Mapping the Conceptual Overlap of Positive Leadership: A Co-occurrence-Based Bibliometric Analysis of Humble, Ethical, Servant, and Authentic Leadership

Abstract

This study employs bibliometric analysis to compare the literature on servant, ethical, and authentic leadership—collectively termed moral-oriented styles—with the emerging field of humble leadership. The primary aim is to examine the thematic proximity among these styles and explore the structural nuances of each framework. Using keyword co-occurrence analysis through VOSviewer on a comprehensive dataset from the Web of Science, the study examines the developmental trajectories and conceptual architectures of each style. Results reveal a significant conceptual convergence, reflecting deeply embedded theoretical overlaps, such as a shared moral focus and follower-centric approaches that extend beyond a mere association with positive outcome variables. While humble leadership exhibits strong network ties to these core mechanisms—especially in fostering organisational trust—it preserves a unique structural position. Its high network density and specialised indicators like ‘team reflexivity’ justify its theoretical distinctiveness. Notably, the representation of ‘humility’ as an integrated node within the servant leadership map, alongside its independent clustering, demonstrates a 'functional duality' —acting as both a foundational trait and a standalone style. These findings have highlighted the similarities and differences between these concepts and examined the visibility of conceptual relationships in bibliometric maps. Based on the findings, several theoretical inferences have been drawn.

Keywords

• humble leadership
• servant leadership
• authentic leadership
• ethical leadership
• positive leadership

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