Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature concerning servant leadership. The paper identifies the existing themes present within the servant leadership literature. This allows it to determine where the research concerning servant leadership lies at present and make recommendations as to further potential areas for research. It further identifies the skills necessary for servant leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper follows a rigorous three-step systematic literature review (SLR) process to identify the relevant evidence to answer the research questions. The paper disseminates the results and presents them by way of a descriptive analysis. It also conducts a thematic analysis to further determine answers to the research questions.

Findings

The paper found that the most prominent themes in the servant leadership literature are values, literature reviews, behaviour, assessments, performance, characteristics and antecedents. Additionally, the paper finds that the skills necessary for servant leadership are empathy, listening, communication and trust. The review also identified gaps in the research both methodologically and empirically. It showed that more qualitative research is needed with regard to servant leadership. Furthermore, the development of empirically tested frameworks is necessary within the phenomenon.

Originality/value

Servant leadership is a phenomenon which is lacking in a reliable, validated SLR, which this paper presents. Additionally the originality of this paper lies in its recommendations for further research which are based upon the findings of a thematic analysis. As of yet, such recommendations have not yet been made within the field of servant leadership.

中文翻译：

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系统地审查仆人的领导

目的

本文的目的是提供有关仆人领导力的文献的全面概述。本文确定了仆人领导文学中存在的现有主题。这样，它就可以确定有关仆人领导力的研究目前所处的位置，并对进一步的潜在研究领域提出建议。它进一步确定了仆人领导所必需的技能。

设计/方法/方法

该论文遵循严格的三步系统文献综述（SLR）过程，以识别相关证据来回答研究问题。该论文传播了结果，并通过描述性分析的方式给出了结果。它还进行主题分析，以进一步确定研究问题的答案。

发现

该论文发现，仆人领导文学中最突出的主题是价值观，文学评论，行为，评估，绩效，特征和前因。此外，本文发现，仆人领导所必需的技能是同理心，倾听，沟通和信任。审查还从方法论和经验上确定了研究中的差距。它表明，需要对仆人的领导进行更多的定性研究。此外，在现象内部必须开发经过经验检验的框架。

创意/价值

本文提出的一种可靠的，经过验证的SLR缺乏仆人领导的现象。此外，本文的独创性在于它基于主题分析的发现，为进一步研究提出了建议。到目前为止，在仆人领导领域还没有提出这样的建议。