A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF
SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND PERSONALITY TEMPERAMENT
by
Tammy W. Stuhr
Presented to the
Inaugural Servant Leadership Symposium
at
the University of Nebraska
Under the Supervision
of Professor Leverne Barrett
Lincoln,
Nebraska
May, 2007
ABSTRACT
A COMPARATIVE ANAYLYSIS OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND
PERSONALITY TEMPERAMENT
Tammy
Stuhr, M.S.
University
of Nebraska, 2007
Citizens
are elected as public servants without understanding whether they possess
servant leadership factors/qualities.
Public servants could have a more thorough understanding of servant
leadership factors based on their temperament through this study.
The
purpose of this study was to examine the developmental relationship between
temperament type and servant leadership factors of locally elected officials in
the Midwest.
Two
hundred and sixty-two county officials from the Nebraska Association of County
Officials (NACO) organization participated in this study, including county
supervisors, county commissioners, county clerks, and county veteran’s service
officers. The researcher used surveys to
examine the relationship of servant leadership factors and test the hypotheses. The Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ),
temperament type (measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Form G),
and information sheet were self reported by each county official.
Major
findings of the study are as follows:
1. The NF temperament rated significantly higher
than the SJ, SP, and NT temperaments on the SLQ subscale scores of emotional
healing and wisdom.
2. Females rated significantly different than
males on the SLQ subscale scores of emotional healing and altruistic calling.
A comparative analysis of servant leadership and personality
temperament
Introduction
Our
neighbors are elected to serve our needs through local political offices. The question becomes do these average
citizens have the leadership qualities needed to advocate and make decisions on
our behalf. “The ideal leader is
visionary, practical, and inspirational, i.e., one who knows where to go, how
to get there, and can motivate others to make the trip” (Graham, 1991, p. 105). Does this describe the last person you voted
for in the election?
The
people who serve us, we would like to think, are servant leaders. According to Greenleaf (1970), the father of
the servant leadership movement, “the servant leader is servant first . . . It
begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to
lead.” A servant leader must be caring
for their fellow man’s priorities and needs before putting their own ambitions
as a priority. Through serving others, a
person finds the desire to lead people in a way that develops them as independent,
healthy, free thinking followers who then find themselves
wanting to serve others, all the while being served and led by the servant
leader. Beyond serving followers, the
servant leader must also be cognizant of the least privileged in society to
ensure they are not being hurt and, preferably, will be better off because of
the servant leader’s actions and his followers’ actions (Greenleaf, 1970).
Although
Greenleaf first termed servant-leadership
in the early 1970’s, the roots stretch back centuries (Burkhardt, 2000). Unfortunately, past research on the servant as
a leader, does not reveal the antecedents of servant leadership. It does not consider the influence of
personality factors such as temperament, on servant leadership factors. Furthermore, servant leader organizations can
provide effective training and education for their members who in turn will
help the servant leader better serve their constituents. According
to Graham (1991), there is room in research to explore the unanswered questions
regarding the antecedents of the servant leader. One of the antecedents explored to the path
of servant leadership will be temperament.
Temperament,
for the purpose of this study, was determined by analyzing a person’s
preferences of function between thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving,
and intuition and sensing, all of which provides us a lens into human behavior
and, subsequently into whether a relationship exists between a person’s naturally
preferred behavior and their servant leadership factors.
Citizens
are elected as public servants without understanding whether they possess
servant leadership factors/qualities. If
the (null) hypotheses are rejected meaning a difference was found, public
servants could have a more thorough understanding of servant leadership factors
based on their temperament type.
The purpose of this study was to examine
the possible relationship between temperament type and servant leadership factors
of locally elected officials in the Midwest.
Research
Questions
- Does a certain temperament as measured by the MBTI
predict a higher score on the SLQ?
- What is the relationship between personality
temperaments as measured by the MBTI and subscales of servant leadership,
measured by the SLQ?
- What is the relationship between chronological age
and servant leadership factors on subscale scores as measured by the
SLQ?
- What is the relationship between gender and servant leadership
factors on subscale scores as measured by the SLQ?
