Service Leadership Theory: Origin and Nature

Service leadership is conceived as "satisfying needs by consistently providing quality personal service to everyone one comes into contact with, including one's self, others, groups, communities, systems, and environments." Effective service leadership is determined by three Cs - "Competence," "Character," and "Care." To nurture these important leadership qualities in university students, the "Service Leadership Education Initiative" was launched in eight public universities in Hong Kong. The introduction of this new concept is due to the fact that worldwide economic structure has shifted from manufacturing economies to service economies. The key concepts and propositions in service leadership theory (SLT), such as the strong emphasis on humanity, moral character, caring, and trust, have deep theoretical roots in the existing well-established theories and empirical findings in the social science literature. In addition, these important elements of service leadership have been successfully practiced and proved to exert beneficial influences on personal and organizational success. These findings give support to the validity of the SLT and its further application in education and industry. We earnestly hope that service leaders and organizations can put SLT propositions into practice to achieve success.