Abstract
South Africans have a reference of Ubuntu behaviour as part of their cultural heritage. This intuitively suggests that, Servant Leadership should be a natural choice of leadership style. The views on Servant Leadership in South Africa have been largely contextualised through a connection with Ubuntu and predominantly from a leadership perspective with limited views from a general corporate sector base. The current landscape of leadership in South Africa is beset with a serious crisis. This crisis may be described in three main areas. In the corporate sphere, leadership is seen to be driving profitability at the expense of their key stakeholders, such as the employees, the communities they serve and their customers. Very few corporates are accessing their leadership value to drive meaningful engagement. Within government sector, a totally compromised leadership, with no credibility within the broadened proletariat due to a lack of service delivery, unethical conduct and corrupt practices, exists. In the non-profit sector, a limp state of performance is evident. In this study a quantitative, cross-sectional, survey research approach was used. It allowed the researcher to account for the experienced leadership styles versus the preferred leadership styles of corporate employees in South Africa. This study used a non-probability, purposive or judgemental sampling design, where the sample was determined by the researcher’s judgement of appropriateness and relevance for the study. A final sample of N= 244 was obtained. Findings revealed that employees (60%) sought their own interest ahead of their immediate leader’s interest. More than 59% wanted their leader/manager to go beyond the call of duty to meet their needs. They also wanted their leader/manager to spend time coaching them on new tasks and procedures. Employees wanted their leader/manager to listen to their ideas and provide opportunities for such ideas to be implemented. The biggest gap is found in the encouraging of creativity in their jobs. The leader/manager needs to show greater commitment to creativity, as this falls far below employee expectations. Conclusions drawn, are that, there is immense pressure on the leader/manager who needs to be aware of employees’ needs versus business sustainability. This is reflected in the burdensome call for empathetic leadership from employees (70%) who want a leader/manager who is directly supportive when personal trauma is...
M.Phil. (Leadership in Emerging Countries)