Development and Validation of a Spanish Short Servant Leadership Survey (SSLS6-3F) among Spanish Workers in Religious Non-Profit Organizations

Abstract

Religious non-profit organizations are becoming increasingly important in the third sector in a wide range of countries, where they are currently leading players in different areas, such as education, healthcare, and social work. These organizations have the peculiarity of providing a service to their users while transmitting them the values of their mission statement. An usually employed and effective management strategy for these institutions is a servant leadership style. This article seeks to introduce a theoretical discussion of this leadership approach by providing a Spanish version of an instrument for measuring servant leadership in Spanish religious non-profit institutions. To this end, workers of different Spanish faith-based non-profit organizations of the third sector, a relatively unexplored context, were analyzed after obtaining 463 valid questionnaires. This study used the Spanish translation of a seven-item and three-factor servant leadership scale. An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was performed. The results confirm that the six-item and three-factor servant leadership scale was the most effective scale to measure this construct. In conclusion, this research covers a notable research gap by providing a reliable and valid Spanish short version of the servant leadership scale for workers of Spanish religious non-profit organizations.

Servant Leadership in a Social Religious Organization: An Analysis of Work Engagement, Authenticity, and Spirituality at Work

“…Hair et al [59] explain that if indicators are highly correlated and interchangeable, they are reflective, and if the indicators are those that cause the latent variable and are not highly correlated (positive, negative, or even no correlated) and not interchangeable, they are formative. After reviewing the literature above, and according to the reliability analysis performed by the authors [5,33,46,51], the constructs of this research are estimated as following: servant leadership, spirituality at work and work engagement are estimated in Mode A; authenticity was estimated in Mode B. Bivariate correlations revealed in Table 1 support the suggested modes. As recommended by Ringle et al [60], this research evaluated both measurement models and the structural model.…”

“…All the variables in this study were measured through validated questionnaires that have, therefore, previously demonstrated their reliability. Perceived servant leadership was measured by the Spanish version of Ortiz-Gómez et al [ 5 ] SSLS6-3F (Spanish Short Servant Leadership Survey), which was developed from the original version of Reinke [ 8 ]. It evaluates the perception of servant leadership of the immediate supervisor of each worker.…”

“…This Spanish scale of servant leadership contemplates the three dimensions identified in the theoretical framework, composed each of them by two items (openness, i.e., “my supervisor listens to what employees have to say”; stewardship, i.e., “my supervisor is committed to helping employees grow and progress”; and vision, i.e., “my supervisor emphasizes doing the right thing for the long-term benefit of all”), evaluated by a Likert scale ranging from 1 (low perception of servant leadership in his/her superior) to 5 (high perception of servant leadership). The estimated reliability of the three subscales was 0.83 for openness, 0.87 for vision, and 0.83 for stewardship [ 5 ].…”

“…In this context, the style of leadership exercised in these organizations is critical to their long-term survival, and this is one of the research topics most studied for its influence on behavior [ 4 ]. Due to the importance of these entities carrying out their social and spiritual mission, this paper considers as a starting point that servant leadership is one of the leadership styles most consistent with social religious entities since it implies an approach based on moral values and ethical principles [ 5 , 6 ], as well as on religious teachings [ 7 ] It is related to Judeo-Christian philosophical traditions [ 8 ]. Servant leadership is a management strategy that prioritizes and turns workers’ needs into objectives, putting employees’ good above the leader’s self-interest and showing concern for others [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”

Does Servant Leadership Stimulate Work Engagement? The Moderating Role of Trust in the Leader

“…Leadership styles, whether profit or non-profit, have common characteristics (Akingbola, 2013 ; Gul et al, 2022 ), relying on outstanding leadership, a style in which these challenges can be discussed (Aboramadan, 2018 ). Given the academia as a non-profit organization, employee leadership is an appropriate approach (Ortiz-Gomez et al, 2020 ). Employee leaders are followers who prioritize profits, focus on selfless value (Banks et al, 2018 ), and consider themselves as other workers (De Clercq et al, 2014 ).…”