Converging pathways of contemporary leadership: In the footsteps of Māori and servant leadership

Abstract

The world is a turbulent space for leaders and organisations. Leadership scandals and failures have changed views on leadership behaviour in the West. There is increased demand for more ethical leadership, inspired by ideas of humanness, and care of the well-being of all stakeholders. This article offers our conceptualisation of two emerging domains in leadership – servant leadership and Indigenous Māori leadership. Both not only have strong resonance with each other but also reflect a common concern with individual and collective morality that draws us to the significance of human relationships and, context-specificity specifically as derived from worldview. We suggest these two leadership domains offer transformative realisation of leadership development that accepts alternative ontologies, epistemologies and worldviews, providing for richer and more meaningful understanding of leadership for the 21st century.

Keywords

Māori leadership servant leadership ethical leadership

Introduction

Scholarship and practice of 21st-century leadership is faced with a host of systemic challenges in the contemporary business world. Researchers are increasingly paying attention to a variety of forms of leadership characterised as destructive, which includes injustice, aggression, bullying and unethical behaviours (Ghoshal, 2005; Krasikova et al., 2013; Schyns and Schilling, 2013). Challenges including climate change, environmental degradation, social justice and the well-publicised failures of leadership in organisations such as Enron, Tyco Ltd and, most recently, FIFA have drawn critical attention (Knights and O’Leary, 2006; Senge et al., 2015; Tomlinson, 2014). Consequently, leadership in practice is under much more intense scrutiny. Particularly, the deeper consideration of the morality and motivations of our business leaders (Knights and O’Leary, 2006), which draws us into a space where personal integrity, moral ethics and care for others are critical variables included in the process of leadership. Therefore, this article draws broadly from the convergence of servant and Māori leadership literatures, respectively, each of which shares a common concern with individual and collective morality that draws us to the significance of human relationships and, context-specificity specifically as derived from worldview. In doing so, we seek to demonstrate the transformative realisation of leadership development that accepts alternative ontologies, epistemologies and worldviews, providing for richer and more meaningful understanding of leadership for the 21st century.

Over the years, leadership scholars have called for different perspectives and ‘new frameworks of interpretation which yield new or deeper understanding of processes to which the term “leadership” is usually attributed’ (Knights and Willmott, 1992: 761). Thus, prompting innovative ways of understanding and researching the notion of the leader and leadership that accounts for the complex needs of organisations today (Lichtenstein et al., 2006). Consequently, there are several emerging areas of ‘new leadership theory’ (Foldy et al., 2008) that advocate alternative approaches and interpretations of leadership practice that engender an ethic of responsibility and care for others (Avolio et al., 2009; Brown and Treviño, 2006; Spiller and Stockdale, 2013). Therefore, we offer insight into leadership theory development that recognises the importance of people, and the way they conceptualise themselves in relation to others, and context, as influenced by beliefs and values (Avolio et al., 2009; Hamilton and Bean, 2005; McElhatton and Jackson, 2012; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Spiller and Stockdale, 2013).

To begin, we offer a brief review of the literature associated with servant and Māori leadership, respectively, to identify key characteristics. We do so not to reflect a deep accounting of these concepts, but rather offer it to provide our understanding of these two leadership concepts. Servant leadership is a form of leadership that accentuates leadership style as people-oriented, stressing personal integrity and service to others (Greenleaf, 2002; Liden et al., 2008; Stone et al., 2004; van Dierendonck, 2011). Other attributes include stewardship, empowerment, building community, trust, honesty and appreciation of others (Russell and Stone, 2002), reflecting an altruistic ethic of care when servant leaders serve those whom they are leading.

Leadership from an indigenous perspective is not a new phenomenon. As with Indigenous peoples worldwide, Māori have always led and recognised leadership qualities in their people; at the centre of which has always been the cultural values that embody Te Ao Māori, the Māori world. Te Ao Māori, locates Māori philosophy, ethics and knowledge (wisdom) in a central role, and is therefore foundational to Māori thinking and practice (Marsden, 2003).¹ Spiller and Stockdale (2013) provide a succinct summary of Indigenous Māori conceptualisations of ‘life energies’ and their influence over leadership and organisation practice. They present five ‘energies’ connected to Te Ao Māori, as whakapapa (genealogies), wairua (spirituality), mana (inherited and endowed authority), mauri (life force) and hau (reciprocity). These practices are people-oriented and constructed primarily for the care and well-being of the people in the organisation.

