An assessment of servant leadership at a business unit of a South African power utility

Research has attempted to highlight the importance of good leadership for organisational success. Leadership has, to this end, become so pivotal that both success and failure of any organisation are attributed to the leadership style of the person, or body of persons, that pilot the activities of that system (Nwankwo, Ocheni & Atakpa 2012:119–130). According to Nwankwo et al. (2012:119), the quality, mission and vision of the leadership determine the degree of success or failure of an organisation to a large extent. The power utility under investigation is faced with daily electricity constraints and organisational challenges such as fuel shortages, maintenance problems, capital expansion project delays, environmental concerns and a high rate of leadership turnover. Sound leadership is necessary to keep the power utility running at optimum capacity. The goal of the power utility is to maintain a top quartile performance amongst utilities worldwide. This will be accomplished by protecting the health and safety of employees, systematically pursuing incidentfree operations, improving organisational processes, maximising electricity generation, optimising related costs, correcting weaknesses and sharing and applying operation experience. However, what will be required in order to achieve these goals would be effective and efficient leadership. The impact of leadership style on the progress of any organisation manifests through the performance of the workforce shown by the productivity level of the outfit towards the attainment of its corporate objectives (Nwankwo et al. 2012:119–130).

Leadership further progressed to incorporate values instead of behaviour. According to Agard (2011:345), servant leaders assert important placement of values, beliefs and principles in leadership, and those values are the core elements of the practice which, eventually, incite servant leadership behaviour in others. Agard (2011:346) further postulated that the concept of servant leadership was one that had attracted substantial interest amongst many followers over the past few decades.
At this early stage, an intriguing question arises: Why is it relevant for modern-day organisations to focus on servant leadership? According to research conducted amongst highperformance organisations (HPOs), there is a direct positive relationship between the HPO factors and organisational performance (De Waal & Sivro 2012:179). As servant leadership deals with behaviours and attitudes of managers, it is a reasonable assumption that servant leadership has a certain influence on management quality, one of the factors of high performance included in the High Performance Organisation Framework (De Waal & Sivro 2012:174). Servant leadership is demonstrated by empowering and developing people; by expressing humility, authenticity, interpersonal acceptance and stewardship and by providing direction (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten 2011:267).
The purpose of examining a topic of this nature at the specific power utility is because of the massive capital expansion project that is under progress and the major organisational and operational changes that are currently occurring in the power utility. Being a parastatal, the core strategy is on shifting performance and growing sustainability, while the strategic imperatives are focused on becoming an HPO. The power utility needs to align its strategic direction by focusing on its human capital to ensure improved business performance. With a negative media attitude and the accelerated operational and human performance challenges (plant maintenance, employee behaviour and employee morale and leadership ineffectiveness) experienced, it is the opinion of this research that hope amongst employees in the organisation is diminishing and the need for servant leadership is becoming more desirable. By establishing the desire for servant leadership, employees will determine to the organisation's success or failure in this dynamic environment.

Literature review
The following section is dedicated to current literature views on servant leadership, including servant leadership in the South African context.

