64 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY Mittal and Dorfman’s claim that ethical behavior is universally desired.36 The similar ratings for participants’ desire for Conceptual Skills and Helping Followers Grow and Succeed and mean scores above six on a seven-point Likert scale imply that these servant leadership behaviors may also be universally desired cross-culturally; however, research in more diverse contexts is needed to corroborate this claim. For Liden, Wayne, Wu, and Liao’s study, the standard deviation for Conceptual Skills was the lowest, while in Chao’s study, the standard deviation for Behaving Ethically was the lowest. This supports the claim that there is less variation in how followers prefer these servant leadership dimensions. Although ratings for the desire for Emotional Healing were below six on a seven-point Likert scale, it appears that the way Emotional Healing is desired could be similar across cultures. The differences in the desire for Creating Value for the Community, Empowering, and Putting Followers First suggest that these servant leadership behaviors are more desirable and valuable to some groups than others. For Liden, Wayne, Wu, and Liao’s and Chao’s studies, the standard deviation for Putting Followers First was the highest. This supports the claim that there is greater variation in how followers prefer this servant leadership dimension. Considering how Empowering tends to cause confusion and potentially decrease trust and productivity in high power distance cultures,37 it would be prudent for servant leaders to be cognizant of the cultural situations they are leading in and to adjust how they decide what level of empowerment is most beneficial to their followers. The comparison between the two studies suggests that the process of discerning universal versus cultural-specific servant dimensions remains ongoing, as suggested by the continued search for which servant leadership behaviors are appropriate for Chinese culture.38 Leaders who are interested in implementing servant leadership theory but may be concerned about how servant leadership interacts with their cultural contexts could consider focusing on the servant leadership dimensions of Behaving Ethically, Conceptual Skills, and Helping Followers Grow and Succeed. They may find that followers’ desire for Creating Value for the Community, Empowering, and Putting Followers First may differ more than other servant leadership dimensions, even among
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