We then continue on to reflect on critical ‘touch-points’ between the two perspectives of leadership and offer a ‘first glance’ discussion on the implications for leadership theory development for the 21st Century. It is not our aim to provide a unilateral definition of either leadership theory as they are bound to socially specific contexts. Rather, we see it as a platform on which we base our initial thoughts regarding the potential convergence of Indigenous Māori and servant leadership and outline specific implications for practitioners and scholarship of leadership. This article concludes by proposing a broader series of questions related to the philosophical and practical consequences of understanding the nature of leadership as more dynamic and context dependent in an increasingly turbulent and diverse world.

Servant leadership

Servant leaders are defined by their character and demonstration of commitment to serve others (Parris and Peachy, 2013; Stone et al., 2004). Therefore, the desire to serve combined with the motivation to lead is the basis of servant leadership (van Dierendonck, 2011). Greenleaf, the progenitor of servant leadership, writes:

It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first… the difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant – first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are served. The best test is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants. And what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? (1970: 4)

Servant leadership shifts the current orthodoxy of leadership thinking away from the attainment, exercise and retention of power (Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009) and towards a model of powerful engagement through service. Spears (1996: 33) offers an enduring description of servant leadership as:

One which is based on teamwork and community; one which seeks to involve others in decision making; one which is strongly based in ethical and caring behaviour; and one which is enhancing the growth of people, while at the same time improving the caring and quality of our many institutions.

Therefore, the servant leader’s primary objective is to serve and meet the needs of others (Farling et al., 1999; Russell and Stone, 2002), and to achieve communal goals by prioritising the aspirations of others before ones-self. Servant leadership demonstrates a wide range of behaviour focussing attention onto the needs of those being served, serving multiple stakeholders, including communities and society as a whole (Graham, 1991; Hamilton and Bean, 2005).

The contemporary understanding of servant leadership has been linked to notions of ethics, morality and spirituality primarily through its ethos of service to others (Laub, 1999; Parris and Peachy, 2013). The philosophical basis of servant leadership highlights the importance of ‘being’ and ‘doing’, which represents a significant paradigm shift in how the servant leader orients their primary motivation towards serving first and foremost, and constructing the act of leadership as that of steward or caretaker (Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002). Servant leadership differs from more traditional approaches to leadership in that it stresses a positioning of self in relation to others and a commitment to the long-term relationship with those being led. To date, several theoretical models of servant leadership have been introduced that incorporate variables connected to the conceptualisation of the leader (self-concept) and act of leadership (primary intent) (Parris and Peachy, 2013; Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002; van Dierendonck, 2011). Table 1 provides an overview of the most prominent values attributed to servant leadership to date, which are by no means exhaustive, merely representative.

Table 1.

Values attributed to servant leadership.

Authors	Values	Description
Laub (1999)	1. Values people	Serving others needs before his or her own, and through receptive, non-judgmental listening
	2. Developed people	Providing opportunities for learning and growth, and building others up through encouragement
	3. Builds community	Building strong personal relationships, working collaboratively and valuing the difference of others
	4. Displays authenticity	Being open and accountable, maintaining integrity and trust, and a willingness to learn
	5. Provides leadership	Providing vision for the future, taking initiative and clarifying goals for the good of those being led
	6. Shares leadership	Sharing power and releasing control, sharing status and promoting others

Spears and Lawrence (2002)	1. Listening	Recognising the importance of communication and identifying the will of others
	2. Empathy	Striving to accept and understand others
	3. Healing	Recognising the holistic nature of being human, and supporting personal development
	4. Aware	Being cognisant of what is going on around you, viewing situations holistically
	5. Persuasive	Seeking to influence, without resorting to positional power
	6. Conceptualisation	Seeking to arouse and nurture theirs and others abilities
	7. Foresight	Understanding lessons from the past, the present realities and likely outcomes for the future
	8. Stewardship	Committing to holding something in trust and serving others
	9. Growth of people	Nurturing personal, professional and spiritual growth of others
	10. Building community	Building connection between individuals and communities.

Liden et al., (2008)	1. Emotional healing	The act of showing sensitivity to others personal concerns
	2. Creating value for the community	A conscious, genuine concern for helping the community
	3. Conceptual skills	Possessing appropriate knowledge to be able to support and assist others
	4. Empowering	Encouraging and facilitating others
	5. Helping subordinates grow and succeed	Providing support and mentoring to facilitate career development of others
	6. Putting subordinates first	Using actions and words to illustrate that satisfying others work needs is a priority
	7. Behaving ethically	Interacting, openly, fairly and honestly with others
	8. Relationships	Making a genuine effort to know, understand and support others in the long-term
	9. Servanthood	Self-conceptualising as one who serves others first

