A human resources view on servant leadership

Substantial research has emerged that has clearly demonstrated the positive benefits of human resource management practices that are supportive of employee growth and well-being. Immediate leaders play a critical role in enacting these practices. Servant leadership is especially well aligned to employee-focused human resources management (HRM) practices. Thus, this chapter integrates servant leadership theory with human resources management. In order to provide a detailed integration of servant leadership with HRM, the alignment of specific servant leader dimensions with corresponding HRM practices and outcomes for individuals and groups is examined alongside human resources policies and practices which facilitate or impact servant leadership dimensions. This provides a framework for examining servant leadership at the dimension level along with an exploration of how those dimensions interact with organizational decisions to produce and promote desired outcomes.