The Relationship Between Servant Leadership and Personality Characteristics: The 'Big Five'

Abstract

The study is the first to examine the relationship between the ‘big five’ personality traits and the descriptors of servant leadership of medium sized or-ganisation offering transportation services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The findings support a strong, positive and significant relationship between servant leadership behaviours and the personality traits of agreeableness, conscientious-ness, openness to experience and extraversion. As expected, neuroticism (nega-tive affectivity) showed a negative relationship with every dimension of servant leadership, suggesting that in order to maintain and promote a pleasant work environment, organisations should avoid hiring and or promoting managers who score high on negative affectivity. Direction for future research and practical im-plications for leadership and business approaches are discussed.