Highlighting these values as foundational, Van Dierendonck (2011: 1232) identifies characteristics of servant leader as those who ‘empower and develop people; they show humility, are authentic, accept people for who they are, provide direction, and are stewards who work for the good of the whole’. Servant leadership is anchored in the human drive to bond with others and imbues a strong ethic of contributing to the betterment of society, and motivated by empowering and developing people with empathy and humility (Mittel and Dorfman, 2012). Understandably, much of the earlier work on servant leadership was dedicated on how to define the concept (for example, see Parris and Peachy, 2013). The first empirical work undertaken was conducted by Laub (1999), developing a model and survey to measure six dimensions of servant leadership: developing people, shared leadership, displaying authenticity, valuing people, providing leadership and building community. More recently, there has been a plethora of theoretical and empirical works dedicated to developing the field further. For example, there is a burgeoning body of work that focuses on the relationship between servant leadership and cross-cultural contexts (Hale and Fields, 2007; Hirschy et al., 2012; Mittel and Dorfman, 2012); comparative analysis between servant and transformative leadership (Stone et al., 2004; van Dierendonck et al., 2014); and, the role of servant leadership in satisfying followers needs and achieving improved form performance (Liden et al., 2014; Peterson et al., 2012).

Indigenous Māori leadership

We draw from a system of Māori leadership that embodies Te Ao Māori, the Māori world, which is interconnected, both physically, spiritually and philosophically (Marsden, 2003). In relation to Māori leadership, rangatira is a Māori term used to denote chiefly status and is associated with the notion of leadership. Manuhuia Bennett, a Māori elder reflected on the notion of leadership when he stated

te kai a te rangatira he kōrero, the food of the rangatira is talk; te tohu o te rangatira, he manaaki, the sign of a rangatira is being able to look after others, generosity; te mahi a te rangatira he whakatira i te iwi, the work of the rangatira is binding the iwi. (Manuhuia Bennett – Te Pīhopa Kaumātua (the Bishop, Kaumātua) as cited in Diamond, 2003: 67)

The statement of ‘he kōrero, he manaaki, he whakatira i te iwi’ draws us to the importance of communication, collaboration and connection as central features of the leadership role for rangatira in Māoridom. This is important to note because it suggests a unique system of leadership that is derived from cultural criteria that are bound to the norms, protocols, cultural traditions, kinship systems, economics, politics and social processes that still remain central features of life in Māori communities and organisations today (Durie, 2005).

Māori leadership draws from a culturally constituted form of practice heavily influenced by a specific worldview that guides practice (Spiller and Stockdale, 2013), which in this instance is kaupapa Māori. Kaupapa Māori is described as ‘the Māori way’ (Henry and Pene, 2001: 235), a term used to describe traditional Māori ways of doing, being and thinking that is informed by collective and intergenerational wisdom embodied by Te Ao Māori. Henare (2001) describes a Māori worldview as embodying principles of ‘tapu’, which recognises the essential potency of those things held to be sacred; ‘mana’, a religious power, authority and ancestral efficacy emerging in the social world; ‘mauri’, the energy that animates all living organisms; ‘wairua’, depicted as a spirit akin to a soul and all things in creation have one; and ‘hau’ described as a complex totalising system of exchange beginning with the gods, creation and social relationships. Table 2 provides an overview of values that underpin the Māori worldview.² These values provide the thread of continuity integrating the social fabric of Māori culture by providing meaning and informing practice in the community (Marsden, 2003).

Table 2.

Māori values.

Value	Meaning and underlying principle	Description
Manakitanga	Relationship with people • Mana – power, value and respect	This refers to the quality of caring, kindness, hospitality and showing respect for others. It reflects an expected standard of behaviour, an ideal that one should aspire to.
Whanaungatanga	Relationship amongst people • Whanau – familial relations	This refers to the collective interdependence between and among humankind, reflecting social relationality between all people.
Wairuatanga	Relationship with the gods • Wairua – the spirit	This refers to respecting the spiritual relationship to the ‘gods’ and the cosmos. Action must not damage the wairua/spirit of anything in the cosmos.
Kaitiakitanga	Relationship with the natural environment • Tiaki – to guard • Kaitiaki – a person, group or being that acts as a carer, guardian, protector.	This refers to acknowledgement that humans are guardians of the environment. Caring for and protecting the natural environment, because we are intertwined.

Taken together, these values inform traditional Māori ontology and assumptions about human nature; that is, ‘what is real’ for Māori (Henry and Pene, 2001). This provides the basis for recognising relationships between individuals and provides insight into a Māori worldview that represents the sacredness of all things and the significance of reciprocity in human relations (Henare, 2001). Ruwhiu and Cone (2013) explored the notion of Māori leadership as a form of pragmatic leadership and highlighted in their study how Māori leadership practice is relational and value rational, embedded within the innate connectedness of human beings and spirit. In this context, Māori leaders are accountable to their collective in less hierarchical authoritarian and more open, honest and caring ways. It is recognising that it is the mana, or power and authority vested in a leader gives it a communal aspect (Winiata, 1967). Thus, it can be ascertained that Māori leadership incorporates an element of ‘responsibility to’ the staff and broader community (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013).

