nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

More grounding necessary
Issues surrounding modern servant leadership-Weeds
In spite of the growing literature base of servant leadership, it remains a burgeoning
field, with much groundwork to be done. Much of the literature of the past thirty years
has been to establish the theory in recognised thought (Laub, 1999). Even while this is
the case, much of the literature is problematic in that it is what might be termed
“popular literature” and offers a fairly one-sided positive view of servant leadership.
Some scholars have deemed Greenleaf’s descriptions as inadequate for research
alone, and too broad for individual application, arguing that Greenleaf did not base his
ideas in tested research (Reinke, 2004; Farling, Stone & Winston, 1999). “Greenleaf
developed the concept of servant leadership from an intuitive insight…However, he
provided no empirically grounded definition for the term. Instead, he merely proposes
that the ‘servant-leader is servant first.’ This open-ended definition leaves researchers
with many unanswered questions” (Reinke, 2004, ¶ 4-5). Greenleaf’s vague
description has proved problematic in establishing servant leadership as a viable
theory in modern academic thought.
Defining servant leadership
In order to pave the way for increased empirical evidence, and hence more acceptance
of servant leadership in academic thought, much focus in the literature has been given
to defining the concept for use in academic dialogue. This, Laub (2004, August)
argues, is necessary to widespread acceptance of servant leadership,
If we are to pursue research and scholarship in the field of leadership, or within
the sub-field of servant leadership, we must be clear on our use of concepts and
terms. We must state our understandings clearly and boldly and welcome the
challenge that should inevitably come from other theorists and definition-makers.
Our textbooks should be able to confidently state definitions that have been
developed through the crucible of scholarly debate and then they should use those
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