is good for the organization. The crucial emphasis on servicemotivation in servant leadership, as denoted by its focus onhumility, empathy and creating value for community, are featureswhich are not captured by transformational leadership.

LMX theory also shares some tenets with servant leadership,particularly in the context of high-quality exchanges representedby the in-group (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). But LMX does notcapture other important aspects of servant leadership, such ashumility, moral integrity and encouragement of service to thecommunity. The difference between servant leadership and bothtransformational and LMX has been empirically demonstrated byLiden et al. (2008). Authentic leadership is a relatively new theory,enunciated by Avolio and Gardner (2005). The core element ofauthentic leadership is the expression of ‘‘true self’’. Servantleadership goes beyond authenticity by focusing on empoweringand developing members and creating value for the community.Finally, ethical leadership is another framework which sharessome characteristics with servant leadership. However, servantleadership’s focus is the developmental aspect of followers.Furthermore, servant leadership’s emphasis on humility andegalitarianism is relatively silent in ethical leadership.

3.1. Commonalities and differences in leadership across societies

As world becomes more global in approach, there is increasinginterest in identifying the commonalities of leadership processesacross regions and cultures, and understanding the differenceswhen they appear. The perennial question in cross-culturalmanagement literature, ‘‘Does culture influence leadership, andif so, why and how?’’, has no definitive answer given that the

evaluative interpretations of leadership vary across cultures(Dorfman & House, 2004). Yet, with increased interculturalinteraction due partially in part to globalization, there is no doubtthat we need to better understand effective leader behaviors indifferent cultures. Findings from the Global Leadership andOrganizational Behavior Effectiveness project (Javidan, House, &Dorfman, 2004) confirmed that many leadership attributes areculturally contingent; they are desirable in some cultures butundesirable in others. For instance, humane-oriented leadershipseems to be very desirable in Southern Asian societies but notconsidered as important in Nordic Europe. Further, in somecultures, such as the U.S.A., the concept of leadership isromanticized and leaders are given exceptional privileges andstatus, but in Netherlands and Switzerland the concept ofleadership is less romanticized. Leaders are not given any specialstatus or privilege. These insights notwithstanding, we are far froma clear and comprehensive understanding of why and how thesevariations occur among cultures and perceptions of effective leaderbehavior.

Our study adds to the body of literature on cross-culturalleadership in several ways. In addition to enhancing ourunderstanding of the perception of servant leadership acrosscultures, this study also helps to unravel the social complexitiesthat may be responsible for the variance in the endorsement ofleadership traits in different cultures. Such insights would alsoprove useful for practitioners in their quest to develop culturallyappropriate leadership development programs for cross-borderbusinesses.

4. Hypotheses

Our study of servant leadership across cultures followed a twinapproach. Using the culture clusters identified by GLOBE, we studiedhow each dimension of servant leadership was endorsed in differentcultures. Thereafter, we examined how the cultural values in asociety might relate to the dimensions of servant leadership. Theprimary objective of our study was exploratory. However, based onthe theoretical underpinnings of servant leadership, we formulatedsome hypotheses, by no means exhaustive, about the variation in theendorsement of servant leadership across cultures. These aredescribed in the paragraphs below.

4.1. Hypotheses: culture clusters endorsement of specific servant

leadership dimensions

4.1.1. Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is an important dimension of servant leadership,recognizing the absence of a hierarchical relationship between theleader and the followers. Since cultures have evolved differently interms of the acceptance and practice of equality in the society, weexpect that this dimension would be endorsed differently acrossdifferent cultures. More specifically, we feel that this dimensionmight find strong endorsement in the European culture clusterssince many European societies; particularly those in Nordic Europehave evolved into welfare estates where the political ideologyfavors and promotes social and economic egalitarianism. We offerthe following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1. The servant leadership dimension of Egalitarianismwould find strong endorsement in Germanic and Nordic Europeansocieties.

4.1.2. Moral integrity

Moral integrity has been identified as a key dimension ofservant leadership. We feel that this characteristic might have a

2 Out of 62 societies studied by GLOBE, participants from three societies did not

complete the leadership questionnaires.3 We should note that when GLOBE developed their leadership survey

instrument, they started with an initial set of 388 attribute descriptors that were

subsequently pared down to 112 descriptors without regard to any pre-set

conceptual structure. We therefore feel that it is appropriate to develop servant

leadership scales from this comprehensive set of leadership qualities.


universal appeal across all cultures and so the endorsement of thisdimension may not differ much across carious culture clusters. Ourexpectation also draws strength from the results of GLOBE studiesthat indicated that the Charismatic/value-based leadership wasuniversally endorsed across all cultures. Since moral integrity is anintegral component of value-based leadership, we hypothesizethat it would also be universally endorsed.

Hypothesis 2. Moral integrity would be universally endorsedacross culture clusters.

4.1.3. Empowering

Empowerment aims at fostering an environment wherefollowers develop a proactive and self-confident attitude,which facilitates their personal growth. The servant leader actsas a catalyst in this process. However, high power distance in asociety could inhibit these processes. Because most of the Asiansocieties have high power distance and respect of status andhierarchy, the concept of empowering may not be easilyacceptable in these societies. Accordingly, the servant leadershipdimension of empowering would find low endorsement in theAsian societies.

Hypothesis 3. The servant leadership dimension of Empoweringwould not be endorsed strongly in Asian societies.

4.2. Hypotheses: GLOBE culture dimensions predicting specific servant

leadership dimensions

4.2.1. Power distance

The cultural value of power distance is a measure of theacceptance of the unequal power distribution in the society. Highpower distance in a society is indicative of a status conscious,hierarchical structure that may not be in tune with the egalitarianpractices of servant leadership. Moreover, servant leadership’semphasis on caring and empathetic behavior would also seem tobe incongruent with a society with a differentiated powerstructure. For these reasons, we expect the cultural value ofpower distance to be negatively correlated with servantleadership.