Significance
of Study
The justification
for studying the relationship of servant leadership and temperament is to 1)
improve practice for training public service leaders, 2) add to the knowledge
gap in servant leadership literature, and 3) strengthen the understanding of
antecedents leading to servant leadership.
The objective of this study is to determine if a possible relationship
exists between a person’s temperament and their servant leadership qualities.
Audiences benefiting
from this study are scholars of servant leadership, facilitators of personality
and temperament instruments, organizations whose membership is composed of public
servants, leadership organizations, and the county officials in the research
population.
Limitations
Limitations
of this study include return rate of surveys, candor of respondents, and all
self-report instruments. Since
temperaments are not equally distributed across populations, the researcher
predicted there would not be equal numbers of each temperament in the target
population when comparing servant leadership factors between the
temperaments. Also, given that a large
percentage of the target population is elected officials, candor of some
respondents may not be truly representative for fear of retribution by their
colleagues or constituents. The elected official
may answer with what is perceived as ‘right’ instead of with self-perceived reflection
on the self-report instruments.
Delimitations
The
following parameters were established for manageability of this study:
1.
Due to the large number of potential participants (i.e. public servants)
in this study, the population involved in the current study focused only on
members located within Nebraska.
2.
The MBTI and SLQ were the only instruments used to measure outcomes.
3.
A one-month time frame will be used for distribution and collection of
data from the target population.
Hypotheses
The
hypotheses stated in this research are stated in the null form. Although the research
expected to find differences between temperament type and SLQ scores, by
stating the hypothesis in the null, that no difference will be found, aided in
the ability to statistically analyze the data.
Hypothesis
1: There is no difference between temperament
and the SLQ subscale emotional healing.
Hypothesis
2: There is no difference between temperament and the SLQ subscale wisdom.
Hypothesis
3: There is no difference between
temperament and the SLQ subscale altruistic calling.
Hypothesis
4: There is no difference between
temperament and the SLQ subscale persuasive mapping.
Hypothesis
5: There is no difference between
temperament and the SLQ subscale organizational stewardship.
Hypothesis
6: There is no difference between gender
and the SLQ subscale scores.
Hypothesis
7: There is no difference between chronological
age and the SLQ subscale scores.
Literature
Review
Today’s
major leadership theories center around the full-range leadership model aligned
with transformational leadership along with leader-member exchange theory. Each theory has its own instruments to
measure the leader-follower exchanges.
Full-range leadership has the MLQ and leader-member exchange is measured
by the LMX-7. Within these measurements,
both of these theories share some characteristics with servant leadership and have
been compared with servant leadership in studies (Bass & Avoilo, 1994;
Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006; Graham, 1991). Ironically, servant leadership theory was
being developed in the early 1970’s prior to the other studies gaining
recognition, almost a decade after Greenleaf (1970) wrote his essays on servant
leadership.
Servant
Leadership
Organizations
and institutions are inundated by a new generation of members and employees who
want different communication channels, a democratic style of leadership,
authority no longer based on tradition, and a servant spirit. This change in attitude is giving rise to
servant leadership. This study hoped to
strengthen the understanding of antecedents which can lead to servant
leadership.
Servant
leadership is a cultural shift on a personal and organizational level. Companies,
such as TDIndustries, began this shift from having managers control their
subordinates to serving the employees who work for them. On the personal level, servant leadership is
more about serving than leading. Larry
Spears, in the book The Power of Servant Leadership (1998), argues that
leadership is a part of service; one must serve in order to be a leader,
although it does not take a leader to be a servant. True servant leadership is not knowledge of
the ‘servant as a leader’, but the spirit is what forms the ‘servant as a
leader’. Therefore, Spears says that
companies that have “tried” servant leadership on the basis they have knowledge
of the servant leadership concepts, are missing the essence of servant
leadership – the spirit.
Not all temperament types are
naturally good listeners who empower others (Keirsey & Bates, 1984), therefore understanding one’s own temperament type can
help public servants. This study could
help the servant learn how he/she relates to others, and examine the leadership
qualities they may be lacking by virtue of their temperament.
