Servant and sustainable leadership: an analysis in the manufacturing environment

Servant and sustainable leadership have emerged as important topics in light of the current economic turmoil. This research examined the levels of servant and sustainable leadership as perceived by all employees of selected manufacturing organisations and examined the relationship between servant leadership and sustainable leadership in a combined survey instrument. The study included four manufacturing companies in the USA. A Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ) revealed that employees perceived their leaders to utilise the dimensions of servant leadership at levels similar to the seminal research of Barbuto and Wheeler (2006). The second part of the study examined sustainable leadership using the Sustainability Leadership Questionnaire created by the authors. Sustainable leadership dimensions were identified and a baseline was established for future research. The relationship between servant and sustainable leadership was examined using the correlations that compared each question within the instrument.