An Empirical Analysis of Leader Personality and Servant Leadership

Although servant leadership has been a popular philosophy for almost 50 years, it is only recently that peer-reviewed instruments with evidence of validity and reliability have emerged. A question related to the measurement of servant leadership is to what degree the instrument(s) are measuring constructs similar to leader personality. In this study 116 working adults completed a self-assessment of the big-five personality dimensions and their self-assessment of servant leadership using the Servant Leadership Survey. An exploratory factor analysis found that four of the nine scales of the Servant Leadership Survey appear to be measuring a construct similar to the personality dimension of agreeableness, but different from the other big-five dimensions of personality.