Dirk van Dierendonck

• Doctor of Philosophy Psychology
• Rotterdam School of Management

Servant leadership and other ethical and moral approaches to leadership have been criticized for focusing on followers to the potential detriment of other stakeholders, specifically shareholders. With individual data collected from 485 respondents nested in 55 similar stores in a single company, within a large metropolitan area in France, we tested...

Despite the emphasis of servant leadership theory on the attention provided to workers’ needs and goals, there is a lack of empirical knowledge on the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ goal attainment. We provide a theoretical model of the mechanism by which this strong focus of servant leadership on a worker’s individual devel...

Building on the original writings of Robert K. Greenleaf, this edited collection provides new insights into servant leadership theory and broadens the conceptual framework with a developmental perspective on modern organisations. Bringing together a group of active servant leadership researchers and practitioners from around the world, this book ap...

Notwithstanding the proliferation of servant leadership studies with over 100 articles published in the last four years alone, a lack of coherence and clarity around the construct has impeded its theory development. We provide an integrative and comprehensive review of the 285 articles on servant leadership spanning 20 years (1998–2018), and in so...

The model introduced in this chapter aims to combine servant-leadership theory with human resource (HR) practices. It can be placed within the current wave of change in HR that requires HR professionals to really understand their business context and their key stakeholders. HR practices need to be organized around people and need to be an integral...

The studies of Leadership and HR-Management share a common goal: Developing a better understanding of how to effectively manage people in organizations. Despite this shared goal, these fields of research remain largely independent, with few studies considering how HRM and Leadership co-determine employee motivation and performance. This state of th...

This paper tests and confirms the cross-cultural equivalence of the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) in eight countries and languages: The Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Finland. A composite sample consisting of 5201 respondents from eight countries that all filled out the SLS was used. A three-step approach was ad...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a new interpretation of underestimation for the particular case of servant leadership, contending the ideas that underestimation is caused by lack of self-awareness or low self-esteem, and that self-other agreement is a necessary condition for self-awareness. Additional reflections are provided on the...

Servant leadership has been theorized as a model where the moral virtue of humility co-exists with action-driven behavior. This article provides an empirical study that tests how these two apparently paradoxical aspects of servant leadership interact in generating follower engagement, while considering the hierarchical power of the leader as a cont...

The present study addresses the relationship between human resources management (HRM) practices and employee turnover by taking into account the influence of socioeconomic environment. Data was collected at company level with an international sample of 830 companies from 12 countries (Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Brazil, Switzerland, China...

The 46-item Differentiation of Self Inventory—Revised (DSI-R) (Skowron & Schmitt, 2003) is perhaps the most widely used and psychometrically validated instrument measuring the family systems theory (Bowen, 1978) concept of differentiation of self. Given the substantial length of the DSI-R, Drake et al. (2015) offered the Differentiation of Self Inv...

Modern organizations are going through continuous changes and have to deal with high uncertainty due to the still growing worldwide competition and a quickly changing economic climate. This may have serious social implication for the wellbeing of the employees involved, which potentially leads to economic losses due to reduced productivity. The pre...

The research reported in this paper was designed to study the influence of shared servant leadership on team performance through the mediating effect of team behavioral integration, while validating a new short measure of shared servant leadership. A round-robin approach was used to collect data in two similar studies. Study 1 included 244 undergra...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the combined influence of working towards self-concordant goals with goal planning and supervisory support on goal progress and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected among prison guards. The analysis takes into account a multilevel perspective on goals by differentiat...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of the followers’ competence, will to achieve, and self-determination on a leader’s intention to support a followers’ sense of self-worth. Design/methodology/approach – Using an experimental scenario study design with a sample of 316 managers, a mediated three-way moderation model was i...

Servant leadership represents a paradox, as it invites leaders to humility and to place their followers' needs and interests before their own self-interest, to the possible detriment of organizational goals. Yet literature associates servant leadership with favorable individual, group and organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction and organiz...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to aim mainly at further understanding how servant leadership can affect engagement during a merger with high levels of uncertainty through the mediating role of organizational identification and psychological empowerment. In addition, the research aimed at validating the servant leadership survey (SLS) in a n...