Hypothesis 4. Power distance would be negatively correlated withservant leadership dimensions.

4.2.2. Performance orientation

The cultural value of performance orientation may not bedirectly related to servant leadership. There is a perception thatservant leadership is a ‘‘soft’’ leadership style, not directly focusingon goal attainment. Societies that value performance andachievement may not endorse servant leadership strongly becauseof latter’s focus on self-sacrificial and humble behavior, traits thatare seemingly against the assertive and aggressive behavioraltraits associated with ‘‘achievers’’.

Hypothesis 5. Performance orientation would not be stronglycorrelated to servant leadership.

4.2.3. Humane orientation

There is an instinctive affinity between the cultural value ofhumane orientation and the behavioral profile of a servant leader.Humane orientation encompasses concern and care about others,generosity and sensitiveness. These traits are very similar toqualities associated with servant leadership. We expect thiscultural value to be positively related to servant leadershipdimensions.

Hypothesis 6. Humane orientation would be positively related toservant leadership.

5. Method

Data from GLOBE research program (House et al., 1999; Javidanet al., 2004) was used for this study. GLOBE research program wasset up to explore the cultural values and practices in a wide varietyof countries and to identify their impact on organizationalpractices and leadership attributes. GLOBE’s team of approximate-ly 180 social scientists from various countries collected data fromapproximately 17,000 middle managers from 951 organizations in62 different societies and three different industries. As part ofGLOBE data collection efforts, all participants completed a surveyinstrument designed to measure perceptions about qualities andattributes that contribute to outstanding leadership (e.g. integrity).Approximately 50% of the participants in each organizationcompleted Form A which assessed leadership characteristics andorganizational culture attributes, where as the other 50%completed Form B which assessed the same leadership character-istics and societal culture attributes. Since data on leadershipattributes was collected both in Form A and B, the combined data isused in this study. After list-wise deletion due to missingresponses, we retained 12,681 cases spread across 59 societies,with complete data for our analysis.2

Since GLOBE questionnaires were not originally designed toonly measure aspects of servant leadership, we derived a measureusing the attributes and behavioral descriptor items of the GLOBEquestionnaires that are conceptually linked to well-identifiedaspects of servant leadership. The GLOBE questionnaire providedan example of each leadership quality. For instance, a leadershipcharacteristic ‘‘motivational’’ was defined as ‘‘stimulates others toput forth efforts above and beyond the call of duty and makepersonal sacrifices’’, leadership characteristic ‘‘self-effacing’’ wasdefined as ‘‘presents self in a modest way’’, and so on, to preventany semantic confusion in the minds of the participants. The totalnumber of leadership attributes numbered 112.3

As a first step in developing a scale for measuring servantleadership attributes we identified two colleagues (researchers)who were generally conversant with leadership literature. Theywere briefed about the specific concept of servant leadership andits components. Next, all the 112 items in the GLOBE leadershipquestionnaire were examined with the help of these colleagues, toascertain which of the items seemed to capture the construct ofservant leadership. 41 items were initially identified by our group.These were scrutinized further and discussed, to eliminatedoubtful items. Finally, 35 items were agreed upon by the groupas being fully reflective of servant leadership.

An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of the 35 leadership itemsacross all countries was conducted and a five-factor solution (Eigenvalues > 1.0) based on 27 items was retained. The item loadingsabove 0.40, with no significant cross-loadings, were acceptable(Hinkle, Wiersma, & Jurs, 1988). The Bartlett’s test of Sphericitywas significant (Chi-square = 75261.056, df = 351, p = 0.00), indi-cating that the correlation matrix was not an identity matrix. TheKMO statistic (0.91) was between 0.8 and 1.0, indicating theappropriateness of the factor analysis.

Table 1Factor structure of items related to servant leadership.

Item Component

1 (EG) 2 (MI) 3 (EM) 4 (EY) 5 (HU)

V4_54 0.720

V4_33 0.696

V2_36 0.656

V4_06 0.586

V2_09 0.522

V4_14 0.509

V2_23 0.476

V4_49 0.458 0.339

v2_16 0.728

v2_20 0.712

v2_15 0.594

v2_30 0.551

v4_53 0.545

v4_32 0.533 0.327

v4_42 0.689

v4_20 0.649

v4_46 0.577

v2_56 0.536

v4_22 0.519

v2_12 0.377 0.479

v2_40 0.766

v2_39 0.695

v2_51 0.624

v4_18 0.643

v4_21 0.615

v2_42 0.352 0.534

v4_30 0.327

EG, Egalitarianism; MI, Moral Integrity; EM, Empowering; EY, Empathy; HU,

Humility.

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation method: Varimax with

Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 6 iterations. Loadings below 0.300 not

shown.


We then conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) usingstructural equation modeling in Amos 16.0 to test the fit of themodel to the data. The results indicated a good fit (CFI = 0.88,RMSEA = 0.05, GFI = 0.94), providing further evidence of theappropriateness of the five-factor model.

The five factors that emerged aligned closely with the keyelements of servant leadership construct, as delineated in theliterature. Based on the items which loaded on a particular factor,the emergent factors were labeled EGALITARIANISM (eight items,alpha = 0.74), MORAL INTEGRITY (six items, alpha = 0.79),EMPOWERING (six items, alpha = 0.71), EMPATHY (three items,alpha = 0.68) and HUMILITY (four items, alpha = 0.61). Theloadings of questionnaire items on the five factors are shown inthe table.