There
are several characteristics of a servant leader accounted for in the SLQ. According to Greenleaf, these characteristics
are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization,
foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building
community. DeGraaf says, “When
considering the ten characteristics of servant-leadership, it is important to
look at them in relationship to one another rather than as individual elements”
(p.26). Barbuto & Wheeler (2006)
captured the relationships by defining the essence of servant leadership in five
measurable dimensions: altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom,
persuasive mapping, and organizational stewardship.
In
their construction of the SLQ instrument, the authors state “the antecedents of
servant leadership provide research opportunities . . . research is also needed
on the hereditary and environmental nature of servant leadership” (Barbuto &
Wheeler, 2006, p. 13). Graham (1991)
agrees that research opportunities exist for looking at the “low need for
power, genuine humility, high empathy and communication skills” (p.117) as
likely antecedents of servant leadership.
Temperament
Twenty-five
centuries ago, Hippocrates introduced the idea of temperament when he tried to
account for the differences in human behavior.
The idea of temperament resonated once again in the early 20th
Century with the work of Carl Jung. Temperament
truly came to life when Isabel Myers conceptualized Jung’s work reviving Jung’s
psychological types by placing them into a measurable format known today as the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In the 21st
Century, David Keirsey, a scholar of Myers, pared down Myers 16 types to four
predictable patterns of behavior known as ‘temperaments’. Keirsey’s work focuses on type-watching and
understanding natural differences between people’s behaviors (Keirsey &
Bates, 1984).
The
temperament described in this study refers to the work of David Keirsey,
derived from the Myers-Briggs studies.
Keirsey’s work explains the common patterns of key preferences which are
NT, the intuitive thinking; NF, the intuitive feeling; SJ, sensing judging; and
SP, sensing perceiving. In comparison, Jungian
had eight mental processes that determined a person’s preferences. Jungian type explored the concept of a person
having a dominant function which he/she prefers to use first, which in Keirsey’s
work is the intuitive, sensing, thinking or feeling function. From
there a person has an auxiliary function which is their second preference, the
tertiary function is the third preference, and an inferior function is a
person’s least preferred way of processing the world (Myers, 1998).
Keirsey’s
temperaments do not take into account introversion and extraversion functions,
although the other six functions described by Jung are a part of the
temperaments. (Myers, 1998) “Temperament
theory is widely used in connection with the MBTI. Though Jungian type and temperament are based
on different assumptions and model of personality, they can complement each
other. The MBTI gives access to both. Temperament describes four broad patterns of
interrelated characteristics’ (Myers, 1998, p. 34).
According
to Germane (1987), Keirsey did not try to conform the
temperaments to personality type. Keirsey
did, however, modify the divisions Myers had developed while using her dichotomies:
Intuition/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling, and
Judging/Perceiving. Putting emphasis on
these functions in the combinations he saw as most functional, led to his four
temperaments. Although temperament appears
to be without a strong theoretical foundation, it does open up a new frame of
reference for studying people’s behavioral patterns. Therefore, this research
uses the functions from the MBTI to determine temperament since it brings with
it a strong theoretical base.
Methodology/
Procedure
Each
participant was mailed the two survey instruments, the MBTI and the SLQ, a demographic
sheet, a return envelope and the IRB approved letter to the participant. To encourage participation, a magnet was sent
along with the instruments. Follow-up was
handled as outlined in the timeline with 45% return rate achieved.
Each county
official was asked to complete the 23 questions on the SLQ to determine the
mean of the five servant leadership factors, and the modified MBTI -Form G to
determine temperament. Participants completed
the instruments at their convenience during a two week time span. The instruments were mailed back to the
researcher via United State Postal Service.
Population
and Sample
The
population for this study is the Nebraska Association of County Officials organization
(NACO). NACO is a membership
organization for all of Nebraska’s
93 counties. Locally elected and
appointed county officials can belong to their respective sub-groups. According
to the NACO’s Executive Director, NACO’s 2006
membership consisted of approximately 1400 individuals, including elected,
affiliated, and appointed county officials (NACO website).