Māori leadership can be described as a process of socialised experiences which instils an innate sense of a special approach to leadership and embedded relations (within iwi/tribal affiliation and whānau/familial relations) (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013). Spiller et al. (2011a, 2013) also provide deeper insight into the spiritual, cultural and social processes that flourish within the domains of Māori leadership and organisation. There is increasing scholarly attention in the literature shaping deeper understanding of leadership and organisation from within the context of Te Ao Māori, the Māori world (for example, see Haar and Delaney, 2009; Haar, 2013; Katene, 2010; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2010; Spiller et al., 2011b). This is a testament to its importance as an alternative perspective to leadership and organisation, but also the increasing strength of Indigenous Māori leadership and organisation in practice and research.

Leadership theory development for the 21st century

Bass and Steidlmeier (1999: 181) describe leadership as a ‘many-headed hydra’ that allows us to appreciate alternate perspectives of leadership. Therefore, the aim is not to subsume servant leadership into Indigenous forms, or vice versa. Rather, our aim has been to place them side-by-side on the landscape of leadership scholarship to develop richer understanding of these two ‘new’ perspectives of leadership theory and perhaps enhance the discussion around the contribution of such approaches. It is important to note that approaches to leadership that advocate selfless service is not a novel concept. The notion of service through leadership has been acknowledged for thousands of years, as a major theme in Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist thinking (Kriger and Seng, 2005; Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002; Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009; Wallace, 2007). For Indigenous peoples, whose worldviews embody ancient wisdoms, leadership is determined by the cultural, social, exchange and political traditions passed down through generations (Verbos and Humphries, 2014; Winiata, 1967) and have already emerged in modern organisation and leadership approaches. For example, the Māori wisdom tradition (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Spiller et al., 2011a), native American Indian (Warner and Grint, 2006) and indigenous Australian (Foley, 2008).

To simplify matters, from the servant leadership literature, we identified five main themes that reflected most strongly the notions of human relations and context, to focus on integrity, empathy, foresight, stewardship and community. We then reviewed the associated descriptions and ‘loosely’ aligned the characteristics of servant leadership that are customary for and at the heart of Māori approaches to leadership. Table 3 represents the convergence between the characteristics at the heart of Māori and servant leadership, respectively.³ Caution is warranted given the complexities involved in differentiating between models, concepts, attributes, antecedents and outcomes, particularly so when context invites variable interpretation and application (van Dierendonck, 2011). It is important to note that we are also not suggesting a precise ‘fit’ either, as that would not appropriately capture the ‘living and emergent’ experiences of people-oriented leadership or the cultural context of Te Ao Māori.

Table 3.

Connecting Māori and servant leadership.

Māori leader values Servant leader values	Manakitanga	Whanaungatanga	Wairuatanga	Kaitiakitanga
Integrity	Valuing and empowering people Ethical behaviour	Genuine acknowledgement of others and relationships	Authentic and honest	Being open and accountable
Empathy	Listening, valuing difference in others	Accepting and being aware of others and their connections	Recognising the holistic nature of the human being	Sensitivity to others concerns
Foresight	Possessing appropriate knowledge and supporting others	Learning from the past, understanding present realities and potential for the future	Viewing situations holistically	Future focus, visionary goals
Stewardship	Nurturing people’s growth and development in the long term	Serving others needs before self	Nurturing the spiritual growth of others	Seek to influence, not dictate Commitment to hold something in trust
Community	Shared leadership, interacting openly	Building relationships, maintaining connection between individuals and community	Conscious and genuine action for the holistic health of the community	Strong personal relationships, working collaboratively

Both servant and Māori leadership literatures, respectively, share a common concern with the significance of human relationships and context-specificity. Subsequently, for both servant and Māori leadership, a vital distinction is in leader focus, specifically the construction of the leader-self in relation to others and the act of leading. This ‘other’ focus has implications for the processes through which leadership relationships form and evolve (Bradbury and Lichtenstein, 2000; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Uhl-Bien, 2006). Through initial exploration, within and across the intersections of the matrix show similar ideas in regards to the philosophical orientation, which embody both servant and Indigenous leadership. The intersections reflect themes of leadership where notions of common humanity, meaning and value for humans in mind, body, emotion and spirit, truth and wisdom are evident. Of significance and relatively untouched in leadership scholarship to date are themes that recognise the temporality of relationships where past, present and future are connected (Marsden, 2003; Spiller and Stockdale, 2013). A convergence between the two perspectives of leadership suggests a much more holistic perspective to understanding leadership practice and research (Avolio et al., 2009; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Zhang et al., 2011). Further research would be needed not only to explore the philosophical relationship at each intersection but also to understand the practical considerations for leadership and organisation studies.