The five factors which emerged from the above analysis wereseen to be closely aligned with the characteristics of servantleadership identified in the literature, as below:

Identified dimension Conceptual characteristic

Egalitarianism Service, consultative, puttingsubordinates first

Moral Integrity Moral courage, ethical behavior

Empowering Empowering and developing people

Empathy Interpersonal acceptance andemotional healing

Humility Humility and modesty

As may be seen from Table 1, five of the six conceptualdimensions of servant leadership corresponded with the scaledimensions identified through EFA. The ‘‘creating value forcommunity’’ component of servant leadership, however, did notmatch up with the GLOBE attributes and behaviors measured inthe questionnaires. Nevertheless, the identified dimensions, suchas Egalitarianism, Moral Integrity, Empowering, Empathy andHumility comprise the substantive aspects of servant leadership.Therefore we suggest that while our measure did not capture thefull breadth of the servant leadership construct, it neverthelessprovides a meaningful yardstick to examine the endorsement ofservant leadership across cultures. The items of our scale,representing the major five dimensions of servant leadership areshown in Appendix.

The descriptive statistics for the servant leadership sub-scalesand intercorrelations are shown in Table 2. The correlations rangedfrom 0.15 to 0.54. The highest correlation was between the sub-scales of Moral Integrity and Empowering while the lowestintercorrelation was between Egalitarianism and Humility.

To make sure that we can legitimately aggregate individual-level responses to the country level, thereby obtaining countryscores for the servant leadership dimensions, we computed theInterrater Agreement (IRA) index of Rwg using the procedurerecommended by LeBreton and Senter (2008) for each of the fiveidentified dimensions of servant leadership. In addition, wecomputed ICC(1) and ICC(2) indices. ICC(1) measures proportionof variance in individual perceptions accounted for by difference ingroups, revealing the extent to which individual ratings areattributable to group membership. ICC(2) is a measure ofproportional consistency of variance, indicating whether theorganizations can be reliably differentiated in terms of theperceptions on the variable of interest.

The Rwg values for the five dimensions of servant leadership werein the region of 0.72–0.88, indicating strong level of InterraterAgreement (LeBreton & Senter, 2008). ICC(1) values were in theacceptable range of 0.14–0.42 whereas ICC(2) values were in highranges. Taken together, these results indicated a high level of

agreement and reliability in the ratings but a small group effect,justifying the aggregation of variables to country level (Bliese, 2000).

The next step in the analysis was to establish measurementinvariance across the various groups to be studied. For thispurpose, we conducted multi-group Confirmatory Factor Analyses(CFA), to test whether there was equivalence in the measurementof servant leadership dimensions across societies. This procedureexamined whether the factor loadings of each item on its latentconstruct (dimension of servant leadership) were equivalentacross multiple groups. A model was estimated for each dimensionwhere factor loadings and structural covariances were constrainedto be identical across societal clusters. The fitness indices ofconstrained model are shown in Table 3.

The RMSEA values are below 0.05. The GFI and CFI values are inacceptable range. Taken together, the indices indicate acceptablemeasurement equivalence of the servant leadership dimensionsacross cultures. Accordingly, we used these scales to examinevariation in the endorsement of servant leadership dimensionsacross societal cultures.

6. Societal cultural values and clusters

6.1. Cultural values

As part of its mandate, GLOBE research program focused oncultural values and leadership dimensions (House, Javidan,Hanges, & Dorfman, 2002). It identified and studied ninedimensions of societal culture as below:

I. Power distance: The degree to which members of anorganization or society expect and agree that power shouldbe unequally shared.

Table 3Fitness indices of 5-factor model.

Servant leadership dimension Chi-square df p RMSEA CFI GFI

Egalitarianism 2045.827 263 <0.001 0.023 0.891 0.960

Moral integrity 1597.457 135 <0.001 0.029 0.924 0.959

Empowering 739.186 135 <0.001 0.040 0.940 0.981

Empathy 92.588 18 <0.001 0.018 0.988 0.995

Humility 377.991 47 <0.001 0.024 0.919 0.985

Table 2Servant leadership sub scales, descriptive statistics, reliabilities and correlations.

Sub scales M SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Egalitarianism 5.73 0.88 (0.74)

2. Moral Integrity 6.12 0.78 0.424** (0.79)

3. Empowering 6.08 0.72 0.244** 0.535** (0.71)

4. Empathy 4.64 1.12 0.155** 0.356** 0.241** (0.68)

5. Humility 4.62 1.06 0.154** 0.379** 0.266** 0.474 (0.61)

N = 12,681.

Coefficient alpha values shown in diagonal.*p < 0.05 (2-tailed).

** p < 0.01 (2-tailed).


II. Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which a society,organization, or group relies on social norms, rules, andprocedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events.

III. Humane orientation: The degree to which a collectiveencourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic,generous, caring and kind to others.

IV. Collectivism I (Institutional Collectivism): The degree to whichorganizational and societal institutional practices encourageand reward collective distribution of resources and collectiveaction.

V. Collectivism II (In-group Collectivism): The degree to whichindividuals express pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in theirorganizations or families.

VI. Assertiveness: The degree to which individuals are assertive,confrontational and aggressive in their relationships withothers.

VII. Gender egalitarianism: The degree to which a collectiveminimizes gender inequality.

VIII. Future orientation: The degree to which individuals engage infuture-oriented behaviors such as delaying gratification,planning and investing in the future.

IX. Performance orientation: The degree to which a collectiveencourages and rewards group members for performanceimprovement and excellence.

6.2. Culture clusters

Although each country/society/ethnic group has a uniqueculture, there are societies and regions with similar culture and

Table 4Culture clusters and societies included in this study.