The
sample population selected for this study targeted populations of the county
clerks, county veteran’s officers, and county board members who hold the title of
either commissioner or supervisor. The
whole population of these three groups was targeted.
Data Collection
Participants
were recruited through the Nebraska Association of County Officials
(NACO). The researchers were divide the
population into affiliated groups within NACO, and sampled the whole population
from three subgroups.
The
researcher mailed the revised MBTI to the target population, along with the SLQ
and demographic sheet. Participants mailed
the forms back to the researcher. The MBTI
inventories were scored by the researcher using the MBTI key for Form G, and the
SLQ was scored by the researcher.
Data Analysis
Inferential
analysis was used to analyze the data from the MBTI, SLQ, and demographic
sheet. The one-way Analysis of Variance
with Tukey’s HSD for post hoc procedures was used for the statistical analysis
of the collected data. ANOVA was used 1) to compare the four temperaments to
the servant leadership subscale scores, 2) to keep the error rate to a minimum,
and 3) to test the null hypothesis. Tukey’s
HSD was used to compare significant differences found between the
temperaments.
The
dependent variables in the study are the servant leadership factors: altruistic
calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping, and organizational
stewardship. The independent variables
are temperament types: NF, the intuitive feeling functions; NT, the intuitive
thinking functions; SJ, the sensing judging functions; and SP, the sensing
perceiving functions. The mediating
variables are: population group, surveys, personality, gender, and age.
FINDINGS
AND DISCUSSION
This
study was conducted to examine the possible relationship between temperament
type and servant leadership factors of locally elected officials in the Midwest. Two hundred and sixty-two county officials
from the Nebraska Association of County Officials (NACO) organization participated
in this study. The researcher used surveys to examine the relationship of
servant leadership factors and test the hypotheses.
Demographic
Profile of the Participants
The
distribution of county official participants is depicted in the following
tables. According to temperament, the
majority of participants were SJ’s (75%).
The next two temperaments were close in size, SP’s (12%) and NT’s (10%),
followed by NF’s (3%). Eleven of the
participants’ results were not conclusive of a temperament, and therefore were
not used in questions and hypotheses regarding temperament. See Table 1.
The
distribution of county officials by gender favored the men participants at 77%,
with women represented at 23% as shown in Table 2. The county clerk population was intentionally
added to the sampling in order to have a higher number of female
participants.
Table
3 shows 18% of the participants were age 40 and under,
34% ages 50-59, 30% ages 60-69, and
the 70 + age group represented 18%.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER ONE
There is no
difference between temperament types and the SLQ subscale emotional healing.
Null hypothesis number one was rejected. A significant difference was found between a
temperament and the SLQ score on emotional healing using a one-way ANOVA. The level of significance was .010 with an
alpha of .05.
Tukey’s
HSD found significant differences between NF’s and the other three temperaments
in terms of emotional healing. The
difference between NF – NT was .044; NF-SJ was .019; and the largest difference
between NF-SP at .004. NT, SJ, and SP
did not show any significant difference between each other. See table 4.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER TWO
There
is no difference between temperament types and the SLQ subscale wisdom.
Null hypothesis number two was rejected. A significant difference was found between a
temperament and the SLQ score on wisdom using a one-way ANOVA. The level of significance was .007 with an
alpha of .05.
Tukey’s
HSD found significant differences between NF’s and only two of the other
temperaments in terms of emotional healing.
The difference between NF – SJ (.042) and NF-SP (.004) were both
significant. The difference between
NF-NT was close to the alpha level but was not found significant at .060. There was no significance between NT-SJ
(.992), NT-SP (.535), and SJ-SP (.148). See
Table 5.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER THREE
There is no
difference between temperament and the SLQ subscale altruistic calling.
Null hypothesis number three was accepted. There was no significant difference found
between temperament and the SLQ score of altruistic calling using a one-way
ANOVA. Table 6 shows the level at .368.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER FOUR
There is no
difference between temperament and the SLQ subscale persuasive mapping.
Null hypothesis number four was accepted.
