The Measurement of Servant Leadership Validation of a German Version of the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS)

A new research stream in the field of leadership that has been linked to managerial ethics is servant leadership. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of a German version of the multidimensional Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) developed by Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011). Based on ratings by 533 participants from various branches of business, results from a confirmatory analysis demonstrated that the translated instrument had adequate factorial validity. In terms of content validity, results showed that servant leadership was related to other relevant leadership measures such as transformational leadership and ethical leadership. Evidence for criterion-related validity was based on findings relating servant leadership to leader-member exchange as well as positive work-related attitudes and behavioral orientations such as job satisfaction, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Moreover, servant leadership was found to be related to important self-constructs of the followers including occupational self-efficacy and organization-based self-esteem. Overall, the results suggest that the translated servant leadership instrument represents a valid and reliable measure that can be used in the area of leadership research with German-speaking samples.