THE PARADOX OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND THE WORK-FAMILY INTERFACE The central thesis of servant leadership purports effective leaders emphasize the realization of followers’ needs in order to harness the potential of each follower. By leading with humility and personal integrity, servant leaders are devoted to helping followers reach their individual potential, through both internal self-motivation and external communityoriented stewardship that positively impacts those around each follower. Subsequent research has provided support for relationships between servant leadership and numerous individual-, group-, and organization-level outcomes. Curiously, little research has investigated the relationship between servant leadership and how individuals manage both work and family responsibilities. This is surprising considering servant leaders attempt to satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholders. While stakeholders have been thought to include followers, customers, shareholders, and the community, servant leaders may potentially consider their own family members as well as followers’ family members as vital stakeholders. That is, servant leaders may see part of their role as assisting followers in managing their family demands. A research team at UIC comprised of Eric J. Michel, Dr. Sandy Wayne, and Dr. Robert Liden seek to understand this potential paradox experienced by servant leaders. By prioritizing the individual needs of followers within a broader community-stakeholder context, it is likely that servant leaders provide emotional resources and support to followers to alleviate follower WFC. In doing so, the leader paradoxically depletes his or her own resources, thus increasing the likelihood that the leader experiences conflict in his or her personal life. In order to guide organizational practice and future research, three overarching research questions guide this study: 1) To what extent is servant leadership a) negatively related to follower work-family conflict and b) positively related to leader work-family conflict? 2) To what extent does work-family conflict mediate the relationship between servant leadership and a) follower burnout and b) leader burnout? 3) To what extent does the extent to which leaders integrate work and family responsibilities moderate the relationship between servant leadership and a) follower work-family conflict and b) leader work-family conflict? The authors recently surveyed 186 employees and their supervisors within a U.S. restaurant chain. Results of this study are forthcoming. This study was funded by a grant from the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. However, the interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.