A flexibilidade para os trabalhadores europeus se movimentarem livremente pela Europa por questões laborais tem sido um dos princípios centrais da Comunidade Europeia desde o início. À medida que essa Comunidade se expande, estará o sonho dos políticos a converter-se em realidade? Terá a maior mobilidade conduzido a maior diversidade cultural da fo...

A globalização e os instrumentos (e. g. Erasmus, Europass, etc.) implementados pela União Europeia conduzem lentamente ao crescimento da mobilidade da força de trabalho na Europa. Genericamente, a mobilidade e a diversidade da força de trabalho são aspetos positivos de competitividade. Por exemplo, a nível macro, a mobilidade da força de trabalho p...

Servant Leadership emphasizes employee’s development and growth within a context of moral and social concern. Nowadays, this management change towards workers´ wellbeing is highlighted as an important issue. The aims of this paper are to adapt to Spanish speakers the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) by van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011), and to anal...

When it comes to identifying and meeting the psychological needs of people in an organization, it is servant-leadership that emphasizes this aspect most, more than any other leadership theory. Servant-leadership theory positions the leader as worker-centered, personal growth-oriented, and focused on providing a sense of purpose. This holistic appro...

Servant leadership is increasingly gaining interest inside and outside academia. This article builds and extends current theorizing by describing the process that introduces compassionate love as a practical translation for the need to serve, which was positioned by Greenleaf (Servant leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and gr...

Despite the growing attention for the impact of selection procedures and outcomes on applicants, little is yet known about the factors that may influence these relationships. The general findings of a recent doctoral dissertation are presented in this article. The research in this dissertation was directed at investigating the separate and combined...

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on early career success as determined by a combination of what young professionals learned at school (in terms of their grades and academic competences) and how this, together with their self-regulatory focus, influenced their early objective career success in terms of salary growth and subjective career success,...

There is not much research on team collaboration in digital entertainment games, nor is there much evidence for the efficacy of game-based team training or the validity of game-based team assessment. This is a shortcoming because of an increasing pervasiveness of serious games in organizational life, e.g. for operational training, management and le...

Despite the vast amount of applicant reactions studies, few have examined combined effects of selection outcomes with perceived procedural and distributive fairness on both personal and organizational reactions. Further, most have been conducted in laboratory settings, limiting external validity. The present study examined these effects with a long...

This paper aimed to provide insights into the different mediating mechanisms through which servant leadership (SL) and transformational leadership (TFL) affect followers. We also investigated environmental uncertainty as a moderator of the effects of servant leadership and transformational leadership. Based on the results of two experimental studie...

Several widely used practices for leadership development, such as formal training and personal reflection, exhibit the weakness of poor learning transfer: sending managers out to a leadership training often leads to disappointing results. In this paper we infer that games that are designed as ‘authentic learning environments’ may improve the learni...

When it comes to identifying and meeting the psychological needs of people in an organization, it is servant-leadership that emphasizes this aspect most, more than any other leadership theory. Servant-leadership theory positions the leader as worker-centered, personal growth-oriented, and focused on providing a sense of purpose. This holistic appro...

Despite the growing attention for the impact of selection procedures and outcomes on applicants, little is yet known about the factors that may influence these relationships. The general findings of a recent doctoral dissertation are presented in this article. The research in this dissertation was directed at investigating the separate and combined...

The purpose of this longitudinal study among 212 Dutch prison officers was to enhance insight into the nature of the relationship between empowering leader behavior and follower psychological empowerment. Empowerment was conceptualized as intrinsic task motivation, manifested in a set of 4 cognitions reflecting the individual's work-role orientatio...

This paper aimed to investigate three issues. First, the validation of the multi-dimensional Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) within the Italian context. Second, to enhance insight into the degree of servant leadership behaviour displayed by Italian leaders in organizational settings. Third, to support the fact that in Italy, too, servant leadership...

