The dilemmas of ‘servant leader as manager’:

Contextual approach to managerial work as a context within servant leadership

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the dilemmas faced by managers who practice servant leadership in organizations. For this purpose, this study adopted leadership contextual approach with servant leadership theory as theoretical foundation and managerial work study as contextual foundation. Specifically, this study utilized fragmentation, emotional inertia, boss management, and organizational type as managerial work’s contexts, and rubbed them against servant leadership mechanisms. This study shows that servant leadership by managers is an extremely paradoxical process that is fraught with constraints in multiple aspects, including workload, anxiety about uncertainty, and relationships with manager’s boss and the organization. In addition, it suggests that practicing servant leadership in real organizations and workplaces is a process that requires overcoming various constraints.