Is It Servant Leadership or Subservient Leadership? Understanding the Role of Hierarchy and Innovation in Higher Education Leadership

This chapter focuses on tensions between servant and subservient leadership characteristics that facilitate or hinder innovation in higher education institutions. Greenleaf (1998) argued that it is grounded in caring for people, supporting their growth, and fostering institutions that enable this work. Northouse (2022) similarly defined servant leadership as ‘attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Servant leaders put followers first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal capacities’ (p. 253). This aligns with the student-centred missions typically driving change in higher education, while highlighting tensions that arise from hierarchical structures in US postsecondary systems that may conflict with these principles. In this chapter, we blend educator, administrator, and student perspectives from a graduate higher education leadership programme. Part of the planning curriculum directive includes engagement in reflexive practice and to better understand the organizational dynamics between student-centred leadership missions and higher education structures that may influence innovation (Del Carlo et al., 2010). Alignment and misalignment were found in three major areas: Flexibility, Compassion and Empathy, and Conceptualization and Awareness. We offer implications and lessons learned for their development into effective leading strategies and speak to practices that support quality teaching and learning at the postsecondary level that enhance continued lifelong learning.