The term servant brings about the wrong impression when referring to leadership. When I think of a servant I see a butler or housekeeper. They are running from room to room to care for the spoiled masters of the home. These people are often lazy and lack motivation. The “servant” cares for everyone and everything in the home.
The irony is that the servant leadership approach is completely contradictory to my prior opinion. This is the leader that I want. Someone that is attentive to the concerns of the follower (Northouse, 2013, p. 219). This person identifies the fact that the satisfaction of the group is paramount and can care for that in order to achieve organizational success. What a unique concept in a society that is quickly becoming self-centered. Too many people are more concerned with their own individual acknowledgments and not enough about the success of the company.
This approach to leadership has some major concerns. Have you ever been so dedicated to the happiness of another that you find yourself at their beckon call? You rush to meet every one of their needs without thinking of yourself? Is this really the best approach to a team concept? How can you keep your team from doing the same thing? You have to be able to direct people through tough times. Without a sense of mutual respect, you lose the relationship required for success (Northouse, 2013, p. 235).
It seems that this approach is merely a supportive approach, not a single theory that can be implemented. Let’s look at the characteristics of the servant leader. Listening skills, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and a sense of community (Northouse, 2013, pgs. 221-223). These are all traits that a person exhibits or skills that can be taught. This is better served as an explanation of how leaders are both born and trained.
This idea is interesting in the fact that everyone can agree that a good leader should possess these traits. However, how can we gauge the success of this style (Northouse, 2013, p.235)? Is it not better measured by the explanation of other theories? I do not know if it is the title or the description of this theory, but I struggle in understand how one can obtain the respect of the team when you are only concerned with their happiness as compared to the overall success of the organization.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (Sixth ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Laura Beth Bowman says
I found your post to be thought-provoking, but I don’t agree with some of what you have written. You noted that “everyone can agree that a good leader should possess these traits”. That’s not necessarily true. It depends upon the work setting, and the type of work being done. For example, I doubt many successful military leaders are of the “warm and fuzzy” variety, and I wonder how many factory (assembly-line) supervisors care about “community building” or “committing to the growth of” their workers.
One would believe that the presence of a servant leader would probably result in an optimal work environment; however, the success of such a leader would also hinge on how receptive the followers were to this type of leadership. An experienced worker who is used to working independently may find this type of leadership to be grating or invasive. According to Northouse (2013), there is evidence that some followers may even consider servant leadership to be micromanagement!
Under the right circumstances, servant leadership is likely to improve outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal levels (Northouse, 2013, pg 232-233); however, those circumstances are not present in every work environment.
Work Cited:
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice, 6th Ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
hrh5077 says
Perhaps you are still thinking too narrowly about leadership. A servant leader doesn’t necessarily need to be at the beck and call of their followers, it simply means that he/she is able to see the value in providing certain services. Being a leader does always mean that you have to be able to gauge the success of the leader by whether or not the business profits went up. Sometimes being a leader and especially being a servant leader just means that through their service to others, a person was able to alter the course or direction of the followers. Not every situation that arise will require a servant leader, some situations may not benefit from a servant leader at all. A person who volunteers as a big brother/ sister in order to mentor youth could be considered a servant leader and under these circumstance the only leadership theory that may apply to them is the theory of servant leadership. Sometimes leaders are limited by rules or even laws about the kind of leader that they can be and the type of influence they can have. When it comes applying leadership theories to everyday life, I think it is extremely important that we are able to understand that these theories can be viewed from different perspectives and we would be doing ourselves a disservice in not doing so.