Implications for the way we view leadership theory and practice

The way leadership is understood and practiced is a space of constant negotiation and evolution. Throughout the mid- to late 19th century, there have been several dominant themes that have shaped the way leadership is understood. From traditional depictions of leadership that stem from Carlyle’s ‘Great Man’ theory, which viewed leadership as being primarily focused on specific traits, such as charisma, confidence and intelligence that differentiate effective from ineffective leaders (Avolio, 2007). To perspectives of leadership that study leader behaviour in terms of leader–follower exchange relationships, and reinforcement behaviours that transform and inspire followers to perform beyond expectations while transcending self-interest for the good of the organization (Avolio et al., 2009; Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999). In their review of leadership theory and research, Avolio et al. (2009) identified several new leadership models that included servant leadership. Although they do not specifically name Māori leadership, they acknowledge the various forms of cross-cultural and spiritually based forms of leadership that have emerged.

Servant and Indigenous leadership contribute to the continuing evolution of leadership literature by reflecting a more holistic and positive form of leadership. Importantly, they both enable different philosophic lenses, or worldviews to be used when exploring ‘what constitutes leadership’. As Morgan (1980) argues to understand the orthodoxy in organisation theory, we must understand the ‘relationship between different modes of theorising and research, and the worldviews they reflect’ (p. 606). We do not use the term worldview in any hegemonic capacity, but rather view this space as a useful starting point to articulate a conceptualisation of alternative ‘views’ and ‘realities’ (Deetz, 1996; Morgan, 1980). To accept the existence of worldviews with their own philosophical orientation, logics, discourse and practices, means we argue that understanding requires a philosophic framework that is culturally informed and sensitive to the history and needs of different cultural communities (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2010).

The acceptance of alternative worldviews suggests that the representation and application of leadership theory and practice must be constructed in the contextualised/localised needs of the communities, and their worldview in which it is practiced (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Zhang et al., 2011). In this point, we share the view that leadership is determined by context and ‘is still something that means different things to different people’ (McElhatton and Jackson, 2012: 441). Grint (2005) suggests that one of the field’s key failings is the underestimation of the extent to which context or situation is actively constructed by leaders. Leadership involves ‘the social construction of the context that both legitimates a particular form of action and constitutes the world in the process’ (Grint, 2005: 1471). Therefore, the study of servant and Indigenous leadership has broad implications for the development of context and value-rational understandings of leadership, more generally, and helps to give meaning to the characteristics and processes of leadership that can respond to the challenges of the 21st century.

Implications for research

Research in organisation and leadership studies are well implicated in the [re]production of economic, social and symbolic inequalities (Jack et al., 2011; McElhatton and Jackson, 2012; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013). Much of the debate centres on the notion of ‘context’ and how it is conceived of and empirically explored in accounting for organisational, collective or individual cultural distinctiveness (Jack et al., 2013; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2010). This concern with context is, in part, a response to the increasing dissatisfaction with the overwhelming dominance of Anglo-American values, interests and theoretical frameworks that have cast the ‘non-Western’, ‘alternative’ or ‘Indigenous’ to the margins (Jack et al., 2011, 2013). Developing an appreciation of the convergence between servant and Māori leadership is particularly relevant to the study of leadership in an international and increasingly multi-cultural context. Both approaches to leadership offer a conceptualisation of and research into leadership forms and processes attributable to communities and their respective worldviews (Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Spiller and Stockdale, 2013; Warner and Grint, 2006).

For both servant and Māori leadership, there is the potential to develop critical appraisal tools that are capable of engaging multiple worldviews with integrity to provide more robust analysis of leadership processes in diverse forms of organisation and geographic locations. For example, in New Zealand, an Indigenous paradigm in the form of kaupapa Māori research is a research that gives full recognition to Māori cultural values and systems (Walker et al., 2006). Kaupapa Māori research is implicitly founded on collective consciousness, and historical and cultural concepts that are not necessarily reflected in mainstream Western perspectives of research. As a culturally constituted research tradition, kaupapa Māori research comprises values, which accept and embrace complexity through a relational orientation within a community of interests. It ensures that Māori maintain conceptual, methodological and interpretive control over research that is of relevance to Māori (Henry and Pene, 2001; Smith, 2012).

