Servant leadership and virtues: avoiding the shadow side

This week I created a video that discusses the concept of servant leadership, how it can go wrong, and how you can fix it by developing your virtues.

If you've studied leadership—or practiced it—you’ve probably encountered the idea of servant leadership. Introduced by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, servant leadership flips the traditional model. Rather than leading from the top down, servant leaders focus on serving others first—prioritizing the growth, well-being, and success of their team members.

And when it’s done right, it works. Servant leadership can be energizing, rewarding, and fulfilling—for both the leader and the people they serve. It creates workplaces built on trust, collaboration, and mutual growth. Leaders flourish. Teams thrive. Everyone wins.

But what happens when it’s not done right?

That’s where things get tricky.

The Hidden Risks of Servant Leadership

In theory, a servant leadership culture sounds ideal—leaders putting people before profit, individuals lifting each other up, and organizations aligned with purpose. But theory and reality don’t always match.

What happens when only a few people are practicing servant leadership?
What happens when an organization is politically charged or lacks trust?
What happens when leaders give so much of themselves that they burn out?

Recent research is starting to uncover the shadow side of servant leadership—what can happen when the environment isn’t supportive, or when the expectations placed on servant leaders become overwhelming.

Let’s look at three studies that shed light on this issue—and explore how virtue development might be the missing ingredient for more authentic, sustainable leadership.

Study 1. When Office Politics Undermine Service

In a 2023 study, researchers Peng, Gao, and Wang surveyed 607 employees in both China and the U.S. to understand how servant leadership functions in politically charged environments.

They found that in organizations where servant leadership is encouraged—but perceptions of organizational politics (POP) are high—employees often feel pressured to perform servant leadership rather than embody it.

POP refers to self-serving workplace behavior—things like manipulating information, building coalitions, and gaining advantage at others’ expense. In these environments, servant leaders may adopt impression management tactics just to survive:

• Exemplification: showcasing tireless self-sacrifice

• Ingratiation: always being agreeable and likable

• Self-promotion: constantly appearing competent and indispensable

In short, people start acting like servant leaders to meet expectations—but it’s a mask. And masks are exhausting to wear.

Servant leadership culture + office politics = impression management = burnout.

The authors warn that even well-meaning efforts to build a servant leadership culture can backfire without psychological safety and transparency. If politics dominate, service becomes performance. And the cost is high.

Study 2. Even Servant Leaders Need Support

Another 2023 study, by Li, Chen, Bai, and Liden, focused on the psychological strain that can come with practicing servant leadership—especially when leaders aren’t supported by their leaders.

They studied 474 team leaders and nearly 4,000 followers in a Chinese manufacturing firm, using five waves of data collection. The takeaway?

Servant leadership is most effective—and least exhausting—when leaders have high-quality relationships with their own supervisors (what the researchers call Leader-Leader Exchange, or LLX).

When LLX was strong, servant leaders felt energized and experienced less psychological strain. But when LLX was weak, leaders reported increased role conflict—the pressure of navigating competing demands—and ultimately higher burnout and lower performance.

This underscores a critical point: Leaders can’t serve well if their own needs aren’t being met. Servant leaders still need boundaries, support, and resources to thrive. Otherwise, the burden of care can become too heavy to carry.

Study 3. Virtues in Leadership: What TED Talks Teach Us

So what’s the solution? How do we support servant leaders and prevent these unintended consequences?

One promising possibility: virtue development.

In a 2022 study, researcher Toby Newstead analyzed 25 TED Talks on leadership. While the talks didn’t explicitly focus on ethics or virtue theory, many of them referenced virtues—core character traits like love, helpfulness, kindness, and openness.

Newstead makes a powerful argument: Virtues aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re essential, teachable, and underutilized tools in leadership development.

He defines virtue (singular) as an internal orientation toward good, and virtues (plural) as the visible habits and traits that reflect that inner moral compass.

Among the top virtues referenced in these TED Talks:

• Leadership

• Love

• Helpfulness

• Kindness

• Openness

Newstead’s conclusion? If we want better leaders, we need to name these virtues, talk about them openly, and help people learn how to develop them.

Where Virtues and Servant Leadership Meet

So how do virtues help us tackle the shadow side of servant leadership?

The answer lies in moral character. Servant leadership’s foundational traits—like empathy, listening, stewardship, and healing—map closely to many of the virtues found in Newstead’s TED Talk study.

But here’s where it gets interesting: virtues help leaders moderate the extremes.

Servant leadership traits have corresponding virtues, which paradoxically pose risks that could lead to the shadow side, but also offer virtue as a way to avoid the dark side.

For example:

Commitment to others’ growth corresponds to love and helpfulness, but the risk of overdoing love and helpfulness can lead to self-neglect and burnout (causing exhaustion), and the way to counteract this is to develop your virtues to balance your love for others with your love for yourself.

Virtues give leaders the tools to serve ethically and sustainably. They create an inner compass that prevents the practice of servant leadership from becoming distorted or performative. And perhaps most importantly, they allow leaders to maintain boundaries, which are essential for long-term well-being.

Final Thoughts: Leading from the Inside Out

Servant leadership is a powerful approach—but it can’t stand alone.

It requires:

• Cultural support (low office politics, high trust)

• Relational support (leaders supporting leaders)

• Character support (the development of virtues)

When leaders grow in virtues like love, kindness, helpfulness, and openness, they become more grounded, more resilient, and more effective. They’re not just mimicking servant leadership—they’re living it.

So, if you want to be a servant leader—or build a culture that supports them—start by asking:

Who am I becoming as I lead?

That question will lead you straight to the heart of servant leadership—and to the virtues that sustain it.

Watch the video for a deeper dive.

References

Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as leader. The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

Li, F., Chen, T., Bai, Y., Liden, R. C., Wong, M.-N., & Qiao, Y. (2023). Serving while being energized (strained)? A dual-path model linking servant leadership to leader psychological strain and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(4), 660–675. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001041

Newstead, T. (2022). Being Explicit About Virtues: Analysing TED Talks and Integrating Scholarship to Advance Virtues-Based Leadership Development. Journal of Business Ethics, 181(2), 335–353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04966-2

Peng, A. C., Gao, R., & Wang, B. (2023). Linking servant leadership to follower emotional exhaustion through impression management. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(4), 643–659. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2682