A Systematic Narrative Review of Servant Leadership Through the Lens of Gender and Race-Ethnicity

Abstract

Individuals’ social identities implicitly inform the experience and enactment of servant leadership. Whereas the broad field of leadership is wrestling with the dynamics of power and identity, a gap exists in the servant leadership field. This systematic narrative review examines gender and race-ethnicity in the servant leadership literature from 2009 to 2021. Specifically, we explore how gender and race-ethnicity influence the perceptions and experiences of servant leadership for both followers and leaders. Our review yielded 89 relevant studies across journal articles and dissertations, from which we offer several broad conclusions. Our findings on race-ethnicity as both resource and constraint for leaders of color converge with what has been seen within leadership studies in general; research on the demographic factors of race and ethnicity lags in comparison to the broad field of literature; and more novel theoretical frameworks for the study of gender and race-ethnicity are emerging, particularly in dissertations. Our study contributes a more detailed picture of how demographic characteristics are treated in the servant leadership literature, thus expanding our current understanding of servant leadership phenomena.