Navigating risk and the threat of loss in transformational servant leadership: A grounded theory of when unequal negotiations lead to flourishing outcomes

Abstract

In contemporary leadership and negotiation discourse, there is increasing awareness and commitment to community oriented organizational values such as diversity, unity, equity, empowerment, and collaboration. While such values are aspirational in most organizations, they are not always realized. Leadership negotiation across power and difference often results in conflict, marginalization, stagnation, and wasted resources. While the negotiation and conflict fields address themes such as deal making, resolution, and reconciliation, there is less literature illustrating the negotiator’s internal identity and power processing that shapes negotiation behavior in unequal negotiation.

This study illustrates how evangelical Christian leaders in the United States and Southeast Asia who value diverse, transformational servant leadership can either negotiate across power inequality and diverse interests in ways that lead to either diminishing or flourishing outcomes. The United States and Southeast Asia provide a strong point of contrast to explore both the commonalities and differences related to unequal negotiation in different cultural contexts. The study developed a grounded theory of flourishing unequal negotiation inclusive of both the United States and Southeast Asia from data gained from over 30 research participants that were all organizational leaders in the global parachurch ministry Cru. This sample included diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, generation, and nationality as well as organizational departments and roles.

Research analysis identified a negotiator’s response to risk and the threat of loss in unequal negotiation as the central phenomenon, catalyzing contrasting cycles of responses that are either rooted in self-preservation or vulnerable humility. The diminishing cycle showed patterns of processing related to power and identity in unequal negotiation that led to greater emotional reactivity, negotiating rigidity, and reinforcement of power inequality. The flourishing cycle showed patterns of learning, self-differentiation from various sources of organizational power, and a re-framing of relationships and standards of success and stewardship. A key implication of the theory is that while much of the negotiation field stresses strategy, skill, and leverage, flourishing outcomes for all parties were observed to hinge on a negotiator’s capacity to remain secure and humble in the vulnerability that comes with risk and the threat of loss rather than securing power. The study’s findings contribute theoretical and theological foundations for virtue-based and transformational leadership development, negotiation, and conflict management in American and Southeast Asian organizations, churches, ministries, and non-profit organizations.