Servant leadership
Literature shows that the concept of servant leadership is explained differently by different authors and organisations. Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy focused on follower development and represents a plausible leadership paradigm for the 21st-century organisation (DeHaven 2007:114). The very concept of servant leadership is based on the values of humility and respect for others (Oforchukwu 2013:53). The emerging approach to leadership and service is called 'servant leadership' (Greenleaf 1998:2). Servant leaders are those who make a deliberate choice to serve others and to put other people's needs first (French et al. 2011:451). The concept of servant leadership emphasises increased service to others, a holistic approach to work, a sense of community and shared decision making (Bodenhamer & Barrows 1994:1202. Servant leadership is a question of inner motivation, of a deeply felt mission; and everyone can become a servant leader regardless of whether he or she already is a leader because the combination of opposites lies within everyone's reach (Trompenaars & Voerman 2009:13). Servant leadership includes deliberate actions that strive to enhance the best of others. Servant leadership is a humane effort that is peoplefocused instead of profit-driven. The central theme of servant leadership is working to improve others (Baron 2010:1-87).
A servant leader lives, loves and leads by conscience -the inward moral sense of what is right and what is wrong (Sipe & Frik 2009:17). The servant leader leads people in a manner that helps them grow and increase their capacity to contribute (useful products and services) and in the process gain the satisfaction of making a greater contribution to the success of the organisation (Neuschel 2005:12). Servant leaders feel that their role is to help people achieve their goals; they constantly try to find out what their people need to perform well and live according to the vision (Blanchard 2010:262). The servant leader ensures a constant connection between experience and learning and tests these according to the next planned steps (Trompenaars & Voerman 2009:54). The natural instinct of a servant leader is to provide information freely and readily to workers which helps create a work climate based on inclusivity and partnership, which are key facets of a spiritually rich workplace (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz 2010:133).
Developed upon Greenleaf's original findings, a list of 10 characteristics of a servant leader were identified as being of critical importance and central to the development of servant leaders (Spears & Lawrence 2002:5). The authors listed and explained the characteristics as follows: Listening: Listening encompasses getting in touch with one's own inner voice and seeking to understand what one's body, spirit and mind communicate. Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection, is essential to the growth of the servant leader.
Empathy: The servant leader strives to understand and empathise with others. The most successful servant leaders are those who have become skilled, empathetic listeners.
Healing: The healing of relationships is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant leadership is the potential of healing one's self and one's relationship with others.
Awareness: General awareness, especially self-awareness, strengthens the servant leader.
Persuasion: The servant leader seeks to convince others rather than coerce compliance.

Original Research
http://www.jolgri.org Open Access Conceptualisation: The ability to look at a problem (or an organisation) from a conceptualising perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities.
Foresight: Foresight is a characteristic that enables the servant leader to understand lessons from the past, the realities of the present and the likely consequence of a decision for the future.
Stewardship: Stewardship emphasises the use of openness and persuasion rather than control.
Commitment to the growth of people: Servant leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contribution as workers. Servant leaders are deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual in his or her institution.
Building community: Servant leadership suggests that true community can be created amongst those who work in business and other institutions.

Servant leadership and organisational performance
All leaders, in particular servant leaders, have an unwavering commitment to their values (Baron 2010:4).
Values are the core elements of servant leadership; the values of servant leaders not only yield observable attributes, but they also affect the leader's organisation (Oforchukwu 2013:53). Leader values significantly affect followers and ultimately influence organisational performance (Oforchukwu 2013:53). Servant leaders facilitate the growth, goals and development of others to liberate their best qualities in pursuing the organisation's mission (Daft & Marcic 2011:395). In organisations these leaders' top priority is to service employees, customers, shareholders and the general public (Daft & Marcic 2011:176). Servant leadership helps create a high-performing organisation (Blanchard 2010:282).
Furthermore, servant leaders want to make a difference in the lives of their people and, in the process, create an impact on the organisation (Blanchard 2010:262). Blanchard (2010:262) further said that 'Servant leadership can occur in any organisation'. The essential quality of a servant leadership culture will be evident by the way employees embrace the vision, live out the core values and relearn key virtues. The servant-led organisation is completed with the knowledge that the financial bottom line is not the essential bottom line (Baron 2010:134 Servant leadership succeeds or fails based on the personal values of the people who employ it (Oforchukwu 2013:53). The most persistent barrier to being a servant leader is a heart motivated by self-interest that looks at the world as a 'give a little, take a lot' proposition (Blanchard 2010:271).

Servant leadership in the South African context
South African researchers have identified similar important servant leadership characteristics which are critical to the field of servant leadership. These characteristics include authenticity, humility, integrity, listening, compassion, accountability, courage and altruism (Coetzer, Bussin & Geldenhuys 2017:19). Servant leadership has also been identified as an important role player in terms of creating positive employee attitudes and improved organisational performance (Coetzer et al. 2017:19). Furthermore, South African research has indicated that servant leadership is a critical type of leadership required because of our unique political landscape (Kgatle 2018:8). According to Kgatle (2018:8) found that males reported higher observations for the interpersonal support and egalitarianism servant leadership variables. Differences are not only reported for gender and race groups but also include differences amongst age groups and generational cohorts.
Researchers have found evidence that we may experience changes in how individuals view leadership, especially between intergenerational groups (Haeger & Lingham 2013:299). However, previous South African examinations could not find any evidence that servant leadership and employee age would be related (Dannhauser & Boshoff 2006:11). South Africa is a very diverse country in terms of gender and age. Gender diversity in a South African environment will also remain a priority, as previous studies found evidence to indicate that gender diversity is strongly related to organisational performance (Zhuwao et al. 2019:6). Age diversity in the South African context should also remain important, especially for the purpose of succession and transfer of knowledge (van der Walt & du Plessis 2010:8). It is evident that gender and age diversity is an important aspect in South Africa, and to gain a better understanding of how servant leadership would operate in a diverse environment such as a South African power utility would require further examination.

