Servant Leadership,Conflict Management and Relationship Management among CITAM and PCEA Pastors in Kenya: A Mixed Methods Study
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Date
2025-12-02
Authors
Anne Mumbua Musya
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Publisher
Pac University
Abstract
The main objective of the study was to assess the relationship between servant leadership behaviours and interpersonal conflict management styles among pastors in CITAM and PCEA churches in Kenya. The moderating variable was emotional intelligence. The specific objectives were: to determine the effect of emotional healing on interpersonal conflict management styles among pastors, to establish the influence of conceptualizing on interpersonal conflict management styles among pastors, to investigate the effect of putting followers first on interpersonal conflict management styles among pastors, to determine the effect of behaving ethically on interpersonal conflict management styles among pastors, to determine if emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between servant leadership and interpersonal conflict management among pastors from CITAM and PCEA urban churches in Kenya, and to compare and contrast the themes emerging from the qualitative on servant leadership, interpersonal conflict management styles and relationship management with the results obtained from the quantitative research. The study was anchored on the Servant Leadership Theory, Organizational Conflict, Theory and Emotional Intelligence Theory. The study was based on the Pragmatic philosophy and
used convergent parallel mixed methods design. The population comprised of 180 pastors from eight urban towns in Kenya. Through random sampling, a sample size of 123 pastors was selected. Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee at Pan Africa Christian University and the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation in Kenya. Data was collected electronically through a structured and semi-structured questionnaire to collect both quantitative and qualitative data concurrently. The quantitative data from the structured questionnaire was analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics, using STATA Version 17. On the first objective to determine the effect of emotional healing on interpersonal conflict among the pastors, the p-value was 0.355. The second objective on the effect of conceptualizing on interpersonal conflict management had a p-value of 0.443. The third objective on the effect of putting followers first on interpersonal conflict among pastors had a p-value of 0.057. The fourth objective on the effect of behaving ethically on interpersonal conflict among pastors had a p-value of 0.400. Quantitative data was presented using tables and figures. From the findings, only ‘putting followers first’ servant leadership behaviour had a noticeable impact on how pastors handle interpersonal conflict. Simple regression analysis results indicated that servant leadership has an effect on accommodating and collaborating conflict management styles. ATLAS.ti 7 software was used for qualitative data analysis to generate themes. Qualitative data was presented using thematic analysis and tables. The qualitative analysis revealed challenges that impede the use of servant leadership in conflict management. The emerging themes revealed that organizational leadership, organizational culture, spiritual maturity and self-leadership were necessary antecedents to the use of servant leadership in conflict management. The qualitative findings also revealed the need for interventions through training on servant leadership, conflict management and emotional intelligence, for effective interpersonal conflict management among pastors.