Culture cluster N Societies included

Anglo 1632 Australia, Canada, E

Confucian Asia 941 China, Hong Kong, J

Eastern Europe 1879 Albania, Georgia, Gr

Germanic Europe 1197 Austria, Germany (f

Latin America 1348 Argentina, Bolivia, B

Latin Europe 1424 France, Israel, Italy,

Middle East 637 Egypt, Kuwait, Moro

Nordic Europe 1552 Denmark, Finland, S

Southern Asia 1341 India, Indonesia, Ma

Sub-Saharan Africa 730 Black South Africa, N

Total 12,681

shared values. The idea of culture clusters for organizingorganizational data was developed by Ronen and Shenkar(1985) who grouped countries together based on attitudinaldimensions. In a similar vein, GLOBE created a set of cultureclusters by combining societies that have similar cultural histories,language, and religion and validated these culture clusters througha complex validation process (see Gupta & Hanges, 2004). Tenregional culture clusters were identified. Societies in each culturecluster were expected to be similar to each other along multiplecultural dimensions. The cultural groupings provide a parsimoni-ous approach to examine differences on perceptions of servantleadership, across such commonalities. The GLOBE clusters and thecountries in each cluster are shown in Table 4.

7. Results and analysis

7.1. General endorsement of servant leadership

The servant leadership scale shown in Appendix was used toexamine variations in the endorsement of servant leadershipdimensions across different culture clusters. We conducted fiveone-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) to determine whether theculture clusters differed from each other on each dimension ofservant leadership. All cases (N = 12,681) remaining after list-wisedeletion for missing responses were used for these analyses.Individual responses were aggregated to the society level and theANOVAs were conducted on ten culture clusters representing 59societies.

ngland, Ireland, New Zealand, USA, White South Africa

apan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan

eece, Hungry, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Slovenia

ormer East), Germany (former GDR), Netherlands, Switzerland

razil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela

Portugal, Spain

cco, Qatar, Turkey

weden

laysia, Philippines, Thailand

amibia, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Table 5Endorsement of servant leadership dimensions across all societies.


We found that endorsement of four out of five dimensions ofservant leadership differed significantly across the cultureclusters; Egalitarianism (F(9,49) = 4.792, p < 0.01, h2 = 0.468),Empowering (F(9,49) = 2.511, p < 0.05, h2 = 0.316), Empathy(F(9,49) = 2.702, p < 0.01, h2 = 0.332), and Humility (F(9,49) = 3.616,p < 0.01, h2 = 0.399). The effect sizes indicated that the societalculture clusters had a substantial influence on the endorsement ofservant leadership dimensions. For example, almost 47% of thevariability in the endorsement of Egalitarianism across societiescould be attributed to which culture cluster the society belongedto. There was no main effect for the dimension of Moral Integrity(F(9,49) = 1.755, p = 0.102).

We computed grand Means for servant leadership dimensionsacross all societies, as shown in Table 5. The highest level ofendorsement (as represented by the highest mean) was for MoralIntegrity (6.08), while the lowest level was for Empathy (4.64).

7.2. Analysis of servant leadership across culture clusters

An examination of the cluster means for each of the dimensionsindicates that the culture clusters differ in their endorsement ofvarious attributes of servant leadership. Four of our five dimen-sions of servant leadership differed across culture clusters. Tables6–10 depict visually these variations among culture clusters.

For the servant leadership dimension of Egalitarianism, highestendorsement is by Nordic Europe and Germanic Europe cultures(>6.0), whereas the lowest score is from Confucian Asian cluster(<5.5). In multiple comparisons, Confucian Asia cluster was foundto differ significantly (p < 0.05) from Nordic Europe, Latin America,Germanic Europe and Anglo clusters. The only other significantlydifferent pair was Germanic Europe and Eastern Europe. The levelof endorsement by each culture cluster is shown in Table 6. Themeans of Nordic Europe, Germanic Europe and Anglo clusters aretowards the higher end, lending support to Hypothesis 1.

An analysis of the dimension of Moral Integrity across theculture cluster did not show a main effect (F(9,49) = 1.755,p = 0.102). Therefore, post hoc tests were not carried out. Thehighest mean (6.34) was for Nordic Europe cluster, which was onlyslightly more than the lowest mean (5.80) for Confucian Asiacluster. This could indicate that the endorsement of moral integrityis universal across cultures. This finding is in consonance with ourHypothesis 2. Means are shown in Table 7.

The servant leadership dimension of Empowering variedsignificantly in its endorsement across culture clusters. In pair-wise comparisons, the Confucian Asia cluster differed significantly(p < 0.05) from Anglo and Nordic Europe clusters. The EasternEurope cluster also differed similarly from Anglo and Nordic

Europe clusters. The Confucian Asia cluster had the lowest mean(5.81) and Anglo cluster the highest (6.33), as shown in Table 8. TheSouthern Asia cluster was near the middle of the spectrum. Thelevel of endorsement of Empowering in Asian Societies lendspartial support to Hypothesis 3.

The dimension of Empathy was seen to vary significantly in itsendorsement across cultures. Southern Asia, with highest mean(5.13), differed significantly (p < 0.05) from most of the Europeanculture clusters. None of the other pair-wise comparisons weresignificant. Means may be seen in Table 9.

The analysis of variance of the dimension of Humility alsoshowed significant variations in its endorsement across cultures. Inpair-wise comparisons, Nordic Europe, with the lowest mean(4.03) was found to differ significantly from Southern Asia, LatinAmerica, Confucian Asia and Anglo clusters. Southern Asia, withthe highest mean (5.15), differed significantly (p < 0.01) withNordic Europe and Germanic Europe. Means for culture clusters areshown in Table 10.