Several intriguing directions for future research arise across cultures, contexts and a diversity of research foci. First, this review highlights the need for further conceptualisation of the intersecting ‘touch-points’ between the characteristics of servant leadership and values that ground Māori approaches to leadership. More profound understanding of the nexus between the two would lend strength to each in regards to conceptual modelling and empirical investigation. Researchers could explore the notion and characteristics of a servant led Māori enterprise, or conversely, analysis of Māori entrepreneurial behaviour might provide deeper insight into the cross-cultural applicability of servant leadership.

The construct of culture within society is rich with complexity. Its connection to leadership is inherently difficult, mainly because the relationship tends to be more subtle. Yet, the study of the intersect between leadership and a particular culture offers deep and rich avenues of inquiry for leadership scholars and practitioners (McElhatton and Jackson, 2012). There is increasing interest in the connection between servant leadership and the cross-cultural context (Hale and Fields, 2007; Hirschy et al., 2012; Mittel and Dorfman, 2012; van Dierendonck, 2011), which draws us to the importance of cultural value systems. By focusing attention onto the cultural context offered by Māori worldview, we are drawn naturally to the potential commonalities with other non-Western worldviews that provoke us to seek evidence for servant leadership in a whole range of Indigenous societies. For example, Richardson et al. (2013) discuss the commonalities between Hindus and Islamic people and their understanding of work, spirituality and leadership. Leadership has also been explored among New Zealand Māori, Pacific Island, Native American Indian and Indigenous Australians, which we argue will locate Indigenous leadership as distinctly different from the dominant styles of Western leadership (Foley, 2008; Ruwhiu and Cone, 2013; Warner and Grint, 2006). Regardless of the research avenues, more theoretical work and research on both servant and Indigenous leadership will only provide deeper and more insightful contexts and analysis opportunities of leadership for the 21st century.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored the convergence of indigenous Māori and servant leadership literature as an alternative to dominant views of leadership so deeply embedded in Western ethics, providing insight into leadership processes and practice across diverse contexts and cultures. Servant leadership and Indigenous Māori leadership each offer valid and exciting perspectives for leadership within a wide range of organisations and contexts. A key feature of both servant and Indigenous leadership is that they are never morally neutral nor socially disconnected, providing insight into leadership based on universal human values of respect, integrity and care for others. These values are not new. They are deeply embedded in ancient and Indigenous wisdoms that are [re]emerging in our leadership literature (Spiller et al., 2011a; Verbos and Humphries, 2014).

Both servant and Māori leadership extend our thinking about leadership theory development. Not only do these two approaches offer an important challenge to the narrow visions of universalism, in which Western views of leadership and management are located, but they contribute to the emerging conversation from Chinese, Latino and Islamic contexts (Jack et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2011). Surely, as we enter the second decade of our new millennium facing financial crises and environmental degradation founded on corporate greed, these are values worth reclaiming and nurturing in our business leaders (Krasikova et al., 2013). This has implications, not only for how we expect our leaders to behave but also, as scholars, the type of research we support and what we teach in our business schools. In doing so, our intention is to generate new ways of thinking about and researching leadership, using the characteristics of both servant and Māori leadership to inform our understanding of leadership in a context specific – value-oriented way.

Broader questions then arise, such as, what is the philosophy and practice of servant and/or Indigenous leadership? What are the social processes by which servant and/or Indigenous leadership are constructed? What does quality servant and/or Indigenous leadership look like? Do servant and Māori provide more humane and ethical approaches to leadership? Can they provide the ‘answer’ for those seeking a viable leadership approach to resolve the challenges of the 21st century? Further research is needed to explore, not only the philosophical underpinnings of each concept but also to understand the practical considerations for leadership thinking now and as it evolves in the future. We conclude with a whakatauki, or proverb – Ka mura, Ka muri (walking backwards into the future), which means that as we forge new paths, we must learn from those who have gone before us. That is, to follow in the footsteps of Maori and servant leadership enables us to consider the phenomenon of leadership and leaders in a more holistic way, and with a stronger connection to the complex realities of the modern world.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Glossary

Te reo Māori

English

Hau

Vitality of human life, essence land, breath of life, reciprocity

Iwi

Tribe

Kōrero,

Talk, speech

Kai

Food

Mahi

Work

Mana

Inherited and endowed authority

Manaaki

Generosity, to look after others,

Mauri

Life force, life principle

Rangatira

Leader, person of authority

Tapu

Potency of those things held to be sacred

Te Ao Māori

The Māori world

Tohu

Sign

Wairua

The spirit

Whakapapa

Genealogy

Whakatauki

Proverb

Whakatira

To unite, bind together

Whanau

Family

Footnotes

Notes

Author biographies

Diane Ruwhiu is a Lecturer in the Department of Management at Otago Business School. She currently teaches in the areas of operations management and kaupapa Māori innovation and entrepreneurship. Indigenous Maori development forms the key theme of her research platform, specifically related to economic development, small-to-medium sized enterprises, leadership, governance and social enterprise.

