The Deep Down Nature of Servant Leadership: The Interactive Role of Identity and Self Determination

Servant leadership is a relational style of leadership, notable for placing the interests of others before that of the leader or organization and for originating from a desire to serve others. The outcomes of servant leadership behaviors are the source of increasing scholarly attention. In this study, I examine servant leader identity and resulting motivation to express that identity as antecedents to servant leadership behavior. Drawing upon identity expression, I seek to understand how the fulfillment of the psychological needs central to self-determination theory—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—and corresponding environmental influences—organizational support, performance feedback, and follower relatedness—interact with servant leader identity to motivate behavior. To help evaluate the hypothesized relationships, an instrument to measure servant leader identity was validated with a sample of 471 students. The hypothesized moderated mediation relationships were tested with a sample of 227 teachers, 56 principals, and 39 school board chairs taken from 69 schools across two time periods. The collected data failed to support the hypotheses. However, a post hoc analyses was conducted of the specific moderation relationships in the study which suggests that leaders’ perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs satisfaction positively interacts with servant leader identity to influence motivation or servant leader behaviors.