Unlike leadership approaches with a top-down hierarchical style, servant leadership instead emphasizes collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. At heart, the individual is a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead in order to better serve others, not to increase their own power. The objective is to enhance the growth of individuals in the organization and increase teamwork and personal involvement.

 

This descriptive, quantitative research study will attempt to explore the existing phenomena associated with the practice and presence of servant leadership. Specifically, through this study, the researcher will survey a total of 100 randomly selected volunteers, workers, and leaders within a distinguished nonprofit organization (NPO). This population is chosen based upon their practice and high regard of servant leadership. Based upon the multi-level, employee perception, the results of this study will be used to describe the association between the presence of servant leadership and job satisfaction as it relates to organizational success.

 

Founded on Arfsten’s (2006) recommendation for future research, the data for this study will be collected while utilizing an online adaptation of Servant Organizational Leadership Assessment (SOLA) (Laub, 1999). This instrument will provide essential response data based upon Laub’s (1999) key characterizations of servant leadership: value people, develop people, build community, practice authenticity, provide leadership, and share leadership. The data will be examined based upon gender, age, tenure, and employment level.

 

As previously tested by Arfsten (2006), this study will include research questions which will explore the characterization and perception of servant leadership within a successful nonprofit organization. The characterization, based on the development of Laub’s (1999) OLA, included the impact of the following dependent variables: value people, develops people, builds community, practices authenticity, provides leadership, and shares leadership. The research questions are as follows:

 

1.      How are the characteristics of servant leadership perceived by the NPO?

2.      Do the perceptions of the servant leadership characteristics vary among the gender of the NPO?

3.      Do the perceptions of the servant leadership characteristics vary among the tenure of the employees within the NPO?

4.      Do the perceptions of the servant leadership characteristics vary among the employment level of the employees within the NPO?

5.      Does a correlation exist between the presence and practice of servant leadership characteristics and job satisfaction within the NPO?

 1.      How does the CompStat management model affect the organizational health of municipal law enforcement agencies?

2.      Can individual servant leadership characteristics emerge within municipal law enforcement agencies that utilize the CompStat management model?

This chapter discloses the methodology utilized to assess servant-leadership, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the organization. The methodology should reveal a correlation between servant leadership and job satisfaction and organizational commitment. 

The research setting was Evangel Church in Western Queens, New York City. The church contains 400-500 congregants and approximately 65 volunteers and 10 employees. The church provides adult age and life-stage related groups on Sunday morning alongside nursery through grade twelve Sunday school classes. The church holds choir and worship team practices on Tuesday nights, Bible study and discipleship groups for all ages on Wednesdays, youth and prayer on Fridays and hosts various conferences, concerts and ministry sponsored events throughout the year. The pastor was presented with the survey topic and agreed. The volunteers and employees were asked to remain after a Sunday service to take the survey.

The church was selected because of its longevity. Evangel church has been in Western Queens for seventy five years and its present pastor has been there forty two years. The church has been housed in four locations throughout its history and has been through some extensive building projects. The church also runs a grammar school and high school with a combined population of five hundred children. Prior to the last building project, the church was holding three services on Sunday mornings for approximately 1100 congregants. Since entering the new sanctuary which seats about 1800, the number of congregants has diminished. The reasons for this are unclear. The area around the church has seen much new development with an influx of young professionals whose children are or will soon be of school age. These last two issues along with the longevity of the institution made it prime for study.

The employees and volunteers were provided with a letter inviting them to complete a survey on the church. The date was set for a Sunday after service with lunch provided and entertainment for the children. The results were entered into an electronic database. The data was then coded and analyzed utilizing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). 

The survey was somewhat lengthy and consisted of three sections with a cover page. The cover page served to allay apprehension by insuring anonymity of the respondents and providing general instructions for completion. The first section was a self reporting demographic page to obtain age, gender, years of attendance, position, role (worker, supervisor, or manager), education, employment status and ethnicity. The second section was the Organization Leadership Assessment (OLA) (Laub 1999), used by permission from Dr. James Alan Laub, its originator. The OLA is a 66 item likert scale questionnaire which tests for six aspects of organizational servant-leadership plus job satisfaction. The third and final section of the survey was the Three-Component Model (TCM) of commitment (Meyer & Allen 2002). The TCM is an 18 item likert scale questionnaire which test for three aspects of organizational commitment: affective attachment (want to stay), continuance commitment (need to stay), and normative obligation (ought to stay).

Once survey is complete the raw data will be processed through SPSS data analysis. Demographic data will be analyzed via frequency charts, statistical mean and median, cross tabulation and charts. The OLA and TCM findings will be correlated utilizing Pearson and ANOVA to support or deny the hypotheses.