Spirituality is an important theme in health research, since a spiritual orientation can help people to cope with the consequences of a serious disease. Knowledge on the role of spirituality is, however, limited, as most research is based on measures of religiosity rather than spirituality. A questionnaire that transcends specific beliefs is a prer...

As workforce diversity increases, knowledge of factors influencing whether cultural diversity results in team performance benefits is of growing importance. Complementing and extending earlier research, we develop and test theory about how achievement setting readily activates team member goal orientations that influence the diversity-performance r...

Purpose – The main aim of this study was to contribute to the change management literature by providing additional insight into how leadership encourages commitment to change. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 135 employees of a reintegration company filled out a survey. Findings – Using structural equation modeling, the results showed th...

Many cancer patients experience spirituality as highly supportive while coping with their disease. Most research as well as most questionnaires in this field is religious orientated. The Spiritual Attitude and Involvement List was developed to enable research on spirituality among religious and nonreligious people. It consists of seven subscales th...

There is a lack of consistent evidence that downsizing leads to improved financial performance. Lowered commitment after painful downsizing periods is identified as an important reason why downsizing does not show the intended long‐term effects. This paper provides a meta‐analytical overview of the impact of fairness on organizational commitment fo...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a multi-dimensional instrument to measure servant leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach Based on an extensive literature review and expert judgment, 99 items were formulated. In three steps, using eight samples totaling 1571 persons from The Netherlands and the UK...

This study focuses on the relevance of spirituality as an essential element for the Good Life. Despite spirituality’s prominence in people’s lives and cultures, it has been mostly neglected in psychological needs theories. This paper investigates the value of spirituality compared to that of the three basic psychological needs of self-determination...

In this research, the authors tested a model in which the challenging work conditions of employees at work and empowerment mediated the influence of servant leadership on organisational commitment. The main aim was to provide additional insight into the relevance of leadership for talent management. In a sample of 174 highly talented employees, cha...

Servant leadership is positioned as a new field of research for leadership scholars. This review deals with the historical background of servant leadership, its key characteristics, the available measurement tools, and the results of relevant studies that have been conducted so far. An overall conceptual model of servant leadership is presented. It...

In the present study, the construct validity of a revised edition of the Belbin Team Roles measure is tested. This edition consists of three parts to determine someone's team roles. The sample included 1434 persons who were asked to fill out the self-perception inventory and the self-perception assessment sheet, and the Observer Assessment Sheet wa...

While applicant reactions to selection (un)fairness have often been investigated, less is known about applicants’ attributions and reactions to specific performance feedback. This paper discusses two studies into the influence of fairness perceptions and attributional processing on well-being and organizational perceptions after rejection. In both...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a meaning‐based framework to understand the motivation of knowledge workers and an effective leadership model that suits that framework. Design/methodology/approach – Definitions of knowledge worker, meaning, complex adaptive systems and leadership are provided. The concept of meaning in work is ex...

Vitality and inner resources as relevant components of psychological well-being. The multidimensional model of well-being, created by Carol Ryff, proposes the following dimensions to study psychological well-being (PSWB): self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. One of t...

Creativity is of vital importance for organizations that compete in globally operating markets faced with market dynamics and determined to stay ahead of the competition. In such organizations, employees have to constantly generate products and services that are original and innovative (for example, Basadur, 2004). In this light, many studies sugge...

Within a few short years, our view on what accounts for good leadership has changed dramatically. The ideal of a heroic, hierarchical-oriented leader with primacy to shareholders has quickly been replaced by a view on leadership that gives priority to stewardship, ethical behaviour and collaboration through connecting to other people. Never before...

Interpersonal conflict at work correlates with stress related outcomes such as psychological strain and exhaustion. Consistent with conflict theory, we argued that this relationship is moderated by the way conflict is managed. Cross-sectional data collected in The Netherlands, from students with part-time jobs (Sample 1, n = 104), healthcare worker...

Personality integration has been related to individual well-being. The present study focused on the combined influence of personality integration through the personal-striving goal construct, active-passive approach toward achieving one’s goals, and inner resources on well-being. Specific attention was given to how this process works out in two cul...

