Abstract
Servant leadership is a leadership model modernized by Robert Greenleaf (1970) that emphasizes the need to prioritize the highest order needs of others above self. Although recent research suggests that the model is gaining popularity and is practiced by many successful leaders in a variety of occupational sectors, a gap in substitutive research exists in the field of public educational administration, notably at the primary and secondary levels. More specifically, there is a lack of research into how teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ servant leadership characteristics influenced their likelihood to remain in their current teaching positions. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study, therefore, was to examine those perceptions and determine if they did, in fact, influence decisions of attrition and retention among public school teachers in Central Oregon. Data analysis followed a single-phase examination of twenty semi-structured interviews of primary and secondary public-school classroom teachers. These one-on-one interviews provided a significant number of shared themes regarding how teachers perceive their principals’ servant leadership characteristics, and how that perception influences their desire to remain in their current teaching positions. This study represents an important contribution to the existing literature regarding servant leadership and education, as this study provides evidence produced by the interviewed teachers to inform school principals of Central Oregon public schools about the perceptions some teachers have regarding school leaders who practice servant leadership and how that influences decisions of retention among their staff.|Keywords: servant, leader, empathy, humility, listening, integrity