Problem investigated
With regards to the South African power utility, leadership and performance, the dynamic nature in which the parastatal operates, and the need for continuous uninterrupted electricity supply, have added pressure to enhance organisational performance. Being a key role player in the industry and an essential services provider, acknowledged by all stakeholders for exceptional standards, performance and professionalism, it is imperative that the power utility remains ethical, well-governed and builds trusted relationships with all stakeholders. This can only be sustainable if the power utility leads through excellence and enhances its organisational performance. One could argue that servant leadership is therefore a logical preferred leadership style because of the fact that it is strongly associated with positive organisational performance (Oforchukwu 2013:53). However, it has not been established what leadership style(s) are dominant in the power utility. By establishing the employees' perceptions of the extent to which leaders demonstrate this leadership style, which may or may not be accurate, perceptions are, however, very strongly related to their decision making and consequent behaviour as a result of what they perceive to be true. Servant leadership, for one, had never been assessed; therefore, it was important to conduct this study to do an assessment on servant leadership in the power utility and determine the perception of servant leadership amongst employees and management.

Research objectives
Taking into consideration the preceding paragraphs, the study considered the objectives as discussed further.

Primary objective
The primary objective of this research is to gain an understanding of servant leadership in a South African power utility.

Secondary objectives
The specific secondary objectives of this research are: • to establish the relevance of servant leadership by conducting a literature review; • to empirically assess employee perceptions of the level of servant leadership as demonstrated by their leaders at the power utility and • to explore the nature of servant leadership amongst gender and age groups at the power utility by conducting statistical analyses of empirical data.

Research design and approach
This study followed a quantitative approach. A crosssectional survey design was used to reach the stated objective. According to Spector (2019:130), cross-sectional studies are especially valuable to determine a specific observation at a single point in time. The study further made use of a selfadministered questionnaire. Permission was obtained from the South African power utility. The agreement stipulated that the identity of the business unit in the power utility may not be disclosed and should be referenced as a power utility in the scope. The questionnaires were distributed to the participating respondents. Two methods were used to distribute the questionnaires. A hard copy questionnaire and an electronic questionnaire were administered. The rationale behind using both a hard copy and electronic questionnaire was to avoid exclusion should an employee not have access to a computer. The type of method chosen by the respondent was based on the convenience of the respondent. All completed questionnaires were then sent to the researcher via e-mail, facsimile or in hard copy format. Ethical considerations were made by attaching a covering letter to the questionnaire. The cover letter explained the objectives of the research and confirmed the anonymous, confidentiality and voluntary nature of the study.

Participants, sampling and data collection
The target population or study sample comprised all of the employees at a specific business unit of the power utility under investigation. A total of 771 respondents from a convenience sample completed questionnaires. Respondents were employed at a specific business unit of a power utility situated in the Free State province. Table 1 represents the demographical characteristics of the respondents who participated in the study.
A closer of inspection of Table 1

Measuring instrument
The measuring instrument comprised two sections. The first section collected data on the demographical information, and the second section collected data on servant leadership.