The true test of a servant leader is this: Do those around the servant-leader become wiser, freer, more autonomous, healthier, and better able themselves to become servants?. Robert K. Greenleaf. For years, the general thinking on leadership was that the real leader was a person who had a vision, was highly practical and had an inspirational presen...

In the present study the construct validity of the revised edition of the Belbin Team Roles measure, the so-called Interplace II program, is tested. Three parallel parts were used to determine someone’s team roles. The sample included 1434 persons who were asked to fill out the self-perception inventory and the self-perception assessment, whereas...

This article aims to provide researchers interested in using Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Wellbeing with additional information to make an informed decision on the scales and items to use. It builds on the discussion in the literature on the six factor structure of this measure. An alternative shortened version of this wellbeing measure (Van Dier...

A sample of 48 managers and 308 staff members of a community health care organization took part in a study to investigate the influence of participating in an upward feedback program on leadership behaviour, both as indicated be self-ratings and subordinates’ ratings. The research design consisted of three measurement points within one year. The...

The aim of this paper is to adapt to Spanish the D. van Direndonck version of Carol Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Scales, and to analyse its consistency and factorial validity. All the scales exhibited good internal reliabilities, with Cronbach alpha's ranging from 0.83 (Self-acceptance) to 0.68 (Personal growth). However, confirmatory factor ana...

This article describes the relation between spirituality and well-being. First, we differentiate spirituality from religion by focusing on the inner attitude of living life directly related to the sacred that is not restricted to a membership of a religion. Next, a review is provided of empirical studies on the beneficial effects of spirituality on...

In recent years there has been a shift in the managerial sphere of interest within organisations. Increasingly, managers tend to focus on the creation of sustainable development. This has a positive impact on employees and society as a whole (Spears, 1998; Patterson, 2003). More than ever before, organisations are seeking to recruit leaders who not...

Researchers have reported that, for individual workers, low job control is associated with high burnout; however, as yet it is unclear whether this association holds for occupations as well. Whether differences in job control between occupations as assessed by eight expert judges could account for individual-level and occupational-level differences...

A field study involving a healthcare institution was conducted, to examine the mediating influence of conflict responses on the relation between conflict and well-being. We tested the hypothesis that conflict at work and its responses resulted in the experience of more organizational stress and therefore in reduced well-being. Using structural equa...

In this study we investigated the value of flotation Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) as a stress-management tool. We focused on the physiological effects of REST, its influence on well-being, and on performance. Twenty-seven studies published in 25 articles or book chapters were included in a meta-analysis. The total number of p...

Purpose – This study examines the moderating influence of the Big Five factors of agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability on the relationship between conflict and well‐being.Design/methodology/approach – Two field studies were conducted in which respondents were asked to fill out questionnaires during work hours; the first study involv...

The Good Life: Introduction of a multidimensional model and measurement instrument of eudaimonic wellbeing This article describes a model and measurement instrument of eudaimonic wellbeing including eight dimensions: purpose in life, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, personal growth, inner resources...

This study evaluated the effects of a burnout prevention program based on insights from transpersonal psychology, notably psychosynthesis. It examined the effects of the program on burnout, happiness, spirituality, emotional intelligence, and relative deprivation with respect to one's career. Thirty-eight individuals, mostly with a background in en...

Conflict theory and research largely ignored the possible relationships between conflict at work, and individual health, well-being, and job satisfaction. We present a model that argues that poor health and well-being can trigger conflict in the workplace, and reduce the extent to which conflict is managed in a constructive, problem solving way. Th...

A field study involving a health-care institution was conducted, to examine the mediating influence of conflict responses on the relation between conflict and well-being. We tested the hypothesis that conflict at work and its responses resulted in the experience of more organizational stress and therefore in reduced well-being. Using structural equ...

This study investigates the role of feedback in minimizing the psychological impact of a negative selection decision on job applicants. The method and findings of a laboratory experiment into subjects' reactions to rejection, combined with feedback on this decision as well as perceptions of procedural and distributive fairness, are discussed. Subje...