7.3. Overview of cluster differences in servant leadership

An overview of all the significant pair-wise comparisons isshown in Table 11. The entries in the matrix incorporate the name(s) of the servant leadership dimension (s) on which the relevantculture clusters differed significantly. It would appear thatConfucian Asia and Nordic Europe clusters are the most disparate,differing on three dimensions; Egalitarianism, Empowering andHumility. Confucian Asia also differed from Anglo cluster on twodimensions of servant leadership.

In general, our findings indicate that servant leadership isperceived as important for effective leadership in all societies.While different cultures differ in the degree of their endorsementof four component dimensions of servant leadership, the moralintegrity dimension of servant leadership seems to be equallyendorsed as important in all cultures. Notably, the cluster-levelmean endorsement was above the mid-point of the scale (4.0) forall dimensions and Means for Empowering and Moral Integritydimensions were towards the higher end of scale (>6.0). Thisshows the importance of components of servant leadershipacross all cultures because the questionnaire ratings specificallyask about leadership attributes perceived to be critical foroutstanding leadership. However, degree of endorsement differs;moral integrity and empowering are considered the mostimportant while empathy and humility are considered the leastimportant.

7.4. Societal culture values and servant leadership

Since the results of our study showed that societal culturesdiffered in their endorsement of different dimensions of servantleadership, we examined the correlations of the nine culturalvalues studied by GLOBE with attributes of servant leadership. Twocultural values stand out in importance. We were not surprised tofind that power distance was significantly but negativelycorrelated with Egalitarianism, Moral Integrity and Empowering.Perhaps most strikingly, we found that performance orientationcultural values were significantly and positively correlated withfour dimensions of servant leadership: Egalitarianism, MoralIntegrity, Empowering and Humility. This finding seeminglycontradicts a prevalent stereotype that servant leadership is insome sense ‘‘a soft’’ leadership function and not related toachievement or task accomplishment. Two other cultural dimen-sions came out important, as uncertainty avoidance correlatednegatively with Egalitarianism and Empowering, whereas genderegalitarianism was positively correlated with these dimensions.Correlations among the cultural values and aspects of servant

Table 6Endorsement of Egalitarianism across culture clusters.

4.00

4.50

5.00

5.50

6.00

6.50

7.00

Egali tarianismEgali tarian ism

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Anglo

Confucian Asia

Eastern European

German ic Europe

La�n American

La�n Europe

Midd le East

Nordic Europe

Southern Asia

Sub-Saha ran Africa

Egali tari anism


leadership are shown in Table 12. These findings supportHypothesis 4 about power distance and servant leadership.However, Hypotheses 5 and 6 were not supported. We discusssome of the possible reasons for these results in the discussionsection.

8. Discussion

8.1. Endorsement of servant leadership across culture clusters

A major implication of our study is that overall servantleadership is viewed as being very important for effectiveleadership across cultures. Each of our five dimensions was ratedabove mid-point of the scale and three dimensions were ratedtowards the high end of the scale, indicating strong support forservant leadership. There are variations in the degree of endorse-ment of the various dimensions of servant leadership across

cultures. Using culture clusters identified by GLOBE as separatecategories, we found that the servant leadership dimension ofMoral Integrity was endorsed as important almost uniformlyacross all culture clusters. However, the culture clusters differed intheir endorsement of other dimensions of servant leadership. Morespecifically, we found that the dimensions of Egalitarianism andEmpowering were endorsed more strongly in Nordic/Europeancultures but not so strongly in Asian and similar cultures. On theother hand, servant leadership dimensions of Empathy andHumility were more strongly endorsed in Asian cultures thanEuropean cultures.

8.2. Egalitarianism

Servant leadership dimension of Egalitarianism received lowendorsement in the Confucian Asia cluster which differedsignificantly from most of the European clusters in this regard.

Table 7Endorsement of Moral Integrity across culture clusters.

4.00

4.50

5.00

5.50

6.00

6.50

7.00

Moral I ntegrity

Moral Int egr ity

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Anglo

Confucian Asia

Eastern Europea n

Germanic Europe

La�n American

La�n Europe

Midd le East

Nordic Europe

Southern Asia

Sub-Sa haran Africa

Moral Int egr ity


One explanation for low endorsement of this leadership dimensionin Confucian Asia cluster could be that Asian cultures are relativelyhigh in power distance. This may make the perception ofEgalitarianism less important in these societies. It is notable thatclass system and obedience are two major virtues in Confucianphilosophy. These virtues make the society hierarchical and thushigh in power distance. According to Confucius, a person’s socialstatus was given at birth and was thus fixed in the hierarchicalorder of the society (Yang, 1993; cited in Farh & Cheng, 1999, p. 99).The principles of hierarchical relationships and obedience wouldseem to be incongruent with Egalitarianism which denotes a beliefin human equality, particularly with respect of social, economicand political affairs. The highest level of endorsement for thisdimension was from the Nordic Europe cluster. The emphasis inthese countries on a more open and equal societal practices arguesagainst high power distance but resonates more with theEgalitarian component of the servant leadership. For example, in

this study, Finland had the highest score for Egalitarianism,whereas its score for power distance culture value was one of thelowest in GLOBE study (Carl, Gupta, & Javidan, 2004). Conversely,Japan and China, two major countries of Confucian cluster, whichhad low endorsement for Egalitarianism, are much higher onpower distance compared to countries from Nordic Europe.

8.3. Moral integrity

The fact that there is no significant difference amongst cultureclusters in their degree of endorsement of moral integrity as animportant component of servant leadership would point towardsthe universality of this dimension for effective leadershippractices. This result is in consonance with the GLOBE analysisof leadership and cultural variation (Dorfman, Hanges, &Brodbeck, 2004). They found that the charismatic/value-basedleadership, of which integrity is an important component, was

Table 8Endorsement of Empowering across culture clusters.

