Servant leadership is an interesting approach to the process of leadership. The name of 
the approach alone can confuse many. Though the approach may sound contradicting, Robert Greenleaf’s 1970, The Servant as Leader, essay contributed to over 40 years of further study. There is even a Robert Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership where individuals and organizations can seek training and other resources about servant leadership. The servant leadership approach has been made into a philosophy that believes in creating better individuals, organizations, and ultimately a better world, which makes this approach more intriguing. Though the approach is criticized for its contradicting title (Northouse, 2013), servant leadership, the approach has the potential to create a better quality of life for many.
The servant leadership approach emphasizes the leader focusing on the needs of the followers and placing followers’ needs first. The approach is deeply rooted in ethics, valuing honesty, equality, and justice. Northouse (2013) described multiple key characteristics found in several studies ranging from 1999 to 2011. Some characteristics important for the servant leadership process include: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth of people, and building community (Northouse, 2013). Furthermore, Northouse (2013) presented a Model of Servant Leadership.
The servant leadership model provides the core requirements needed to establish leadership in this manner. The first component, antecedent conditions, introduces factors that can influence the leadership process, such as context and culture, leader attributes, and follower receptivity (Northouse, 2013). The next component, servant leader behaviors, consists of behaviors, such as conceptualizing, emotional healing, placing followers first, helping others grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community (Northouse, 2013). The last component, outcomes, focuses on follower performance and growth, organizational performance, and societal impact (Northouse, 2013).
My interest in the servant leadership approach, increased my interest in Robert Greenleaf, so I did some Internet investigating and found out more about the creator of this approach. First, I found http://www.greenleaf.org/ ,which is the website for the Robert Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. I found out that he was born in 1904 and died in 1990. Furthermore, Greenleaf was the founder of the servant leadership movement and continued to promote a servant way-of-life in order to benefit humanity as a whole. I found a 1986 recording of Robert Greenleaf on YouTube that I would like to share http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj-iGCvoAlU. The video really helped me to understand, Robert Greenleaf, the man behind such an interesting approach to leadership. I was not surprised to learn he was a motivated man even in his 80’s! Robert Greenleaf created a legacy, leaving behind his writing and teachings to live on through the work of others.
In my opinion, the servant approach to leadership would be valuable for organizations to apply. The possible positive outcomes,such as increased job and organizational performance and positive societal impact, as described by Northouse (2013), would create a better quality of life for many people. It is a win-win situation, in my opinion, and is a good way to conduct business.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Your blog on Servant Leadership was interesting and made me more curious about Robert Greenleaf. I have had the opportunity to work for a manager who used the servant leadership method for leading, and I have to say to date he is my favorite manager that I have had to work under. He was able to put his own agenda aside, and realize that by empowering those under him we was in turn empowering himself. He encouraged everyone to be the best they could be, and sought to help them improve if they wanted to. He never spoke down to anyone and greeted everyone equally. I have since had the misfortune to work with his polar opposite, and I have to say it is misery most days.
Having worked for two such different individuals I can personally say that if more organizations trained their managers to follow the servant leader style of managing it would be a benefit to the business environment.
This is a great introduction to an area I hope we will be covering in later lessons; the servant leadership approach. It reminds me of my analysis of Nelson Mandela; in which I used Great Man and Trait approach theories to breakdown his success as a leader. As I have yet to get into detail with the servant approach, I wanted to comment about the parallels I saw with this and the trait approach.
Firstly, I liked that is it mostly broken into a few key elements; “servant leader behaviors, consists of behaviors, such as conceptualizing, emotional healing, placing followers first, helping others grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community” to cite directly from you. Trait approach uses the Big Five personality facts to evaluate innate and developed traits of leaders, these include: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. If you were to break the descriptions of the servant approach they would in essence be very similar to the Big Five.
Secondly, it seems a big component of servant leadership is that the leader develops extreme levels of empathy with his/her followers in order to create and allow for a more agreeable environment and to support followers to succeed. This seems very similar to Emotional Intelligence (EI), which is a concept used and discussed within the trait approach. Having a high level of EI means that a leader has a very good sense of self-awareness, and has in turn a good level of awareness about the emotional states of those around them (Northouse, p. 26).
Reference
Northouse, P. G. (2013) Leadership Theory and Practice. 6th Ed. Sage Publications.