Statistical analysis
The data were analysed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 (IBM Corp. 2020). Internal consistency and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by calculating Cronbach alpha coefficients and inter-item correlations. Internal consistency as measured with Cronbach alpha was considered sufficient at a moderate level (α = 0.60) (Taber 2018(Taber :1278. According to Pallant (2007:95), measuring scales with low scale items may present lower Cronbach alpha scores, and therefore inter-item correlation analysis should also be conducted. Inter-item correlations were considered sufficient at r = 0.30 (Field 2013:821). Once reliability was determined, the variables that met the minimum thresholds were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). According to Pallant (2007:190), sample adequacy would be acceptable when the Kaiser-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) is above 0.60 and the Bartlett's test of sphericity is significant (p < 0.05). The principal axis factoring was used as the extraction method with the Oblimin Kaiser Normalisation as rotation. Criteria for factor selection was set at 1.00 for eigenvalues (Pallant 2007:190). Factor loadings were considered adequate at 0.30 (Pallant 2007:196). Once the internal structures were confirmed, we conducted an analysis for convergent validity as part of construct validity. Composite reliability (CR) may be examined for this purpose (Hair et al. 2010:619). Critical values for CR should be above 0.70 (Hair et al. 2010:619).
Frequency distributions, mean values and standard deviations were calculated for every leadership variable in order to determine central tendencies with regards to servant leadership, including servant leadership features.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was calculated in order to determine statistical differences between group. Post hoc tests were conducted where more than two groups were present. The Welch's test for significance was also considered as this test is robust and does not assume equal variances. Additionally, Cohen's theory was used to interpret the effect-size (d-values): small effect or practical non-significant differences (d-value ≈ 0.2), medium effect or practical visible differences (d-value ≈ 0.5) and large effect or practical significant differences (d-value ≈ 0.8) (Ellis & Steyn 2003:51-53).

Ethical consideration
Ethical clearance was obtained from the NWU Business School.

Results
The results will be reported in four sections. The first section will report on findings pertaining to reliability, the second section will report findings pertaining to the EFA and the third section will report on descriptive statistics per variable, including CR, while the final section will report on findings related to ANOVA examinations.  only two scale items recorded a Cronbach alpha of α = 0.52 and inter-item score of r = 0.35. Therefore, taking into consideration the suggestions from Pallant (2007:95), Authenticity was deemed to demonstrate sufficient internal consistency and was included in the remaining analysis of the study. Accountability recorded reliability scores below all thresholds and was therefore removed from further analysis.

Exploratory factor analysis
An EFA was conducted in order to examine the internal structure of each individual variable that met the minimum reliability thresholds.

Group comparisons -Servant leadership
The final section examined the view of servant leadership across demographical groups. The statistical analysis in terms of group comparisons was restricted to only the gender and age groups. Table 4 contains the results of comparisons between the male and female respondents. The Lavene's test for homogeneity was not significant for any of the variables, and therefore ANOVA was conducted for the gender groups assuming equal variances.
The results from Table 4 indicate that only Stewardship reveals a statistical difference when comparing means between the male and female groups (p < 0.01). The male group recorded a higher observation for stewardship (m = 2.56; SD = 0.51) when compared to the female group (m = 2.38; SD = 0.27). The result was considered as a medium practically visible difference. The remaining gender comparisons did not yield any significant difference when comparing mean scores between the male and female respondents.
The final group comparison was conducted for the age groups. The test for homogeneity was significant for age group ANOVA's. Subsequently, the post hoc analysis was conducted by making use of the Tamhane multiple comparison test as this method does not assume equal variances.  With regards to Forgiveness, there was difference between Age group 1 and Age group 3 (p < 0.01; d = 0.50; Medium effect) and between Age group 1 and Age group 4 (p < 0.01; d = 0.43; Medium effect). In both cases, Age group 1 (18-24) reported higher observations of Forgiveness. Similarly, there were visible differences when comparing Age group 2 and Age group 3 (p < 0.01; d = 0.37; Medium effect), and between Age group 2 and Age group 4 (p = 0.04; d = 0.28; Small effect). Age group 2 (25-34) reported higher observations for Forgiveness in both situations. In reality, employees 34 years old and younger would be inclined to report higher recordings of Forgiveness when rating their supervisor or manager when compared to employees older than 35 years old.
In terms of Courage, there were reported differences between Age group 1 and Age group 3 (p < 0.01; d = 0.63; Medium effect) and between Age group 2 and Age group 3 (p < 0.01; d = 0.46; Medium effect). In both comparisons Age group 3 (35-54), reported lower observations of courage when compared to the other age groups. This result suggests that employees between 35 and 54 years old report lower recordings of Courage for their immediate supervisor or manager when compared to employees 34 years and younger. There was further a difference between Age group 3 and Age group 4 (p < 0.01; d = 0.40; Medium effect), with Age group 4