The authors used a longitudinal design to investigate the relation between leadership behavior and the well-being of subordinates. Well-being is conceptualized as people's feelings about themselves and the settings in which they live and work. Staff members (N = 562) of 2 Community Trusts participated 4 times in a 14-month period. Five models were...

This study examined the factorial and content validity of Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-being (SPWB) in a sample of psychology students (N=233) and a sample of professionals from a diverse occupational background (N=420). The psychometric quality of the SPWB was tested for the versions with 3-items, 9-items and 14-items. It appeared that the...

Conflict theory and research largely ignored the possible relationships between conflict at work, and individual health, well-being, and job satisfaction. We present a model that argues that poor health and well-being can trigger conflict in the workplace, and reduce the extent to which conflict is managed in a constructive, problem solving way. Th...

The present study among 242 professionals working in a lung clinic and nursing home was designed to test a model that links supervisory behavior (i.e. leader member exchange (LMX) behavior and conflict management behavior) and reciprocity in the supervisor/subordinate relationship to objectively registered subordinate absenteeism. With respect to L...

Studied the relationship between objectively recorded job autonomy and well-being. It was hypothesized that if a "healthy" job is one that offers sufficient autonomy, a negative correlation should exist between autonomy and the across-professions percentage of high-risk workers. Eight experts rated the amount of autonomy in 28 professions with a kn...

A sample of 96 trolley car drivers was used to investigate the relationship between aggressive behavior of passengers and burnout, the moderating effect of conflict management behavior of the drivers on this relationship; and the influence of burnout on customer-friendliness, passenger complaints, and absenteeism. The results show that aggressive b...

In this article, causal relations among three dimensions of burnout, as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory, were examined. Three causal models were examined using data from five earlier published longitudinal studies. Models were fitted using structural equation modelling (SEM) with multi-group analysis. In the best fitting model, personal a...

In a composite sample of human service professionals (N = 245), longitudinal relations across 1 year were tested between equity in the professional-recipient relationship and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). The 1st research question was whether inequity influenced burnout across time. Th...

This study among a sample of 207 general practitioners (GPs) uses a five-year longitudinal design to test a process model of burnout. On the basis of social exchange and equity theory, it is hypothesized and found that demanding patient contacts produce a lack of reciprocity in the GP-patient relationship, which, in turn, depletes GPs' emotional re...

This study among a sample of 207 general practitioners (GPs) uses a five‐year longitudinal design to test a process model of burnout. On the basis of social exchange and equity theory, it is hypothesized and found that demanding patient contacts produce a lack of reciprocity in the GP–patient relationship, which, in turn, depletes GPs' emotional re...

This study evaluated a 5-week, group-based burnout intervention program among direct-care professionals working with mentally disabled individuals. Equity theory was used as the theoretical framework. The main objective of the program was to reduce perceptions of inequity in the relationship with the organization and with the recipients of care by...

This research investigated the impact on burnout of inequity experienced by human service professionals. Two studies were conducted, among therapists working with inmates in a forensic psychiatric center (N = 112) and among staff members of an institute for the direct care of mentally disabled (N = 189). Two types of inequity were examined: interpe...

A tentative dual-level social exchange model of burnout and organizational commitment is proposed that includes social exchange relationships at the interpersonal level (i.e. between human services professional, or caregiver, and recipient) as well as at the organizational level (i.e. between employees and organization). The model was tested and cr...

In the present study, burnout scores of three samples, as measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory, were compared: (1) the normative American sample from the test-manual (N = 10,067), (2) the normative Dutch sample (N = 3,892), and (3) a Dutch outpatient sample (N = 142). Generally, the highest burnout scores were found for the outpatient sample...

Investigated the relationship of harassment by patients, feelings of inequity, and social support on burnout in 567 Dutch GPs. Burnout was measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and LISREL VII was used to test an a priori specified linear structural equation model that was based on equity theory. An indication of the level of burnout among G...