Serving the need of people: the case for servant leadership against populism

ABSTRACT

This article provides a contrasting perspective between populist and servant leadership. We propose four key differences based on distinct views on people centricity, the role of the people in the leadership process, the problem solving approach and the preferred leader role. Given the key function that meaning plays in leadership discourse, in particular during times of uncertainty and change, we further propose that populist leaders make use of simplistic meaning-making systems that emphasize monistic and over-simplified views around polarized options, while servant leaders in contrast use complex meaning-making systems that emphasize pluralist and reconciled views towards shared problem solving. Considering that populist leadership often makes references to serving, humility and self-sacrifice in defence of the people, we find it important to distinguish it from servant leadership. We advance, in fact, that servant leaders can function as an antidote to populism, being a genuine people centred approach with a reconciliatory and pluralist view and an adequate (but surely not perfect) response to many of our societal problems.

MAD statement

Populism is on the rise, even in well-established democracies. Driven by galloping inequality, technological disruption, growing migration, and a resurge of nationalistic sentiments, populist leaders seem to strive on an overall feeling of insecurity and resentment. The recent COVID19 crisis has contributed to this trend. Populist speeches are often infused with an apparent motivation to serve the people and leader self-sacrifice. In this article we want to dispel this apparent similarity with servant leadership and expose the contrast between the two. By doing that we aim to contribute to a better understanding of servant and populist leadership processes and to enable people to distinguish more easily between the two in real life contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Servant leadership
• populist leadership
• people centricity
• meaning
• pluralism
• paradox

Disclosure Statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 856688.

Notes on contributors

Milton Sousa

Milton Sousa, PhD is Associate Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal and Visiting Professor at KEIO Business School (Tokyo), SASIN (Bangkok) and the American University in Cairo. He co-founded the Leadership for Impact Knowledge Centre and held the positions of Associate Dean for Institutional Relations and International Development and Academic Director of CEMS MIM at Nova SBE. Previously, he was Director of the MBA Programs at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in the Netherlands. He chaired 3 editions of the Estoril Conferences, a large international forum on globalization that gathers renowned world leaders from business, academia and public sector. His research interests include servant leadership and social innovation.

Dirk van Dierendonck

Dirk van Dierendonck, PhD is Professor of HRM, in particular leadership and management development at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His areas of expertise include human resource management, leadership and leadership development, positive organizational scholarship, well-being and measurement development. He recently finished a four-year term as Dean of Faculty / Vice-Dean of RSM. He is co-founder of the Erasmus Centre for Leadership. His work has been published in books, and in over 70 scholarly articles, including the major academic journals.