Graham Elkin (retired 2015) was an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at Otago Business School teaching organisational behaviour. His research interests concern the application of organizational behaviour in New Zealand, educational design, case writing, internationalization of business schools, the place of whole people in organizations, and human resource development. He has published many books, articles and case studies in the fields of human resource management, organisational behaviour, and more recently on topics related to non-western approaches to management and leadership.

References

Avolio

(2007) Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory-building. American Psychologist 62(1): 25–33.

Avolio

Walumbwa

Weber

(2009) Leadership: Current theories, research, and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology 60: 421–449.

Bass

Steidlmeier

(1999) Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. The Leadership Quarterly 10(2): 181–217.

Bradbury

Lichtenstein

(2000) Relationality in organizational research: Exploring the space between. Organization Science 11(5): 551–564.

Brown

Treviño

(2006) Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly 17(6): 595–616.

Diamond

(2003) A Fire in Your Belly: Māori Leaders Speak, Wellington, New Zealand: Huia.

Deetz S (1996) Describing differences in approaches to organization science: Rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their legacy. Organization Science 7(2): 191–207.

Durie

(2005) Ngā tai matatū: Tides of Māori endurance, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Farling

Stone

Winston

(1999) Servant leadership: Setting the stage for empirical research. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 6(1/2): 49/72.

10.

Foldy

Goldman

Ospina

(2008) Sense giving and the role of cognitive shifts in the work of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly 19: 514–529.

11.

Foley

(2008) Does culture and social capital impact on the networking attributes of indigenous entrepreneurs? Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy 2(3): 204–224.

12.

Ghoshal

(2005) Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education 4(1): 75–91.

13.

Graham

(1991) Servant-leadership in organizations: Inspirational and moral. The Leadership Quarterly 2(2): 105–119.

14.

Greenleaf

(1970) The Servant as Leader, Westfield: Greenleaf Center for Servant leadership.

15.

Greenleaf

(2002) Essentials of servant-leadership. In: Spears

Lawrence

(eds) Focus on Leadership: Servant-Leadership for the 21st Century, New York: John Wiley, pp. 19–25.

16.

Grint

(2005) Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of ‘leadership’. Human Relations 58(11): 1467–1494.

17.

Haar

(2013) An Indigenous model of career satisfaction: Exploring the role of workplace cultural wellbeing. Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement 110(3): 873–890.

18.

Haar

Delaney

(2009) Entrepreneurship and Maori cultural values: Using ‘Whanaungatanga’ to understanding Maori business. New Zealand Journal of Applied Business Research 7(9): 25–40.

19.

Hale

Fields

(2007) Exploring servant leadership across cultures: A study of followers in Ghana and the USA. Leadership 3(4): 397–417.

20.

Hamilton

Bean

(2005) The importance of context, beliefs and values in leadership development. Business Ethics: A European Review 14(4): 336–347.

21.

Henare

(2001) Tapu, mana, mauri, hau, wairua. A Māori philosophy of vitalism and cosmos. In: Grimm

(ed.) Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press for the Centre of the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, pp. 197–221.

22.

Henry

Pene

(2001) Kaupapa Māori: Locating indigenous ontology, epistemology and methodology in the academy. Organization 8(2): 234–242.

23.

Hirschy M, Gomez D, Patterson K, et al. (2012) Servant leadership, humane orientation, and Confucian doctrine of Jen. In: Allied academies international conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, 10–13 October.

24.

Jack

Westwood

Srinivas

, (2011) Deepening, broadening and re-asserting a postcolonial interrogative space in organization studies. Organization 18(3): 275–302.

25.

Jack

Zhu

Brannen

, (2013) Refining, reinforcing and reimagining universal and indigenous theory development in international management. Journal of Management Inquiry 22(2): 148–164.

26.

Katene

(2010) Modelling Māori leadership: What makes for good leadership? MAI Review 2: 1–16.

27.

Knights

O’Leary

(2006) Leadership, ethics and responsibility to the other. Journal of Business Ethics 67(2): 125–137.

28.

Knights

Willmott

(1992) Conceptualizing leadership processes: A study of senior managers in a financial services company. Journal of Management Studies 29(6): 761–782.

29.

Krasikova

Green

LeBreton

(2013) Destructive leadership: A theoretical review, integration, and future research agenda. Journal of Management 39(5): 1308–1338.

30.

Kriger

Seng

(2005) Leadership with inner meaning: A contingency theory of leadership based on the worldviews of five religions. The Leadership Quarterly 16: 771–806.

31.

