Article 02 – The Impact of Servant Leadership on Talent Management Across Healthcare and Manufacturing sectors

In the modernized corporate world, leadership plays a significant role in shaping up organization’s talent management strategies. One of the leadership styles that mainly gets attention is that “Servant Leadership” style. This leadership style is more concerned about employee’s career development and as well as personal growth which are important factors when it comes to maintaining talented employees within an organization. According to Fitria et al. there is a major necessity in having servant leadership method in order have an effective and efficient workforce within an organization to sustain the organizational goals. (Fitria Fatimah and Teigen Ellingsen, 2025)

We will explore more on the impact of servant leadership on talent management and how its principles are applied in different industries with practical examples.

What is Servant Leadership?

As per Robert K Greenleaf who was the first person to find the concept of "servant leadership," in 1970. The primary objective behind this theory is that leader's must be able to serve their team member while supporting them when needed. Rather than focusing on dominating their designated power or control. Servant leaders prioritize the well-being and growth of their team members while helping them to their do their best at work.

This leadership theory is more concerned about humanity comparing to other traditional leadership styles such as, transactional and autocratic leadership approaches. Since this leadership style is concerning about employees wellbeing it helps to create a effective corporate culture that builds trust among employees which would help company’s to achieve their ultimate goals.

Servant Leadership and Talent Management

Talent management involves in attracting, developing, and retaining talented individuals within an organization. Leaders who adopt servant leadership principles plays a major role in each of the above mentioned stages. Their main focus is on employee growth and development that helps to create an environment that not only attracts top talent but also encourages them to stay and thrive.

Below are some points om how servant leadership style impacts talent management within diversified organization cultures.

1. Healthcare: Fostering Collaboration and Employee Well-being

Servant leadership style could foster a culture of collaboration which gives self-respect and generosity to employees who are in healthcare industry. Doctors and Nurses are the majority workers who are in healthcare industry which undergo exceptional stress levels while working. A servant leader’s focus on providing well-being, emotional support, and professional growth is essential in such environments.

A 2024 study by Demeke et al(Demeke, van Engen and Markos, 2024). provides a comprehensive review of servant leadership in healthcare, highlighting its role in cultivating a committed workforce and achieving performance excellence. The research underscores that servant leadership positively influences various individual and organizational outcomes, including employee satisfaction and patient care.

Further empirical evidence is presented by Amjad et al.(Amjad et al., 2024), who explore the impact of servant leadership on psychological well-being and creativity among healthcare employees. Their findings indicate a strong positive correlation, suggesting that servant leadership fosters innovative and healthy work environments, which are essential for quality patient care.

As per the research studies about health sector servant leadership which enhances talent management, it depicts that this kind of leadership style bring more effectiveness to empower health workforce.

2. Manufacturing: Empowering and Motivating Teamwork

Teamwork builds more productivity in manufacturing sector where servant leadership can be an impacting the employees in a positive manner. Servant leadership style helps employees to create and maintain an effective open work culture where the employees will be treated equally. Therefore, employee retention would be more less since employees are willing to provide their ultimate effort to improve the organization well being.

For instance, research by Iqbal et al, (Iqbal, Latif and Ahmad, 2020) indicates that servant leadership positively impacts employee innovative behavior, which in turn boosts knowledge employee performance in knowledge-based firms. As per Dalain, The correlation between organizational innovation and employee engagement is also moderated by servant leadership, (Dalain, 2023).

As per the above research findings it collectively depicts the importance of servant leadership in talent management within manufacturing sector which demonstrates effectiveness while enhancing employee engagement, motivating innovativeness and overall it improves organization performance.

The Value of Servant Leadership in Talent Nurturing

As per the understanding which we came across by referring to Healthcare and Manufacturing sectors, we could identify that employee wellbeing and empowerment can be done in an effective manner using servant leadership style. Below mentioned are some key benefits that could be summarized;

• Employee Satisfaction: when employees feel their leader is actually cares for them regarding their career development and employee wellbeing, employees become more loyal and inspired to work that organization.
• Lower Employee Turnover Rates and Effective work culture: Effective servant leadership would help an organization to retain talented employees and would help to recruit more people since the organization employee would promote that their organization is having a positive work culture.
• Greater Innovation: Workers who experience assistance are more inclined to offer creative solutions, which propels the expansion and prosperity of the company.

Conclusion

In both the manufacturing and healthcare sectors, servant leadership is very much effective to retain talented employees. In manufacturing, where teamwork and safety are top priorities, servant leaders create a work environment where every employee feels generosity and cared for their efforts. This type of effects that occurs from Servant leadership methods, would help s organizations to foster stronger collaboration, and commitment towards quality work that makes real difference on the factory floor. When considering healthcare sector, where empathy and trust are essential, servant leadership helps to create a more positive work environment for medical staff members. Well being of the staff members is one of the key elements that a servant leader focuses on which improves job satisfaction and it ultimately helps organizations to build a happy work environment. Therefore, we could identify that by considering the above factors which we discussed using manufacturing and healthcare sectors as examples, that servant leadership is having an effective impact when it comes to talent management within an organization.

References

• Amjad, R., Lalwani, R., Qureshi, F.A. and Phulpoto, S. (2024) ‘An Empirical Analysis of Servant Leadership’s Impact on Psychological Wellbeing and Employee Creativity in the Healthcare Sector’, Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 12(2), pp. 2016–2027. Available at: https://doi.org/10.52131/pjhss.2024.v12i2.2336.
• Dalain, A.F. (2023) ‘Nurturing Employee Engagement at Workplace and Organizational Innovation in Time of Crisis With Moderating Effect of Servant Leadership’, SAGE Open, 13(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231175150.
• Demeke, G.W., van Engen, M.L. and Markos, S. (2024) ‘Servant Leadership in the Healthcare Literature: A Systematic Review’, Journal of Healthcare Leadership. Dove Medical Press Ltd, pp. 1–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2147/JHL.S440160.
• Fitria Fatimah, A. and Teigen Ellingsen, A. (2025) Leadership and Talent Management Global Research Exploring the Role of Servant Leadership in Enhancing Employee Development and Talent Management. Available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
• Iqbal, A., Latif, K.F. and Ahmad, M.S. (2020) ‘Servant leadership and employee innovative behaviour: exploring psychological pathways’, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 41(6), pp. 813–827. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-11-2019-0474.