Cultivating Virtue: Servant Leadership Development for Education

A recent Gallup poll reported that 7 out of 10 school teachers feel emotionally disconnected and/or are dissatisfied with their workplace environments. In fact, of the surveyed professionals, school teachers were least likely to feel their opinions at work counted and the least likely to feel like their supervisor creates an “open and trusting environment.” Servant leadership (SL), a virtue-ethic based leadership model in which the moral virtue of humility co-exists with action-driven leader behaviors to prioritize the growth of staff and create a sense of community (Sousa & van Dierendonck, 2015), is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, retention, productivity and other virtuous outcomes at the individual, team, and organizational level (Parris & Peachy, 2013). This proposal seeks funding for the creation of a course of study covering the philosophy of SL and the intentional cultivation of the SL virtues of Compassionate Love, Humility, Courage, Future-mindedness (foresight) and Forgiveness as they apply in the various workplace contexts and personal lives of current and future school/education leaders. The primary deliverable will be the SL course materials. We will also produce and post a report on the SL module integration.