Leadership beyond Narcissism: On the Role of Compassionate Love as Individual Antecedent of Servant Leadership

Abstract

While we already know a lot about the outcomes and boundary conditions of servant leadership, there is still a need for research on its antecedents. Building on the theory of purposeful work behavior and further theorizing by van Dierendonck and Patterson (2015), we examine if leaders’ propensity for compassionate love will evoke servant leadership behavior. At the same time, we contrast compassionate love to leaders’ narcissism as psychological counterpart to compassionate love, because narcissism is not associated with leader effectiveness, but with leader emergence instead. We collected data from 170 leader-follower-dyads in a field study in Germany, while measuring leaders’ compassionate love and narcissism, and followers’ perceptions of servant leadership. We found a positive association between leaders’ compassionate love and servant leadership behavior, while narcissism was negatively associated with servant leadership. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as pathways for future research are discussed.

Developing Leaders to Serve and Servants to Lead

“…In particular, the authors noted that brain structures implicated in self-other distinctions and interactions, in positive social bonding, and in emotional awareness related to the detection of emotional signals were activated during experiences of agape love. These findings together with the above research findings and recent research finding compassionate love for others is an antecedent of practicing servant leadership (Brouns et al, 2020) suggests a link between spiritual development and the development of servant leaders.…”

Whither compassionate leadership? A systematic review

“…Vogus et al ( 2020 ) associate compassionate leadership style to servant leadership which in their view is' inherently' compassionate. Delving a bit further, Brouns et al ( 2020 ) attempt to understand whether compassionate love is an antecedent to servant leadership and find a positive association between a leaders’ compassionate love and servant leadership. Hewison et al ( 2019 ) attempt to define compassionate leadership and find support in Vogus et al ( 2020 ).…”

“…A total of 15 papers were identified from 551 records Uses Parallel-results convergent synthesis 20 Hewison et al ( 2019 ) Explores compassionate leadership with those involved in leading system-wide end-of-life care Qualitative Focus Group 14 participants in the focus group discussions which lasted between 46 and 70 min Thematic analysis using Porter's cyclical approach 21 Landers et al ( 2020 ) Explores nurses’ and midwives’ views of a three-day program entitled “The Leaders for Compassionate Care Program” from the perspective of participating nursing/midwifery leaders, directors of nursing/midwifery, chief directors of nursing/midwifery, and program facilitators Interpretivism/Qualitative Qualitative descriptive design/Semi-structured interviews 15 participants Thematic analysis 22 Hofmeyer et al ( 2020 ) Discussion paper on the relevance of empathic healthcare cultures and constructs such as empathy, emotion regulation, compassion to sustain well-being, resilience and effectiveness during volatile times Constructivism/Qualitative Not available Staff survey results Not available 23 Mayer and Oosthuizen ( 2020 ) Presents insights into salutogenesis particularly for leaders coping with challenges faced in the transition into the 4th industrial revolution Hermeneutics/Qualitative Qualitative structured questionnaires administered through email to respondents 22 respondents from various countries, cultural and religious backgrounds Five-step process of content analysis. Deductive research interpretation process 24 Brouns et al ( 2020 ) Examines whether leader's propensity for compassionate love evokes servant leadership behaviour Quantitative/Descriptive statistics Cross-sectional survey through online questionnaire 170 respondents Confirmatory analy...…”

Narcissistic traits and compassion: Embracing oneself while devoiding others

“…This portrays a superficial and self-centered focus on relationships, which hints at a lack of deeper feelings for others, such as a deficiency in OC. Unsurprisingly, grandiose narcissistic traits were indeed previously related to low compassionate love (Brouns et al, 2020). Furthermore, a metaanalytic review found an overarching relation to self-reported reduced cognitive and affective empathy (Urbonaviciute and Hepper, 2020), which is strongly related to OC and may be required to elicit compassionate responses (e.g., Stevens and Woodruff, 2018).…”

“…This shows that pro-sociality, which tends to be negatively associated with narcissism, may be adaptive and alludes to its potential to be induced and trained. Similarly, another behavior that could be therapeutically targeted to address narcissistic behavior is compassion; previous observations showed that narcissistic traits were associated with low self- and other compassion ( Barry et al, 2015 ; Salazar, 2016 ; Brouns et al, 2020 ).…”