4.00

4.50

5.00

5.50

6.00

6.50

7.00

EmpoweringEmpo weri ng

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Anglo

Confucian Asia

Eastern European

German ic Europe

La�n Ameri can

La�n Europe

Midd le East

Nordic Europe

Souther n Asia

Sub-Sa haran Africa

Empo weri ng


universally endorsed as contributing to outstanding leadership.Clearly, people from all cultures want their leaders to have highmoral integrity. They would therefore be benevolent towardsservant leaders since moral integrity is a crucial component ofservant leadership.

8.4. Empowering

Empowering the followers is another important attribute ofservant leaders. It was found that there was a significant (p < 0.05)difference between Nordic Europe countries that had the highestscore, and Confucian Asia cluster that had the lowest score.Empowering in the context of servant leadership denotes acommitment to the welfare and development of followers; theleader focuses on the growth of his followers in a proactivefashion. The cultural history of countries in Anglo cluster reveals astrong cultural evolution towards favoring team and participativeleadership, which entails trust, delegation, encouragement andsupport. In Australia, for example, a low power distance score,combined with a high performance orientation (Ashkanasy, 2007)leads to a recognition and need of cooperative effort, possible only

when subordinates and followers are empowered. Similarly, inSweden (Holmberg & Akerblom, 2006) the development of awelfare state paradigm can be linked to a collectivist preferencefor societal level arrangements that promote conformity, inter-dependence and growth of all citizens. Hence the commonalitieswith the empowering concept. In Confucian Asia, on the otherhand, the important societal characteristics of status andhierarchy would conceivably lessen the importance of empower-ing practices. Another explanation for the low score forempowering in Confucian Asia cluster could be related to thecultural value of assertiveness. According to GLOBE (Den Hartog,2004) China and Japan are among the highest scorers forassertiveness. People in Japan and China want their society tobe more assertive, and hence might not consider empowering asan important dimension for an effective leadership in theirsocieties.

8.5. Empathy

The dimension of Empathy encompasses compassion andfraternalism, enabling the servant leader to understand and

Table 9Endorsement of Empathy across culture clusters.

4.00

4.50

5.00

5.50

6.00

6.50

7.00

EmpathyEmpathy

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Anglo

Confucian Asia

Eastern European

German ic Europe

La�n Ameri can

La�n Europe

Midd le East

Nordic Europe

Southern Asia

Sub-Saharan Afri ca

Empathy


respond to the emotions and needs of his followers. In our study,the culture cluster of Southern Asia had the highest score, whichwas significantly different (p < 0.05) from the means for Anglo andGermanic Europe clusters. These results are hardly surprising,considering that a strong humane orientation is engrained in theculture of societies in this cultural cluster by virtue of their socio-religious histories (Kabaskal & Bodur, 2004). The GLOBE cultureconstruct of humane orientation is defined as ‘‘The degree to whicha collective encourages and rewards individuals for being fair,altruistic, generous, caring and kind to others’’. A humaneorientation to cultural practices would translate into an expecta-tion that ‘‘good’’ leaders should be compassionate and generoustowards their followers. It is notable that Southern Asia rankedhighest on the humane orientation dimension of culture in theGLOBE study. Focus group studies in India (Chhokar, 2007) foundthe Indian leader/mangers to be relationship oriented with ahuman touch. On the other hand, humane oriented culturalpractices have been found to be less common among GermanicEurope societies, which place a greater emphasis on reason andintellect as compared to emotional values. This may havecontributed to the low endorsement of Empathy in these societies.

8.6. Humility

Humility is yet another dimension which is closely linked to theservice motive in servant leadership. A servant leader leadsunobtrusively and self-effacingly, developing his followers toachieve the common goal. Our results showed that endorsement ofHumility for effective leadership was the highest in Southern Asiacluster, which differed significantly (p < 0.01) with Nordic Europeand Germanic Europe. These findings are understandable in thecontext of humility being revered as an important virtue in most ofthe Asian societies for historico-religious reasons. A prominentIndian leader of 20th Century, Gandhi was the epitome of humilityand modesty. Humility being an important virtue in thesesocieties, it is reasonable to expect that leaders perceived to begood and effective would be expected to have this trait. On theother hand, societies which value assertiveness, achievement andindividualism, such as those in Germanic Europe, would tend topay less importance to humility as a component of effectiveleadership. Notably, in the GLOBE study, countries such asGermany, Austria, and Switzerland were found to be very highin the assertiveness dimension of culture. This might explain why

Table 10Endorsement of Humility across culture clusters.

3.504.004.505.005.506.006.507.00

Humili ty

Humili ty

3.5

4.0

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0Anglo

Confucian Asia

Eastern European

German ic Europe

La�n American

La�n Europe

Midd le East

Nordic Europe

Southern Asia

Sub-Sa haran Africa

Humili ty


the Humility dimension of servant leadership was not endorsedhighly by these cultures.

8.7. Relating cultural values to servant leadership dimensions

An analysis of cultural values in a society provides us withadditional understanding of how and why specific societies differin their endorsement of servant leadership. Since the culturalvalues depict the deepest beliefs and aspirations of people in asociety, these are likely to influence that society’s endorsement ofattributes perceived to be important for effective leadership. Forexample, we found that the cultural value of power distancecorrelated significantly and negatively with the servant leadershipdimensions of Egalitarianism, and Empowering. This is notsurprising since unequal sharing of power with its rigidity ofcultural stratification of leadership–followership relationships iscertainly not in concert with the concept of Egalitarianism orempowering. The negative correlation of power distance with thedimension of moral integrity is more complex to decipher. It is

conceivable that a desire for more power operates through apersonal mode (Carl et al., 2004), which does not resonate with theelements of trust and collaboration which are part of our moralintegrity sub scale. It is relevant to note that in our analysis, therewas no significant difference among culture clusters in theirendorsement of moral integrity. It is therefore possible that thenegative correlation of power distance with moral integrity isbeing counterbalanced by the positive correlation of moralintegrity with cultural values, such as performance orientationand collectivism. For example, Bolivia and New Zealand, which areamongst the highest scorers for power distance are also very highin performance orientation. Evidently, more research is needed tofully fathom the depth of power distance–morality relationship.

