Servant leadership, mindfulness, and compassion a systematic review

Abstract

Research purpose: This study aims to assemble existing research on the intersection of servant leadership, mindfulness, and compassion, exploring how these constructs interact to enhance leadership effectiveness, employee well-being, and organizational outcomes. It also seeks to propose an integrative framework to guide future empirical studies and servant leadership development initiatives. Research motivation: In today’s fast-changing business environment, organizations face increasing pressure to adopt leadership approaches that create sustainable success. Servant leadership, which emphasizes ethical behavior, employee growth, and well-being, has gained growing attention. At the same time, mindfulness and compassion—known for cultivating self-awareness, empathy, and emotional healing— share conceptual alignment with servant leadership. However, there is still limited research study how mindfulness and compassion jointly strengthen servant leadership practices. Research design, approach, and method: The study use a qualitative approach using thematic content analysis. Following PRISMA guidelines, 14 peer-reviewed articles published between 1990 and 2025 were selected from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The data were organized into a concept matrix to identify themes and relationships among the constructs. Main findings: Results show that mindfulness and compassion serve as key psychological mechanisms linking servant leadership with well-being, engagement, and empowerment while reducing psychological distress and withdrawal. Servant leadership can be developed through mindfulness, emotional and reflective training rather than being purely trait-based. Practical/managerial implications: Organizations can integrate mindfulness and compassion-based interventions into leadership development programs to strengthen ethical behaviour, emotional resilience, and a caring workplace culture.