Servant leadership to support wellbeing in higher education teaching

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused profound change in the higher education workplace, and resulted in increased workloads and stress for academic staff. Servant leadership has previously been identified as a particularly effective model of leadership to support wellbeing during times of disruption and change. Whilst servant leadership has been examined in the context of follower wellbeing, little is known about the wellbeing of servant leaders. The aim of this study was to examine the literature and relationship between ‘Servant Leadership Theory’ and ‘PERMA Wellbeing Theory’. Additionally, to open a discussion and invite research in this area. This integrative review advances current knowledge by proposing that servant leadership addresses all of the required elements to optimise the servant leaders’ subjective wellbeing. It is hoped that this study will pioneer future discussion and research aimed at examining if higher education teachers’ application of servant leadership’s altruistic principles at work may mitigate some of the stress which they are currently experiencing due to changes occurring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on universities.

KEYWORDS:

• Servant leadership
• servant teaching
• PERMA wellbeing
• higher education teaching
• integrative review
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristina Turner

Dr Kristina Turner is a Lecturer in Primary Education at Swinburne University. Kristina is the Course Director for the Bachelor of Education (Primary) and Master of Teaching (Primary) courses. Kristina has worked in a variety of school and university settings. In addition, Kristina regularly conducts ‘Teacher Wellbeing’ workshops for primary and secondary schools. Kristina’s research focuses on teacher wellbeing and incorporates four key areas: (1) teachers’ wellbeing and application of positive psychology strategies, including the effects on their teaching practice and students’ learning, (2) pre-service teacher emotional intelligence and wellbeing, (3) emotional intelligence and wellbeing in higher education and (4) application of digital technologies to support initial teacher education and pre-service teacher wellbeing.