There was no significant difference found between temperament and the SLQ score
of persuasive mapping using a one-way ANOVA.
Table 6 shows the level at .246.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER FIVE
There is no
difference between temperament and the SLQ subscale organizational stewardship.
Null hypothesis number five was accepted. There was no significant difference found
between temperament and the SLQ score of organizational stewardship using a
one-way ANOVA. Table 6 shows the level
at .246.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER SIX
There
is no difference between gender and the SLQ subscale scores.
Null hypothesis number six was rejected. A significant difference was found between
gender and some of the subscale scores.
Table 8 shows a significant difference was found for emotional healing
(.020) and altruistic calling (.001) between women and men. A significant difference was not found
between genders on the scores of wisdom (.381), persuasive mapping (.184), and
organizational stewardship (.365). Means
for men and women can be found in Table 10.
NULL
HYPOTHESIS NUMBER SEVEN
There
is no difference between chronological age and the SLQ subscale scores.
Null hypothesis number seven was accepted. There
was no significant difference found between age groups and the SLQ subscale
scores using a one-way ANOVA. Table 11
shows the non-significant levels at .958 for emotional healing, .981 for
wisdom, .434 for altruistic calling, .989 for persuasive mapping, and .420 for
organizational stewardship. Means for age groups can be found in Table 12.
Summary of Findings
As measured by the MBTI, certain
temperaments show a possible relationship with higher scores on some of the SLQ
subscale scores. NF’s showed
significant differences in the area of emotional healing than the other three
temperaments. Also in the area of
wisdom, NF’s showed a significant difference over the SJ (.042) and the SP (.004)
temperaments. No significant differences
were found on the subscales of altruistic calling, persuasive mapping, and
organizational stewardship.
There
is no apparent relationship between servant leadership factors and a county
official’s age. Gender, however, showed significant differences in the areas of
emotional healing (.020) and altruistic calling (.001) with women having the
higher scores.
Summary, Conclusions, Implications, and
Recommendations
Summary
Null
hypothesis number one was rejected as there was a significant difference found
between NF’s and the other three temperaments on the servant leader quality of
emotional healing. The NF individual’s primary need is “to be authentic and
care for others,” and the NF is esteemed for being a good listener (NCTI, 1993). These characteristics are in line with
emotional healing which is essential for the servant leader who is leading others
who are experiencing a personal trauma or hardship. It is likely NF’s are not only naturally
skilled at emotional healing but have also had the opportunity to practice it
more since people are naturally drawn to the NF’s listening and caring
attributes. Barbuto and Wheeler (2006)
describe leaders using emotional healing as “highly empathetic and great
listeners, making them adept at facilitating the healing process” (p. 11).
A
servant leader has an awareness of his/her surroundings, picks up cues from the
environment, and uses those to anticipate consequences (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). Individuals with the NF temperament trust
their intuition and feelings and their specialty is people (NCTI, 1993). The difference in wisdom scores for NF’s as
compared to their counterparts (NT’s, SP’s, and SJ’s) is explained by the NF’s
ability to read the environment, made up of people, and use their
intuition. The description of NF’s and
wisdom go hand-in-hand.
Conclusions
The
following conclusions can be determined from this study.
1. NF’s have a greater tendency to develop
emotional healing and wisdom as a servant leader than other temperaments.
2. The four temperaments did not have any
servant leadership antecedents towards persuasive mapping, wisdom, or
organizational stewardship when compared with each other.
3. Women rated themselves higher on emotional
healing and altruistic calling than men, creating a gender difference on these
two servant leadership subscales.
Implications
The
NF and Servant Leadership
This
study implies that NF’s and women may have antecedents leading to some of the
qualities which make a servant leader.
There should be caution in saying all NF’s have emotional healing and
wisdom or all women have emotional healing and altruistic calling, since both
men and women were part of the emotional healing sample in this study. Caution
is also warranted since this was a self-report study. Finally, since the NF sample size was small at
3%, one cannot over generalize, although all samples met the homogeneity
assumption (Table 7). NF’s in the
general population make up about 12% of all people.
