DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

In recent decades, servant leadership has gained popularity as an ethical and human-centered approach to leadership. At its best, this model shifts focus from leader-centric power to service-based influence, and from control to empowerment. Yet, like any leadership paradigm, it is not without risk. In certain contexts, the very strengths of servant leadership may turn into liabilities if left unchecked.

Below, we explore what makes servant leadership powerful, when it can become problematic, and how to navigate those risks.

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What is Servant Leadership?

Servant leadership describes a style of leadership in which the leader’s primary motivation is to serve others. That means prioritizing the growth, well-being and performance of team members, rather than the other way around.
Core behaviours typically include empathy, active listening, stewardship, commitment to personal growth of others, and community building.

Servant leadership asks: How can I enable the people I lead to be at their best? rather than How can I make them achieve my vision?

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The upside: When servant leadership works well

1. Increased trust and psychological safety
   A leader who listens, supports and invests in people builds a climate where team members feel safe to speak up, innovate and learn. Such psychological safety is critical in knowledge work, creative environments and high-risk sectors (such as healthcare or safety-critical work).
2. Improved engagement and retention
   When employees feel genuinely valued and have leaders who invest in their growth, they are more committed, less likely to leave, and often perform better. Engagement fosters discretionary effort.
3. Focus on development and long-term capacity
   Servant leadership is not just about immediate tasks; it fosters an environment of continuous learning, mentoring and growth. In fast-changing environments, this capacity building is an advantage.
4. Alignment with purpose and meaning
   In mission-driven organisations (non-profits, health & care, education), servant leadership connects naturally with a purpose beyond profit. That alignment creates resilience and coherence.
5. Inclusive and ethical culture
   By prioritising others’ welfare and community, servant leaders support a culture of inclusion, ethics and sustainability rather than domination, fear or rigid hierarchy.

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When Servant Leadership can become problematic

While many organisations praise servant leadership, emerging research suggests that under certain conditions it may backfire. Key risk areas include:

a) Ambiguity and lack of direction

When a leader focuses excessively on serving without providing clear direction, structure or accountability, teams may drift. Vision, priorities and decision-making may suffer.

b) Role overload and blurred boundaries

Teams may become dependent on the leader’s support, or the leader may overextend themselves—leading to burnout or confusion in roles (“Who decides what?”).

c) Tolerance of poor performance

A service-centric culture may de-emphasize performance standards or fail to enforce consequences, thereby eroding organisational effectiveness.

d) Hinderance in high-pressure, performance-intense contexts

In environments where speed, decisiveness and hierarchy are critical (e.g. large scale operations, crisis response, hard-nosed sales), servant leadership’s emphasis on consultation, empathy and consensus might slow decisions or weaken accountability.

e) Helping-culture can overshadow responsibility

As research suggests, servant leadership may generate “helping behaviours” that feel positive but if they replace formal job requirements, they can shift culture toward unproductive “kindness” rather than effectiveness.

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How to mitigate the risks: Balancing service with structure

Here are practical strategies to keep servant leadership strong and healthy, even in challenging contexts.

1. Clearly articulate vision, priorities and performance metrics
   Even while serving others, the leader must set direction and hold the team accountable. Every meeting, coaching session or check-in should include a link to outcomes: What are we aiming for? How are we doing?
2. Define roles and boundaries
   Service does not mean doing everything for everyone. Clarify responsibilities, avoid role ambiguity, and teach the team to respect boundaries – including the servant leader’s own limits.
3. Maintain rigorous feedback and consequences
   Growth-oriented cultures still need performance management. Provide regular feedback, both positive and corrective. If someone consistently underperforms, treat it as a development issue – not as a conflict between service and standards.
4. Develop situational leadership agility
   Servant leadership is powerful in many contexts, but not always sufficient. Leaders must be able to adapt their style – sometimes being directive, sometimes being supportive. Recognising the context (routine vs chaos, scale vs prototype) is critical.
5. Encourage autonomy and shared leadership
   Rather than the leader bearing all the service load, distribute empowerment. Build networks of coaches, mentors, and peer support so that the culture of service becomes distributed, not dependent on one person.
6. Guard the health of the leader
   Because servant leadership often involves high emotional labour, leaders must practice self-care, delegate their own load, and maintain sustainable energy. A burned-out servant leader undermines the very culture they aimed to build.
7. Monitor climate as well as tasks
   Use measurement tools to assess motivational climate, team trust, psychological safety — but also track outcomes: efficiency, error rates, innovation speed. If the climate is positive but output is declining, ask: is helping behaviour overshadowing performance?

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Integrating Servant Leadership into organisations

For organisations seeking to adopt or refine servant leadership, consider the following steps:

• Start with clarity of purpose: What is the organisation’s mission, and how does leadership service contribute to it?
• Train and model behaviours: Provide leadership development that emphasizes listening, coaching, growth mind-set—but also decision-making and accountability.
• Embed in systems: Performance frameworks, feedback loops, reward systems and decision paths must align with the leadership philosophy—otherwise, culture will drift toward the informal standard.
• Review and adjust: Regularly revisit: Is the leadership style contributing to the desired outcomes? If not, ask where the imbalance lies: too much service, too little structure?
• Scale sustainably: As organisations grow, servant leadership may need augmentation by systems, process, hierarchy and governance. The principle remains—but the execution evolves.

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To protect is also to serve

Servant leadership remains one of the most inspiring and effective leadership models for organisations seeking ethical, human-centred and purpose-driven performance. But it is not a panacea. Without balance, it may veer into directionless kindness, boundary erosion or performance drag.

The greatest servant leaders do not simply serve—they also set direction, hold standards and build capability. They see service not as softness, but as a strategic asset. By combining heart with structure, they transform teams not only into caring communities—but into resilient, high-impact organisations.

In the end, servant leadership is not about doing everything for others—it’s about enabling others to do their best work. And when that enabling is done with clarity, accountability and purpose, the results speak not just to culture—but to performance.