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It is argued that while service requirements are pervasive in organisational contexts, when leading their followers, service has not typically been expected of leaders. The purpose of this paper is to propose how the service of followers should be constructed as a competency of leaders.

This is a conceptual paper, which evaluates and builds theory in the form of a framework of service as a leadership competency. This framework is based upon the application of social exchange and leadership-member exchange theories and the use of scholarly sources.

The paper defines service as a leadership competency and proposes that it has at least five requisite and interconnected attributes, namely, individualised consideration, compassion, a motivation to serve, humility and integrative thinking to resolve competing stakeholder interests for the greater good. It further argues that when leaders exercise this competency and its associated attributes, it creates social relations with followers, rather than economic ones.

This conceptual paper contains no empirical data.

The paper develops service as a leadership competency and proposes that social dyadic relations between leader and follower may be advanced through its development.

The paper proposes five attributes which would differentiate service as a competency from other leader competencies. It also provides an explanation of the process through which competencies can realise relational outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for the service line management approach in health care. Service line management is increasingly utilized by US health care organizations as an innovative method for providing the needed stimulus to increase viability and profitability for the ailing health care sector.

Using current literature, this study describes a paradigm shift from traditional health care management approaches to focus on the importance of a service line management approach with its specific emphasis on competencies of leaders.

Four essential competencies – conceptual, participation, interpersonal, and leadership – must be gained by leaders to bring about organizational growth.

Health care managers must understand and practice these four key competencies to become effective health care leaders.

This paper provides useful information on the need for the service line management approach in health care.

Drawing from self-determination theory, this study aims to examine the effect of leader humor on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and proactive customer service performance (PCSP) via harmonious passion (HP) for work with employee neuroticism as the moderating mechanism.

This study controlled for the nested effect and tested all the hypotheses with Mplus 7.0 using a time-lagged three-wave survey of 232 Chinese supervisor–subordinate dyads.

The results indicated that leader humor promotes frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and PCSP by enhancing their HP. Furthermore, neuroticism was shown to strengthen the direct impact of leader humor on employee HP and its indirect impact on employee service performance and employee PCSP through HP.

First, this research contributes to the leader humor literature through exploring its impact on the service performance and PCSP of frontline hospitality employees. Second, this research develops a new framework to explain the leader humor-employee service outcomes relationship using self-determination theory. Finally, the focus on the moderating role of neuroticism helps to explain the “when” question of leader humor.

It is reasonable to assume that levels of business excellence will vary considerably amongst a group of organisations; two recent studies of organisations in north east England support this hypothesis. Draws on these benchmarking data. Relates to 28 business excellence practices and 19 operational performance measures covering strategy, human resources, service delivery and quality, service design and innovation, service value and measurement and business performance. Identifies the extent of any significant differences in overall practice and performance attainment levels between service leaders and their counterparts. Also considers combinations of attributes that best discriminate between levels of attainment. Derives a subset of measures that have the potential to provide an insight into a service organisation’s level of practice adoption and corresponding performance. Also considers additional characteristics to ascertain what association, if any, they have with the level of practice adoption and operational performance amongst the service organisations. All significant differences are highlighted at the 5 per cent significance level unless otherwise stated.

Employee’s service innovative behavior lays the groundwork for bottom-up innovation and ongoing service improvement in service firms. Therefore, it is vital for service organizations to understand the antecedents of employees service innovative behavior. Drawing upon the social cognitive theory, this study aims to develop a research model that examines the effects of ethical and entrepreneurial leadership on service innovative behavior.

Data were collected from 178 managers and 415 employees working in 178 small- and medium-sized (SME) hotels in Vietnam.

The findings showed that ethical leadership has direct and indirect effects on service innovative behavior, while entrepreneurial leadership only influences service innovative behavior via intrinsic motivation. In addition, trust in leader moderates the effect of intrinsic motivation on service innovative behavior

The study advances current scholarly research on leadership by combining the two areas of entrepreneurial and ethical leadership into one theoretical model and examines how these leadership styles generate hospitality employees’ service innovative behavior through the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation and the moderating effect of trust in leader.

The findings of this research offer significant implications for SME hotels and their managers. In their recruitment processes, hotels should search for particular personality traits, which have been found to predict ethical and entrepreneurial leadership. Hospitality firms also need to encourage communication between leaders and co-workers to enhance employees’ intrinsic motivation.

There are calls for research to examine whether both entrepreneurial and ethical leadership styles can be integrated to enhance employees’ positive outcomes. Evidence about the mechanism linking entrepreneurial and ethical leadership to service innovative behavior is limited. With this stated, the current study makes significant contribution to leadership and innovation literature by filling in these voids.

Customer service is crucial for organizations' survival and competitiveness in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this study is to examine how and when servant leadership affects extra-role customer service.

The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 302 employees from a passenger transport company in China.

Results demonstrate that servant leadership was positively related to extra-role customer service and that this relation was mediated by relational identification. In addition, the mediating effect of relational identification in the relation between servant leadership and extra-role customer service was contingent on prosocial motivation.

The study is the first to explore the relation between servant leadership and extra-role customer service from the perspective of relational identification and the moderating role of prosocial motivation.

This article explores some of the contemporary challenges facing leaders of children's services. Using the theoretical framework of the ‘incomplete leader’ developed by Ancona and colleagues (2007), the article reflects on the many challenges facing children's service leaders. It argues that a distributed and connected model of leadership is the best available in the current climate of change and challenge. This model contradicts the current one of embodied, individualised leadership contained in the England and Wales Children Act 2004. The article argues that the key leadership skills are about making sense of change, relating to people, creating a vision and developing new ways of working. The article utilises Government policy documents such as the Children's Plan and Care Matters, workforce issues and strategic planning to illustrate the nature of the leadership challenge. It concludes by suggesting a way forward for children's services leadership in integrated settings, in the current climate of audit and managerialism.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCs) provide numerous avenues for youth to connect, be physically active and have healthy meals/snacks. These services are often provided to low-income families at reduced cost to bridge the gap in after school and summer childcare. However, many of these clubs were forced to dramatically change their services during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to examine how 13 BGCs in Texas, USA, experienced COVID-19 and persevered to provide services.

Interviews were conducted with 16 BGC leaders from 13 different BGCs. Open-ended questions were used to elicit leaders’ experiences with the pandemic, services their clubs were able to offer, barriers overcome and supports crucial to their ability to serve their communities. Thematic analysis was used to generate findings from these interviews.

BGC services changed significantly during the pandemic. Normal activities were no longer possible; however, leaders (alongside their communities) continually provided services for their families. Further, leaders reiterated the power of the community coming together in support of their families.

While BGC leaders had to adapt services, they found ways to reach families and serve their community. These adaptations can have dramatic impacts on the social and physical well-being of children in their communities. Learning from this adversity can improve services as clubs start to build back.

This study provides vital context to the changing care and setting children were exposed to during the pandemic response. Additionally, these results provide understanding of the adaptations that took place in these services.

A connection between servant leadership and constructive developmental theory is proposed. A theoretical framework is offered that examines the subject and object relationship for servant leaders at progressive stages of meaning making, showing how the way leaders make meaning of service evolves with their constructive development. The framework also proposes a threshold on the ability to adopt servant leadership. This understanding suggests that leadership educators who wish to promote servant leadership should first focus their energies on helping younger students reach the developmental stage required for servant leadership.