Also,
the researcher would imply that temperament is not an antecedent for becoming a
servant leader. However, temperament can
be a predictor for two aspects of servant leadership being found in greater
numbers in the NF population. Therefore,
NF’s may find servant leadership qualities easier to develop since they inherently
have two of the qualities, emotional healing and wisdom. The NF’s are not the only group to have
servant leadership qualities, nor do they show a significant difference in all
servant leadership subscales. NF’s do,
however, have many of the qualities DeGraaf, Tilley, & Neal, (2001), indicate people want from their leaders, including
listening and empowerment.
The
SJ and Servant Leadership
The
SJ temperament group’s results were surprising given their inclination to
serve. First, the SJ’s showed up as the
largest number of individuals in this study given that they make up 38% of the
population, and knowing that they are inclined to serve in professions
involving government and service, this was not a revelation (Keirsey &
Bates, 1984). Since this group is the
most likely to be in a servant leadership positions, the questions are: why do the SJ’s not dominate the servant
leadership scores and why is there not even one subscale factor on which they
rate higher on than any one of the other temperaments?
The
researcher raises the question that SJ’s, even though they are inclined to
serve, are too focused on keeping the rules and traditions of the organization
which resulting in their ignoring the human component to rate higher on SLQ
subscale scores. Perhaps, they are
serving a structure not the people in the structure. Organizational stewardship
would seem to be a subscale score they should rate higher on since it focuses
on the organization making a positive difference in society. The quandary begins with the SJ wanting to do
business as it has been done in the past (Keirsey & Bates, 1984), and
organizational stewardship implies the leader will lead organizational change
in developing new programs and outreach.
Does this mean we have leaders naturally inclined to service who are not
servant leaders?
The
SP and Servant Leadership
The
SP temperament makes up 38% of the population, but only 12% of the sample
size. Where are the SP’s? They are more likely to be working for these
county officials as foreman of the road crews with tools and machinery at hand. The county officials, who are of the SP
temperament, more than likely, took on the county official position to come in and
negotiate a crisis and clean up a messy situation. In servant leadership, they are going to
focus their attention on putting out fires.
The followers of the SP are usually “fully confident in the negotiator’s
decisions and directions” (Keirsey & Bates, 1984). Why then did the SP not rate higher than
other temperaments on persuasive mapping and wisdom?
The
researcher suggests the idea the SP leader does not energize under planned
change. Persuasive mapping, as proposed
by Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), is a characteristic of a leader “skilled at
mapping issues and conceptualizing greater possibilities, and are compelling
when articulating these opportunities” (p. 11); this is energizing to an SP
leader in times of crisis, but would be boring in daily routine. Therefore when answering the questions on the
SLQ, the SP may likely rate persuasive mapping skills as “sometimes” or
“rarely”.
Wisdom,
is also an area, the SP leader can excel except for two reasons. First the SP leader can anticipate
consequences and interpret cues from the environment which brings about wisdom,
but are likely to ignore the past history and how that is affecting the current
environmental cues. Second, the leader
will only be challenged to use their skills in wisdom when solving a crisis and
not in daily routine. Therefore, given
that subscale scores are based on how often you use the servant leader
characteristic and not whether or not you are capable of it, the SP rates
him/herself lower.
NT
and Servant Leadership
The NT leader when serving an
organization is more likely to focus on how to design servant leadership in the
organization. The NT will draw up a
blueprint of what the organization will look like in the future if other
leaders implement emotional healing, altruistic calling, organizational
stewardship, wisdom, and persuasive mapping.
Followers will be caught up in the NT’s vision, but then the NT will
lose the followers when communication lacks and too much complexity of the blueprint
have been shared. The blueprint will be
perceived as the NT working on persuasive mapping when conceptualizing greater
possibilities which can then lead to the NT preparing the organization for
increased organizational stewardship. According
to Keirsey & Bates (1984), the NT leader will move on then leaving the
execution and construction to the SJ leader to put rules and regulations with
the plan, the NF leader to rally the people to work on the blueprint, and the
SP leader to put energy and immediacy to the blueprint. Therefore,
the researcher believes the NT is aware of the servant leadership
characteristics but does not internalize them.
