The Downside and Darkside of Servant Leadership

Scholarly, as well as practitioner, interest in servant leadership has increased dramatically in recent years. The foundation of servant leadership is the desire to utilize leadership to serve others. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that researchers have linked servant leader behaviors to a growing list of positive outcomes for individuals, teams, and organizations. However, existing literature has largely neglected to consider the limitations and potential negative outcomes of this form of leadership. The purpose of this symposium is to focus research on the limitations and undesirable consequences that can arise from servant leadership behaviors. We present a series of conceptual and empirical papers that explore the boundary conditions and mechanisms of the downside and darkside of servant leadership.