Critical review of servant leadership instruments and the call for culturally grounded models to serve global contexts

Abstract

This paper reviews eight major servant leadership measurement instruments developed over the last two decades and focuses on their strengths, limitations, and cultural blind spots. This writing aims to assess their applicability in non-Western and collectivist societies influenced by Confucian and Buddhist values and highlights the need for culturally grounded leadership measurement. Using a cross-cultural lens, the analysis assesses each scale’s cultural competence. A narrative reflexive account from the author’s Vietnamese cultural context also adds interpretive depth. Most servant leadership instruments were developed and validated in Western contexts, limiting their validity in cultures where constructs such as humility, standing back, forgiveness, and empowerment are interpreted differently. The review reveals significant gaps in cultural responsiveness and underscores the necessity for instruments that reflect local social norms, gender dynamics, and structural realities. This paper additionally contributes to the underexplored area of culturally grounded leadership measurement. It introduces a reflexive, cross-cultural critique that underscores the need for locally attuned servant leadership instruments. The review advances a more inclusive leadership science by encouraging researchers to embed indigenous values, historical legacies, gendered relations, and wider cultural and structural nuances into leadership assessment and theory development.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 2026 · DOI ↗