Leadership beyond Narcissism: On the Role of Compassionate Love as Individual Antecedent of Servant Leadership

Tim Brouns, Kai Externbrink and Pablo Salvador Blesa Aledo
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Tim Brouns: Economía y Empresa, UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, 30107 Murcia, Spain
Kai Externbrink: Economics and Management, FOM University of Applied Sciences, 45127 Essen, Germany
Pablo Salvador Blesa Aledo: Economía y Empresa, UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, 30107 Murcia, Spain

Administrative Sciences, 2020, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: While we already know a lot about the outcomes and boundary conditions of servant leadership, there is still a need for research on its antecedents. Building on the theory of purposeful work behavior and further theorizing by van Dierendonck and Patterson (2015), we examine if leaders’ propensity for compassionate love will evoke servant leadership behavior. At the same time, we contrast compassionate love to leaders’ narcissism as psychological counterpart to compassionate love, because narcissism is not associated with leader effectiveness, but with leader emergence instead. We collected data from 170 leader-follower-dyads in a field study in Germany, while measuring leaders’ compassionate love and narcissism, and followers’ perceptions of servant leadership. We found a positive association between leaders’ compassionate love and servant leadership behavior, while narcissism was negatively associated with servant leadership. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as pathways for future research are discussed.

Keywords: servant leadership; compassionate love; narcissism; antecedents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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