Hi Eric,  I love this example and it would seem that the student's learned through the process of a servant leadership course.  The data you present really shows the differences of their thought processes in the midst of a 15 week course.  Do you think that this data would be the same given on a larger scale with more classes and with various teaching styles given in that process?  I am curious as to how that factors into this data.  Thanks again for your efforts and I enjoyed your research data.  Take care.  Matt.

Matt, great question, I am hoping to know that someday with repeatable studies in different settings; F2F, online, hybrid.   All the best, Eric   

Hi Eric, I am proud of you for promoting this concept of servant leader. As a side note, I teach on the Masters in Administration level and I do promote this concept of being a servant leader and for the most part, they buy into it and want to know what they can do to be one.

As for your paper, the one weakness, of course, is it's only 6 students. I like, however, that you had a pre and post survey that shows your students understand the concept and want to be one themselves.

I see that in your Review of Literature, you refered to "academia" a lot, and for that I was very happy, because, as I said earlier, my students are in academia, future administrators, and I am a firm believer that you need to be a servant leader if you are going to be an effective one.

My one suggestion Eric, is to add a paragraph or two listing the things that  your students could do to be a servant leader. I know they must have read them in the text you have provided for them, but I am thinking about your readers now and many don't have a clear idea of what kind of things they need to do in their position to be a servant leader. That was the only thought I had for you Eric.

Again, thanks for writing the paper, more leaders need to be exposed to this concept.

Joe Popma

Joe, thanks for the great feedback.  I think a short roadmap in the discussion would go a long way. ---EJR

Hello Eric,

This was an interesting read. Suggestions would be to increase your study size by implementing multiple sites to provide a comparable relationship of variables. By doing so, this would increase your theoretical implications.

Lasheba Travis

Lasheba, thanks for the feedback.  That is the next study being built for IRB approval as we speak...the design attempts to study another group consisting of individuals that are professional emergency service responders returing to academia.

Eric

Eric,

I truly appreciated the research, as I am presently pursuing my PhD in Organizational Leadership and my research interest revolves around Servant Leadership in the Health Care Professional.  

A longitudinal study would be interesting to analyze.  The further research you alluded to, with professional emergency responders, will be enlightening as well.  I hope a large sample can be recruited for the study.  

Cheryl

Eric,

I believe your research effort did achieve its intended objectives, especially in the way you used Palmer's constructive framework to impact the six emergency services students on Greenfield's theory of a servant leadership. Your reserach findings corroborate the claim that some of the characteristics of a servant leader transcend the prevaling culture of self-serving. A takeaway for me is that servant leadership is not a matter of theoretical construct, as good as this may look in the reviews of the literature, but in a leader persona to serving the other first! This is the major charateristic of great leaders. Or, what do you think? Moses Taiwo

Greetings Eric.

This is an interesting study and I would view it as an excellent pilot study since the sample size was small, fine for a case study but a bit small and using purposeful sampling, not a quantitative study.  I like the pre-post collection of data but you always need to be conscious of the pretest sensitizing the subjects to the study.  If you elect to replete the study with a larger sample consider randomizing the sample and using an assignment similar to the Solomon four group design (http://changingminds.org/explanations/research/design/solomon.htm).

Best wishes on an interesting study.

Dave

Hello Eric,

I like that you connect the emergency service professional to the servant leader because as "first responders" these agencies exist to ensure public safety and health by addressing different emergencies.  This also suggests to me that the emergency service professional may have a servant leadership style which is what Greenleaf describes as a leader that focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong.

With that said, in my Org 825 and Leadership 615 courses the focus is on leadership styles and I am a strong supporter of the servant leadership style. You provide a good synthesis of the information on emergency services as it relates to the servant leader in support of the framework of your paper.  However, as I read your statement that "emergency service professionals come into their careers through academic training and education", I am thinking that due to the nature of this culture, there must be some exposure beyond their theoretical training to prepare the service professional to serve in the capacity of a servant leader.

Your discussion captures the research well.  However, your sample size is a bit limited.   It may help to research beyond the traditional contributors and include more participants, conduct service provider focus groups to get more of their own voice relative to serving before and after addressing different emergencies.  This may be for another paper, but this inclusion might yield some of the core factors that are more akin to the compassionate nature of the emergency service professional "who puts the needs of others first" in his/her role as a servant leader. Of course your findings would be impacted.  Good Job

Linda Fontenot

Hello, Eric! Nice work on your paper. I like how you discussed servant leadership in education. I think that leading by example is very important. If the instructors are expected to meet certain deadlines and expectations, then I believe the students should be as well. I would like to know the reactions of my students if I was unable to complete grading or providing feedback in a timely manner because I was too busy, I work too much, or I have family obligations. I remind my students that I am a current student as well and I also work 2 jobs, yet I am able to get all my tasks done through determination and time management. I understand I have more experience in time management than most of my students, but they recognize that I am also juggling academic, professional, and personal responsibilities once they realize I know how they feel. My point is that I serve my students by modeling what they are doing at a higher level They respect me because I have many obligation sin several areas of life like they do, making them more likely to try harder to meet expectations. It is almost like if I can do it, they can do it. :-)

All,

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for the feedback and kind words regarding my work.  I wish all the best to each of you and again I truly appreciate all the input.

All the best,

Eric

The author did a great deal of work in making his points relevant and pragmatic. The idea that emergency services students ought to acquire basic knowledge for their future career in emergency services through academic training is plausible indeed. Although the sample size was quite small, but the message evidently came across-in substance, the findings seem to suggest that undergoing a course on servant leadership had a great impact on how students understood and aligned themselves with servant leadership.

For future research, it would be reasonable to increase the sample size that way the demographics and results would be conclusive and conceivable.

Overall, the author did a great job supporting his research study with reasonable amount of references.

J.Ibeh Agbanyim