Performance orientation cultural values were significantly andpositively correlated with four dimensions of servant leadership:Egalitarianism, Moral Integrity, Empowering and Humility. A priori,we might not have expected that the value of rewarding groupmembers for achievement and excellence would lead to anendorsement of these servant leadership constructs. This reasoning

Table 11Significant (p < 0.05) pair-wise comparisons.

Significant (p < .05) pair-wise comparisons

ConfucianAsiaAngloCLUSTER Eastern EuropeGermanic

EuropeLa�n La�nAmerica Middle Europe Nordic East Southern Europe Asia

Sub-Saharan

Africa

Anglo

Confucian Asia Egalitarianism

Empowering

Eastern Europe Empowering

Germanic

Europe

EgalitarianismEgalitarianism

La�n America Egalitarianism

La�n Europe

Middle East

NordicEurope Egalitarianism,Humility

Empowering,

Humility

Empowering Humility

Southern Asia Empathy,Empathy

Humility

HumilityEmpathy

Sub-Saharan

Africa


was the basis of Hypothesis 5. However, a closer look at the conceptof servant leadership would reveal that servant leadership, byfocusing on developing and empowering employees in an honestand modest manner actually should facilitate goal attainment. It is

Table 12Correlations between culture values and servant leadership dimensions.

Dimensions Egalitarianism Moral Integrit

Power distance �0.410** �0.546**

Uncertainty avoidance �0.391** �0.096

Humane orientation 0.050 0.169

Collectivism I 0.255 0.308*

Collectivism II 0.239 0.283*

Assertiveness �0.326* �0.130

Gender egalitarianism 0.358** 0.349**

Future orientation �0.134 0.109

Performance orientation 0.438** 0.512**

* Significant at 0.05 level (2-tailed).** Significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed).

notable that in the GLOBE study (Javidan, 2004), the cultural value ofperformance orientation was found to be significantly and positivelyrelated to participative and charismatic/value-based leadershipattributes, both at societal and organizational level. These leadership

y Empowering Empathy Humility

�0.331* 0.179 0.007

�0.298* 0.430** 0.277*

�0.078 �0.209 �0.122

0.136 0.154 0.295*

0.404** 0.137 0.171

�0.063 0.312* 0.327*

0.436** �0.368** �0.226

0.028 0.405** 0.435**

0.487** 0.050 0.285*


attributes share a number of commonalities with the concept ofservant leadership, such as the ability of leaders to motivate andinspire, to involve others in decision making, and to act withintegrity. It would thus appear that the expectations of a highperformance oriented society are in consonance with the attributesassociated with servant leadership. A high correlation betweenperformance orientation and servant leadership is thereforereasonable.

The significantly negative correlation of the cultural value ofuncertainty avoidance with servant leadership dimensions ofEgalitarianism and Empowering is understandable. The practicesassociated with egalitarian and empowering attributes of leader-ship serve to increase the level of uncertainty by distributingdecision making and thus increasing the number of personsinvolved. Therefore, a culture characterized by high uncertaintyavoidance may not endorse Egalitarianism and empoweringdimensions of servant leadership.

In our study, the cultural value of humane orientation was notfound to be significantly related to any of the servant leadershipdimensions. Though this may appear perplexing, we would suggestthat one of the reasons could be that a major part of this construct,such as concern and care about others, being friendly, and sensitiveis being captured by other dimensions, e.g. gender egalitarianismand performance orientation.

In our discussion, we have tried to examine and probethe reasons for the correlations found between cultural valuesand servant leadership dimensions, in a bid to understandthe differential endorsement of servant leadership acrosscultures. This explanation is far from complete, but only a modestattempt to augment our understanding of the culture–leadershipinterface.

The study is not without limitations. As mentioned earlier,GLOBE’s questionnaires were not designed to directly measureservant leadership. However, we believe our measure did cover thesubstantial aspects of servant leadership, and enabled us to drawmeaningful observations from our analyses. Future researchersmay like to directly measure the construct of servant leadership invarious cultures. A second limitation was lack of data on actualleadership behaviors which could have helped us to correlateservant leadership dimensions to effective leadership behaviorsacross cultures. Nevertheless, in a very recent study, corporateleaders were found to enact behaviors that are culturally desirable,and that greater the congruence between the leader behavior andthe culturally ideal prototype of that culture, the more effective theleader (Luque, Javidan, Hanges, & Dorfman, 2011). Future researchmay further examine these linkages.

9. Managerial relevance

With increased cultural interaction, driven partially by theimperatives of globalization, the MNCs have been increasinglyfocusing on the use of leadership development activities asmechanisms for improving intercultural competence of globalmanagers. However, most of such leadership developmentprograms assume not only that everyone benefits equally fromsuch programs, but also that generic interventions are effective inall cultures. In a recent study, Caligiuri and Tarique (2009) foundthat the efficacy of leadership development interventionsdepended on the individual differences and the type of cross-cultural activity chosen for the development program. Clearly,cross-cultural leadership development programs are themselvesculturally sensitive. It is necessary therefore, for the practitionersto comprehend the nuances of the interplay between culturallydesirable behaviors in a society and effective leadership in thatculture. This point has also been reinforced by the latest GLOBEfindings referred to above (de Luque et al., 2011).

