“In the servant we trust”: The brand impact of servant leadership from the case of a rising reformist

ABSTRACT

Successful political outsiders from the largest democracies, such as Narendra Modi (India), Donald Trump (USA), Joko Widodo (Indonesia), and Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), have strong leadership images as a reformist. The case of Widodo of Indonesia is unique considering that he rose to power within less than ten years with an image of a servant leader, compared to his counterparts, who tend to be perceived as far right-wing conservatives. Yet, the interplay between leadership brand image and important branding components such as personality and trust remained a gap in the literature. To fill these gaps, this study investigates the brand impact of servant leadership and reformist (perceived qualities, proposed programs, and voters’ engagement style) on a leader’s brand trust with the mediating effect of brand personality (responsible and active) based on Widodo’s case. PLS-SEM is utilized to estimate the model with latent variables and conduct analysis. Results indicate high overall mean scores from all dimensions despite 53.4% of samples (n = 453) not having a political party preference. The study found that servant leadership and reformist image have moderate to substantial effects on brand personality and trust. Responsible persona has proven to mediate most proposed relationships. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership brand
• servant leadership
• brand personality
• brand trust
• political outsider

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Colin Brown (Griffith Asia Institute), Professor Dianne Dean (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) and Dr Pallavi Singh (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) for their great contribution on this research.

The author would like to thank Griffith Asia Institute for the conference funding provided to the Australia New Zealand Marketing Association Conference in 2019 that have led to the publication of this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Griffith Asia Institute .

Notes on contributors

Gunaro Setiawan

Gunaro Setiawan is currently a lecturer at department of Business Strategy and Innovation, Griffith University and adjunct researcher at Griffith Asia Institute. His research is mainly focused on the area of leadership and political marketing. He has recently expanded his area of focus into religiosity, sustainability and green behavior. Gunaro is always open for a collaboration