The NT, however, will practice the skills to be seen as competent. The lack of internalization but knowledge of
the SLQ subscales could cause the NT to rate themselves average, just enough to
be competent. Therefore, only having a
significant difference with NF’s on emotional healing, but not different than
the other temperaments on the other four factors.
Understanding one’s own
temperament can assist the individual leader in understanding which servant
leadership characteristics will develop naturally. From there, the leader can assess which
servant leadership qualities are lacking and can decide which qualities to concentrate
on developing first.
Temperament
creates a relationship between personality dichotomies to specify a whole, as
does combining the individual SLQ subscales to create a whole servant
leader. Although NF’s are high in
emotional healing, to only have this quality without an altruistic calling or
organizational stewardship would diminish what it means to be a servant
leader.
Graham’s
(1991) recommendation to research other antecedents such as genuine humility,
high empathy, and communication skills, does align with the NF’s taking pride
in being empathetic, having the characteristic of authenticity, and being a
good listener. Although temperament,
especially for the NF, has proven to be an antecedent for two of the SLQ
subscales, it is important to note that temperament will only be one of the
antecedents for predicting servant leadership.
In this study, gender also demonstrated a significant difference on the
same subscale of emotional healing, as the NF temperament did, furthering the
point that more than one antecedent exists as a predictor for servant
leadership qualities.
Organizational
Stewardship scores were consistently high among all temperaments. County officials, especially those elected as
commissioners and supervisors, are often mandated through legislation or asked
through proposals from the community, to develop programs and provide outreach
to the underprivileged constituents in their county. Consistent scores of the participants high in
organizational stewardship would suggest the county official, regardless of
temperament type, is preparing their county to make a positive contribution to
society.
Recommendations
from the Study
1. County
Officials should have some type of
education and/or training in the area of servant leadership to enhance their
effectiveness as public servants.
2. County
Officials should learn about their
own temperament along with the attributes of other temperaments to use the
strengths of each in the decision making process. This could lead to positive relationship
development among county officials. .
Recommendations
for Further Study
1. Follow-up studies including the extraversion
and introversion functions should be done to examine the effect of those
personality factors with the SLQ.
2. Follow-up studies on the preliminary findings
of this author. Using a more balanced
group of temperaments is recommended.
3. Follow-up studies on the preliminary findings
of this author on the personality dichotomies is
recommended along with personality types and SLQ subscale scores. 4.
Antecedents of servant leadership should continue to be explored, as
Graham (1991) had recommended. Further
studies using other servant leadership populations such as clergy, judges,
service organizations, or teachers using temperament is recommended. Personality, gender, and age should also be
further explored as antecedents to servant leadership.
5. Training should be developed to help
potential servant leaders develop their servant leadership qualities,
particularly in terms of emotional healing and wisdom. This training should leverage the expertise
of the land-grant system. Cooperative Extension
programs and personnel could deliver to audiences outside academia. Those who are currently serving and are
starting to feel “a calling” to lead would be a prime audience to begin a
grassroots training/development effort. To target people who are not currently serving
would ignore the first premise of servant leadership to serve first, and then
aspire to lead (Greenleaf, 1970).
References
Barbuto, J. E. & Wheeler, D. W.
(2006). Scale Development and Construct
Clarification of Servant
Leadership. Group & Organization Management, 31, 300-326.
Burkhardt, J. C.
& Spears, L. C. (2000). Servant leadership
and philanthropic institutions.
Indianapolis, IN:
The Greenleaf Center.
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Applied Psyhcological Types. The Reliability and Validity
of the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator® Instrument. Accessed November 5, 2006. http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/reliability-validity.htm.
De Pree, Max (1992). Leadership jazz.
Doubleday.
DeGraaf, D., Tilley, C., &
Neal, L. (2001). Servant leadership characteristics in organizational life. Indianapolis,
IN: The Greenleaf
Center.
Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Germane, J. C.
