Servant leadership practice and its relation with employee job satisfaction: the case of compassion international in Ethiopia

Abstract

Though the modern study of servant leadership may be traced to the revolutionary work of Greenleaf in late 20^th, the concept of servant leadership can be traced back to the 4^th century. The servant leadership model as proposed by Robert Greenleaf is suitable to providing employees with the empowerment and participatory job features that are related to both employee and customer satisfaction. This study assessed the level of practice of servant leadership and its relation with employee job satisfaction. The study involved all professional employees of Compassion International in Ethiopia including senior and middle level leadership of the organization. Descriptive as well as inferential statistics were employed to analyze the quantitative data collected. The findings from both quantitative and qualitative data analysis indicated that servant leadership style is practiced well at the organization and the organization is categorized as servant-oriented organization based on the Organizational Leadership Assessment tool. Moreover, it was noted that the level of employee job satisfaction of the organization is very high (94%) and it is exemplary for other likeminded organizations. A positive relationship of job satisfaction with the overall practice of servant leadership style and that of the five dimensions of servant leadership was observed. In addition, respondents’ organizational position, department, sex, service of year and age had significant associations with employee job satisfaction and the level of practice of servant leadership dimensions. Finally, it was concluded that the leadership of this organization has proven and set the example of practice of servant leadership in Ethiopia.

Keywords: Job satisfaction, servant leadership, Compassion International,
Ethiopia