Conclusion
The primary objective of this study was to gain an understanding of servant leadership in a power utility. To achieve the primary objective, a theoretical study was done as a benchmarking exercise.
Servant leadership focuses on the positive attributes of those who lead over the self-interest of the leader. Servant leaders are those who make a deliberate choice to serve others and to put the needs of others first (French et al. 2011:451). According to Laub (1999:74), servant leadership is an understanding and practice of leadership behaviour that promotes the value and development of people. Servant leaders build their community and practice authenticity and power sharing for the benefit of the organisation. The concept of servant leadership emphasises increased service to others, a holistic approach to work, a sense of community and shared decision making (Bodenhamer & Barrows 1994:1202. Servant leadership is a question of inner motivation and of a deeply felt mission, and everyone can become a servant leader because the combination of opposites lies within everyone's reach (Trompenaars & Voerman 2009:13).
Analysing the characteristics of servant leadership, as explained in the literature review, the power utility has failed to display any of these characteristics through the organisational culture. From the responses received, this leadership style is currently not valued or practised at the power utility. This is not a healthy servant organisation and, considering this, it has failed to put the needs of others first.
Ultimately the organisation has now lost the strength and power that servant leadership stands for. Health of an organisation is directly related to the nature and function of leadership (Inbarasu 2008:57).
An extremely low perception was reflected when analysing the mean values. The highest calculated mean value was for the dimension Forgiveness while the dimension Standing back had the lowest mean value. This demonstrates that most participants either agree or strongly agree that their manager is unforgiving, displays a criticising, hard attitude and finds it difficult to forget things that have happened in the past. The low mean values for the dimension on Standing back show that a majority of the participants disagreed strongly that their manager gives credit to others, is not chasing recognition and appears to enjoy his colleagues' success more than his own.
In terms of gender differences, Stewardship was the only variable demonstrating a statistical and practical differences. Leadership features in the current study would be speculative. This might pose a managerial problem in itself, as subcultures might form based on age. Subcultures could have considerable negative consequences for organisational performance, and therefore such a situation should rather be avoided (Leslie 2017:449).

Limitations and recommended future research
The convenience sample was limited to one specific business unit of the power utility. Therefore, the results should not be generalised. A national study that would include all business units should provide a better understanding of servant leadership across the entire power utility. With regards to the measuring instrument, results of the survey indicate the Accountability variable did not demonstrate adequate internal consistency and was removed from further analysis. It is therefore recommended that future studies should consider the development of new questions in order to assess the Accountability dimension. These questions should be grounded in a South African context. The leadership assessment was restricted to only servant leadership. Future studies should consider the inclusion of other types of leadership styles in order to gain a full understanding of the leadership environment within the power utility. The assessment of ethical and authentic leadership would provide further insight. For the current study to provide an explanation for the quantitative findings pertaining to age group differences would be speculative as only a qualitative study would be able to provide insight on this particular finding.
Unfortunately, South African organisations have been plagued with unethical behaviour and mismanagement which has become a daily occurrence for South African organisations (Budhram & Geldenhuys 2018). Organisations, which include state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and local governments have shown a great need for a type of leadership with moral authority, humility, service and sacrifice that can lead to trust and respect, to improve on organisation governance, trustworthiness and accountability within the South African environment (Kgatle 2018). Servant leadership can therefore assist with the improvement of South African local governments. However, further examinations of servant leadership and how it operates in local governments would be required in order to fully benefit from servant leadership's beneficial factors.

Managerial implications
It is evident that the current business unit of the power utility is not able to demonstrate adequate opinions of servant leadership. This would be a clear indication that servant leadership is not a preferred leadership style in the business unit of the power utility. Subsequently the utility would also not benefit for the organisational and productivity advantages traditionally associated with servant leadership. In order to stimulate servant leadership behaviours, the specific management could consider improving trust and communication, as these areas have been associated with improved observations of servant leadership (Laub 1999:74). A well-developed and well-implemented servant leadership development program would also be beneficial. According to Milner and Joyce (2005), it is leadership and not good management that transforms organisations.