(1987). Looking at type and temperament I. Graphically comparing type and temperament: A syncretic view. Journal
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Gardener, W. L. & Martinko, M. J. (1996). Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to study managers: A literature review
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November 5, 2006.
Graham, J. W. (1991). Servant-leadership in organizations:
Inspirational and moral. Leadership Quarterly, 2(2), 105-119.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as leader. Westfield,
IN: Greenleaf
Center.
Greeenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the
nature of legitimate power and
greatness. New Jersey:
Paulist Press
Keirsey, D. &
Bates, M. (1984). Please understand me. California:
Prometheus Nemesis Book
Company.
Myers &
Briggs Foundation website.
http://www.myersbriggs.org. Accessed November 5, 2006.
Myers, I. B. and McCaulley, M. H.
(1985). Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. California:
Consulting Psychologist Press.
Myers, I. B. (1998). Introductions
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CPP, Inc.
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1, 2006.
NCTI (1993). Real Colors Adult Workbook. Phoenix, Arizona: National Curriculum and
Training Institute, Inc.
Spears, Larry. (1998). The Power of
Servant Leadership. Westfield,
IN:
Greenleaf Center.
Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Williams,
Frederick. (1991). Reasoning with
statistics: How to read quantitative research, 4th
ed. Orlando,
Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
TABLES
Table 1.
Frequency Distribution of participants by
personality temperament.
|
Temperament
|
Frequency (N=251)
|
Percent
|
|
SJ
SP
NT
NF
Non-conclusive
|
n=188
n=29
n=26
n=8
n=11
|
75%
12%
10%
3%
-
|
Table 2
Frequency Distribution of participants by
gender.
|
Gender
|
Frequency (N=262)
|
Percent
|
|
Female
Male
|
n=60
n=202
|
23%
77%
|
Table 3
Frequency Distribution of participants by
age.
|
Age
|
Frequency (N=262)
|
Percent
|
|
Age 40 and under
Age 50-59
Age 60-69
Age 70 and older
|
n=46
n=90
n=80
n=46
|
18%
34%
30%
18%
|
Table 4
Differences between temperaments based on SLQ subscale
Emotional Healing using Tukey’s HSD
|
Level of
significance between temperament and
Emotional Healing
|
.010
(based on one-way ANOVA at alpha = .05)
|
|
Temperament
|
Mean Difference
|
Standard Error
|
Significance
|
|
NF –NT
NF-SJ
NF-SP
NT-SJ
NT-SP
SJ-SP
|
2.962
2.947
3.793
.015
.832
.846
|
1.123
1.003
1.109
.581
.750
.554
|
.044*
.019*
.004*
1.000
.685
.423
|
* Differences found at a
significant level, <.05
Table 5
Differences between temperaments based on SLQ subscale
Wisdom using Tukey’s HSD
|
Level of
significance between temperament and Wisdom
|
.007
(based on one-way ANOVA at alpha = .05)
|
|
Temperament
|
Mean Difference
|
Standard Error
|
Significance
|
|
NF –NT
NF-SJ
NF-SP
NT-SJ
NT-SP
SJ-SP
|
2.788
2.622
3.784
.166
.996
1.162
|
1.108
.990
1.095
.574
.740
.547
|
.060
.042*
.004*
.992
.535
.148
|
* Differences found at a
significant level, <.05
Table 6
ANOVA results of
Temperament Differences based on the subscales from the SLQ
|
SLQ subscale Factor
|
Sum of Squares
|
df
|
Mean Square
|
F
|
Significance
|
|
Emotional Healing
|
90.238
|
3
|
30.079
|
3.900
|
.010*
|
|
Wisdom
|
93.740
|
3
|
31.247
|
4.158
|
.007*
|
|
Altruistic Calling
|
16.777
|
3
|
5.592
|
1.057
|
.368
|
|
Persuasive Mapping
|
43.747
|
3
|
14.582
|
1.392
|
.246
|
|
Organizational
Stewardship
|
49.620
|
3
|
16.540
|
1.912
|
.128
|
* Differences found at a
significant level, <.05
Table 7
Test of Homogeneity
|
Variables
|
Levene Statistic
|
