Getting to the heart of servant leadership: An exploration of multi-strategy methodology

The initial journey that a developing researcher takes down the methodology ‘road’ can be fraught with confusion and dilemmas. Epistemological arguments can pull the researcher first one way and then the other. This paper describes and illustrates the research journey I experienced as a developing researcher while carrying out a case study of the practice of servant leadership in a higher education institution. The first part of this paper describes the dilemmas that were faced and how these lead to me employing a technical approach (Bryman, 2001) to the research methodology rather than an epistemological one. This enabled the context of the research to shape the methodology and subsequently I was able to employ both qualitative and quantitative research tools for the case study. The second and more substantial part of this paper draws on the research data from the case study to illustrate the research design that employed triangulation, facilitation, and complementary approaches to multi-strategy research (Hammersley, 1996). The aim of employing these approaches was to establish more rigor in the research process, particularly since there has been a paucity of research carried out in the field of servant leadership (Foster, 2000; Laub, 2000; Russell & Stone, 2002).