Servant leadership in the literary creations of John Steinbeck in 'In Dubious Battle', 'Of Mice and Men', and 'The Grapes of Wrath'

This study explores servant leadership in Steinbeck's literary creations through the critically-praised novels In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Leadership, both past and present, demonstrates when leaders act immorally, great suffering may result. Within morality, the universal practice of preventing harm has two principles, sympathetic compassion and service, and they are found in current servant leadership theory. The theoretical framework used to guide the data analysis was Greenleaf's (1970) servant leadership reduced by Spears (2001) to ten characteristics of a servant leader: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of the people, and building community. The mixed research methodologies employed were biographical and reader-response literary criticism. The biographical approach focuses on winnowing the life and works of an individual of importance; this involves using guiding research questions, a theoretical framework, and a systematic review of authentic documents to reduce and interpret data into a contextually-detailed, thickly-descriptive narrative that provides meaning and interpretation (Creswell, 1998; Denzin, 1998). Reader-response literary criticism states new insights the critic brings via close reading could be valuable for developing a deeper understanding of the literary work (Rosenblatt, 1996). Steinbeck explores leadership in In Dubious Battle (1986), where social-activist leaders emerge to unify workers to strike at a California fruit ranch. However, the leaders use individual strikers as "disposable cannon fodder" (Dickstein, 2004) to advance the cause. Steinbeck continues to explore a leader's impact on those being led in Of Mice and Men (2006), where ranch owners care only about maximizing profit and use intimidation and violence to create a demoralizing culture where workers suffer. This concern for suffering becomes the key principle that guides servant leadership in The Grapes of Wrath (1988), as three major characters demonstrate Spears' ten characteristics (2001). This study's findings suggest servant leader scholarship supports, and thereby provides educational merit to, Steinbeck's insights that leadership guided by listening, self-reflection, sympathetic compassion and service enables those being led to form a healing, productive community that collectively can overcome hardships. This could guide contemporary leaders needing to realign with a moral compass (Lad & Luechauer, 1998).