A Case Study of Servant Leadership in the Coptic Orphans Support Association

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to determine how the executive director and five directors of Coptic Orphans employ the tenets of servant leadership.

METHODOLOGY
In addition to semi-structured interviews, observations, and analysis of documented data such as historical documents, the participants completed the Leadership Practices Inventory Self and had their immediate reports complete the Observer form. The LPI was translated into Arabic and respondents could use that version or the English-language version.

KEY FINDINGS
The emergent themes about servant leadership were Enabling and Inspiring. These two leadership practices offered insight into how servant leadership is operationalized. Fifty-six percent of the total number of interviews ranked Enabling Others to Act and Inspiring a Shared Vision through listening as the top tenets employed by executive management. The leadership practice of Model the Way offered insight into the associates' perceptions of the executive director's and five directors' leadership. Seventy percent of the total number of interviews perceived Modeling as the top leadership practice by the executive director and five directors as observed by associates. The two common themes were Inspiring and Enabling with 48 percent of the total number of interviews ranking the former as the top leadership practice the leaders do well and 44 percent ranking Enabling as the second practice the leaders do well. The four emergent themes that identified new practices that leaders can employ were Enabling, Challenging, Encouraging and Inspiring. LPI (self) scores revealed that Enabling was the leadership practice with the highest average score, followed by Encouraging, Inspiring, Challenging, and Modeling.