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Servant Leadership Framework for Making Difficult Business Decisions (Literature

Review Search)

Neha

Trinity Western University

LDRS 591 Scholarly Inquiry

Dr. Sergio Cepero Espinosa

October 30, 2022

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Servant Leadership Framework for Making Difficult Business Decisions (Literature

Review Search)

Over the course of my professional career with several multi-national companies, I have

observed that to position themselves as a value-based organization, businesses establish their

vision statements with higher cultural values in the marketplace. Such cultural statements help to

promote organizations as a better place to work safely, both as a client and as an employee. It has

been observed over and over again that while the company has strong leadership values, but

when it comes to making business decisions, these leadership values are undermined or

compromised. Therefore, my research paper will focus on developing a framework that could

support Servant Leadership values while making tough business decisions.

Since leaders are stewards of the organization, so they must practice the characteristic of

servant leadership for the well-being of the company. As during my career, I have found that in

some situations, leadership values are undermined. Rather than practicing servant leadership and

help employees to improve their performance, companies prefer to dismiss them

So, this scholarly research paper will focus on developing the framework that will help

the existing or aspiring servant leaders to learn the principles that can be implemented in the

organization to make difficult business decisions without undermining servant leadership values.

Procedure

This literature review first identified scholarly research focused on developing a

framework or principles that can solve the issue of undermining servant leadership values for

while making difficult business decisions, through electronic databases available at the author’s

university library. Databases included in this review were: Academic Search Ultimate, Google
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Scholar, JSTOR, DOAJ and the university’s Library One Search. The following key subject

words were used to search the databases with Boolean “AND” to combine the search terms:

Servant leadership AND performance-oriented leadership approach, undermining servant

leadership values, undermining organizational servant leadership values, Business decisions

AND servant leadership, employee termination AND servant leadership values, employee under

performance AND servant leadership, limitations of servant leadership, servant v leadership

and steward of organization , Role of servant leadership on organizational commitment, The

search results ranged from x to x search results. While the majority of articles were irrelevant, xx

articles were identified as relevant to this review.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The xx articles identified were manually screened for relevance and attainability and

were either kept or eliminated based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The reviewed

articles were required to meet the following criteria: 1) be published between XX-XX, 2) be

peer-reviewed, 3) be written in the English language, 4) be accessible through the university

library, and 5) discuss [your topic] as a central theme. Conversely, articles were eliminated based

on the following exclusion criteria: 1) published earlier than XX, 2) written in a non-English

language, and 3) not an empirical study. Of the xx articles identified, xx articles met the

inclusion criteria and were used in the review. Table 1 summarizes the list of articles included.

Table 1.

Literature Review Summary

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Author/year Article Title Purpose* Key Results*

McMahone, Servant To develop a The paper considers a

Marty/2012 Leadership as a framework/ different approach for
Teachable principle that developing ethical
Ethical can be organizations. It also
Concept implemented includes, the advantages and
in the potential problems of using
organization servant leadership as a basic
to make organizational ethic are
difficult examined. The paper
business considers ethical scorecards
decisions that should show that
while companies currently
practicing practicing servant leadership
Servant tend to be more ethical.
Leadership
values.

Judita Peterlin, Strategic To understand It is argued that a different

Noel J. Decision Strategic type of leadership is
Pearse,Vlado Making for decision required if effective strategic
Dimovski/ Organizational making by the decisions are to be made in
2015 Sustainability: top organizations striving to
The management become more sustainable
Implications of of and that servant leadership
Servant organization and sustainable leadership
Leadership and while approaches provide a sound
Sustainable practicing basis to inform these
Leadership Servant decisions.
Approaches Leadership

Amy R. Servant To understand This study gained insight

Savage-Austin, Leadership: A organizational into the impact that these
Andrew Phenomenolog barriers while organizational barriers have
Honeycutt/ ical Study Of practicing on one’s ability to practice
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2011 Practices, Servant servant leadership.

Experiences, Leadership
Organizational
Effectiveness,
And Barriers

Trompenaars, Servant To understand Servant leadership

Fons, Leadership significance emphasizes the leader's role
Voerman, Across of Servant as steward of the resources
Ed/2009 Cultures: Leadership (human, financial and
Harnessing the and otherwise) provided by the
Strength of the Organizationa organization. It encourages
World's Most l Goals leaders to serve others while
Powerful (together) staying focused on
Leadership achieving results in line with
Philosophy the organization’s values
and integrity. In a world
characterized by
globalization, more and
more entrepreneurs are
entering the international
market. This not only
provides unanticipated
opportunities, but also
extraordinary challenges.
Where the workforce is
diverse, people will operate
from different values. The
result will be a clash of
cultures. Experience has
shown that servant
leadership in these types of
dilemmas is the most
effective approach.

LATHAM, Leadership for Framework of A framework for future

JOHN R/2014 Quality and future leadership research is
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Innovation: leadership proposed along with a "call

Challenges, to action."
Theories, and a
Framework for
Future
Research

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