Our findings regarding servant leadership have direct relevancefor MNCs in their quest for seeking and developing effectiveleaders. Two broad scenarios can be envisaged; one in which anMNC chooses and trains a person to occupy a leadership role in acountry other than his native country, and the other where theperson is from the host country but being readied to take on higherleadership responsibilities in the organization. In the first case, it isimperative that the leadership development program ensures thatthe new leader is fully briefed and steeped into the locally andculturally accepted behaviors for effective leadership. Based on ourfindings, we would suggest that leadership development programsdesigned for a country such as Sweden should aim at focusing onservant leadership, particularly on its egalitarian and empoweringaspects, because of high endorsement of these dimensions in thatculture. Similarly, societies desiring high performance orientationand humane orientation, such as Argentina and El Salvadore, couldbe good candidates for servant leaders because of the demonstrat-ed positive correlation between performance orientation andservant leadership dimensions. On the other hand, in societies suchas Egypt and Kuwait, which are high in power distance anduncertainty avoidance, it may be counterproductive to attemptservant leadership approaches for effective business outcomes.

In the second scenario, where the chosen leader belongs to thehost country and is thus expected to have adequate knowledge oflocal cultural norms, the leadership development programs mayfocus on universally desired and accepted traits of leadership, suchas charismatic/value-based, with a view to boosting his accept-ability and effectiveness. This is because leaders are frequentlyrequired to act as shapes of change rather than simply maintainingthe status quo. For instance, in the Indian context, it has beenargued (Sinha, 1995) that a successful Indian leader may have tobuck the normally relationship oriented culture by placing greateremphasis on task performance, which will eventually change theleadership style from being directive to participative. As such, ourfindings could help provide a closer understanding of the locallyenacted leadership behavior and the desired behaviors, fordesigning and implementing such interventions.

10. Conclusions and future research

We believe our study has been able to demonstrate theimportance of servant leadership and how it is perceived indifferent cultures. The dimensions of Egalitarianism and Empow-ering were endorsed most strongly by European cultures and leastby Confucian Asia cluster. On the other hand, dimensions ofEmpathy and Humility received strong endorsement fromSouthern Asian cultures and least from European cultures. Moreimportantly, the culture clusters did not differ from each othersignificantly in their endorsement of Moral Integrity. This suggeststhat the importance and endorsement of moral integrity foreffective leadership is universal across cultures.

Our findings also contribute to the unpacking of the complexityof cross-cultural leadership. We found that while cultural valuesdifferentially correlated with various dimensions of servantleadership, overall, societies high in performance orientationwould welcome servant leadership more than societies with highpower distance. We feel that such insights could prove useful forpractitioners in their quest to develop culturally appropriateleadership development programs for cross-border businesses.

Lastly, while our results delineate the importance and endorse-ment of servant leadership and its components across cultures, moreresearch is needed to fully unravel the social dynamics which may bethe cause of the differential endorsement of various components indifferent cultures. A follow-up study should examine the actualeffectiveness of these servant leadership constructs as they areenacted by leaders within and across cultures.


Appendix

The servant leadership scale items

Egalitarianism (a = 0.74)

1. (V4_54) Dictatorial (reverse scored) – Forces his/her values andopinions on others.

2. (V4_33) Domineering (reverse scored) – Inclined to dominateothers.

3. (V2_36) Autocratic (reverse scored) – Makes decisions indictatorial way.

4. (V4_06) Egotistical (reverse scored) – Conceited, convinced ofown abilities.

5. (V2_09) Ruthless (reverse scored) – Punitive, having no pity orcompassion.

6. (V4_14) Non-Egalitarian (reverse scored) – Believes that allindividuals are not equal and only some should have equalrights and privileges.

7. (V2_23) Self-interested (reverse scored) – Pursues own bestinterests.

8. (V4_49) Dishonest (reverse scored) – Fraudulent, insincere.

Moral Integrity (a = 0.79)

9. (V2_16) Trustworthy – Deserves trust, can be believed andrelied upon to keep his/her word.

10. (V2_20) Just – Acts according to what is right or fair.11. (V2_15) Sincere – Means what he/she says, earnest.12. (V2_30) Collaborative – Works jointly with others.13. (V4_53) Dependable – Reliable.14. (V4_32) Honest – Speaks and acts truthfully.

Empowering (a = 0.71)

15. (V4_42) Motivational – Stimulates others to put forth effortsabove and beyond the call of duty and make personal sacrifices.

16. (V4_20) Motive arouser – Mobilizes and activates followers.17. (V4_46) Visionary – Has a vision and imagination of the future.18. (V2_56) Intellectually stimulating – Encourages others to think

and use their minds; challenges beliefs, stereotypes andattitudes of others.

19. (V4_22) Convincing – Unusually able to persuade others of his/her viewpoint.

20. (V2_12) Inspirational – Inspires emotions, beliefs, values, andbehaviors of others, inspires others to be motivated to workhard.

Empathy (a = 0.68)

21. (V2_40) Generous – Willing to give time, money, resources andhelp to others.

22. (V2_39) Fraternal – Tends to be a good friend of subordinates.23. (V2_51) Compassionate – Has empathy for others, inclined to

be helpful or show mercy.

Humility (a = 0.61)

24. (V4_18) Self-effacing – Presents self in a modest way.25. (V4_21) Sensitive – Aware of slight changes in other’s moods;

restricts discussion to prevent embarrassment.26. (V2_42) Modest – Does not boast; presents self in a humble

manner.27. (V4_30) Self-sacrificial – Foregoes self-interests and makes

personal sacrifices in the interest of a goal or vision.

Note: The number in parentheses denotes the GLOBE question-naire section and item.

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Servant leadership across cultures