The servant leader as a critical pedagogue: drawing lessons from critical pedagogy

• Main Authors: Jeyaraj, Joanna Joseph, Gandolfi, Franco
• Format: Article
• Published: Routledge 2022
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103739/; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13603124.2019.1690702?journalCode=tedl20
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

Servant leadership is a concept deeply rooted in ancient history and Greenleaf revitalized this practice in modern-day organizations. In this paper, we seek to identify how a servant leader, or servant teacher can draw lessons from critical pedagogy and how through various pedagogical interventions they can serve as critical pedagogues. Critical pedagogues are guided by the spirit of social justice and aim to impact social change through education. They transform inequitable, undemocratic, or oppressive institutions and social relations by inviting students to critically reflect and act upon their immediate situations. This conceptual paper focuses upon a list of key attributes of servant leadership and how these refer to the literature surrounding critical pedagogy. A deeper, more systematic exploration of servant teaching and critical pedagogy has shown that both concepts champion similar ideals and are in fact guided by a similar spirit which call for a learner-driven approach that purports to empower and impact surrounding communities.