Laub

(1999) Assessing the servant organization: Development of the Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA) model. Dissertation Abstracts International 60(2): 308A.

32.

Lichtenstein

Uhl-Bien

Marion

, (2006) Complexity leadership theory: An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems. Emergence: Complexity & Organization 8(4): 2–12.

33.

Liden

Wayne

Chenwei

, (2014) Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal 57(5): 1434–1452.

34.

Liden

Wayne

Zhao

, (2008) Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment. Leadership Quarterly 19: 161–177.

35.

Marsden

(2003) The Woven Universe: Selected Readings of Rev. Māori Marsden, Otaki, NZ: The Estate of Rev. Māori Marsden.

36.

McElhatton

Jackson

(2012) Paradox in harmony: Formulating a Chinese model of leadership. Leadership 8(4): 441–461.

37.

Mittel

Dorfman

(2012) Servant leadership across cultures. Journal of World Business 47: 555–570.

38.

Morgan

(1980) Paradigms, metaphors, and puzzle solving in organization theory. Administrative Science Quarterly 25(4): 605–622.

39.

Parris

Peachy

(2013) A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of Business Ethics 113(3): 377–393.

40.

Peterson

Galvin

Lange

(2012) CEO servant leadership: exploring executive characteristics and firm performance. Personnel Psychology 65: 565–596.

41.

Richardson

Sinha

Yaapar

(2013) Work ethics from the Islamic and Hindu traditions: in quest of common ground. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion 11(1): 65–90.

42.

Russell

Stone

(2002) A review of servant leadership attributes: developing a practical model. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 23(3): 145–157.

43.

Ruwhiu

Cone

(2010) Advancing a pragmatist epistemology in organisational research. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 5(2): 108–126.

44.

Ruwhiu

Cone

(2013) Pragmatic leadership: A return to wisdom. Journal of Management & Organization 19(1): 25–43.

45.

Schyns

Schilling

(2013) How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly 24(1): 138–158.

46.

Sendjaya

Sarros

(2002) Servant leadership: It's origin, development, and application in organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 9(2): 57–64.

47.

Senge

Hamilton

Kania

(2015) The dawn of system leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter: 26–33.

48.

Smith

(2012) Decolonizing Methodologies, 2nd ed. London, UK: Zed Books.

49.

Spears

(1996) Reflections on Robert K. Greenleaf and servant-leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 17(7): 33–35.

50.

Spears

Lawrence

(2002) Focus on Leadership: Servant Leadership for the 21st Century, New York: Wiley.

51.

Spiller

Erakovic

Henare

, (2011a) Relational well-being and wealth: Māori businesses and an ethic of care. Journal of Business Ethics 98(1): 153–169.

52.

Spiller

Pio

Henare

, (2011b) Wise up: Creating organizational wisdom through an ethic of kaitiakitanga. Journal of Business Ethics 104: 223–235.

53.

Spiller

Stockdale

(2013) Managing and leading from a Māori perspective: Bringing new life and energy to organisations. In: Neal

(ed.) Handbook of Faith and Spirituality in the Workplace: Emerging Research and Practice, New York: Springer, pp. 149–173.

54.

Stone

Russell

Patterson

(2004) Transformational versus servant leadership: a difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 25(4): 349–361.

55.

Tomlinson

(2014) The supreme leader sails on: leadership, ethics and governance in FIFA. Sport in Society 17(9): 1155–1169.

56.

Trompenaars

Voerman

(2009) Servant Leadership Across Cultures: Harnessing the Strength of the World's Most Powerful Management Philosophy, Oxford: Infinite Ideas Ltd.

57.

Uhl-Bien

(2006) Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. The Leadership Quarterly 17(6): 654–676.

58.

van Dierendonck

(2011) Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management 37(4): 1228–1261.

59.

van Dierendonck

Stam

Boersma

, (2014) Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly 25(3): 544–562.

60.

Verbos

Humphries

(2014) A Native American relational ethic: An Indigenous perspective on teaching human responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics 123(1): 1–9.

61.

Walker

Eketone

Gibb

(2006) An exploration of kaupapa Māori research, its principles, processes and applications. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 9(4): 331–344.

62.

Wallace

(2007) Servant leadership: A worldview perspective. International Journal of Leadership Studies 2(2): 114–132.

63.

Warner

Grint

(2006) American Indian ways of leading and knowing. Leadership 2(2): 225–244.

64.

Winiata

(1967) The changing Role of the Leader in Māori Society, Auckland: Blackwood & Janet Paul Ltd.

65.

Zhang

Cone

Everett

, (2011) Aesthetic leadership in Chinese business: A philosophical perspective. Journal of Business Ethics 101: 475–491.