Servant leadership is a theory that I believe is underrated. Through my interactions with my professor in an Introductory to Leadership class, she identified me as a servant leader, which I found to be not only flattering, but very true! A servant leader displays ten characteristics including “listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community” (PSU WC, 2019, L.11). Who wouldn’t want those characteristics in a leader? There is nothing wrong with serving your followers so they can grow at their own pace in order to achieve company goals, which will ultimately make the leader’s job easier in the end. Leaders are most often placed in higher positions within a company, and I think it is their job to provide encouragement and the necessary supports to their followers.
It is important to listen to followers, so they feel that their opinion matters. Everyone wants to feel validated; however, in the event that there is a misunderstanding, the leader can tactfully clear things up by actively communicating and being approachable. Empathy is also necessary because sometimes followers are faced with difficult workplace or personal situations that could temporarily inhibit performance. Everyone struggles at times and that is where healing comes into play. We are all human and mistakes are bound to happen. Reaching out a helping hand to followers and offering advice can alleviate stress and future problems for both the leader and the followers. At all times, the leader should be aware of how his actions and attitudes affect followers. Through persuasion, the leader can encourage followers to change their attitudes and work habits. Alternative methods like coercion may cause the opposite effect and ultimately offend and/or hurt the feelings of followers.
Conceptualization entails focusing on the “big picture” of an organization so the company can reach its’ long-term goals (Northouse, 2016). The leader should communicate goals clearly and concisely to followers while offering direction, if needed. A servant leader will demonstrate foresight, which is “an ability to predict what is coming based on what is occurring in the present and what has happened in the past” (Northouse, 2016, p.228). Stewardship involves the leader’s accountability in situations. Leaders are entrusted to manage their followers as well as the organization (Northouse, 2016).
A servant leader will recognize that their followers are unique individuals. Not only does a servant leader want a follower to grow professionally, but he will encourage them to grow personally (Northouse, 2016). Commitment to the growth of people includes “providing followers with opportunities for career development, helping them develop new work skills, taking a personal interest in their ideas, and involving them in decision making” (Northouse, 2016, p.228-229). Lastly, the servant leader fosters a sense of community within the organization. A community creates a safe space for followers where they can feel connected with others, but still allows the followers to express their individuality (Northouse, 2016).
In summary, I would like to end this blog post with a quotation from a video in a previous class that discussed ethical leadership in terms of being a servant leader. Michael Wasser who works as a Research and Communications Associate for American Rights at Work summed up servant leadership perfectly by stating, “I’ve heard your story about the servant leadership. You wouldn’t ask others to do something that you wouldn’t be willing to do. I think that it has to be each task is meaningful. And the reason, if we’re in a company, we’re having everyone do a certain job because it gets us to where we need to be. And some people have to be in higher positions. Some people have to be in, to be considered in rank order, lower positions. But the leader finds the value of the work and finds the value of that person, of what they’re doing” (PSU WC, 2019, L.11).
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage
Publications.
Pennsylvania State University (2019). OLEAD 100 Lesson 11: Addressing Ethics in Leadership,
Penn State World Campus, The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved from
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1984832/modules/items/26609262
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2019). PSYCH 485 Lesson 11: Servant
Leadership. Retrieved from
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2008237/modules/items/27074746
Greetings,
I can relate to being identified as a servant leader. At my previous military assignment, a departing commander wrote a handwritten letter to unit members to thank them for their service. In the letter she gave me, my commander described me as a servant leader. At the time I didn’t really know that servant leadership was a real leadership approach, but I felt it described me when she said how I put my heart and soul into my Airmen. According to Northouse (2016), “servant leaders put followers first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal capacities” (p. 225). Unfortunately, this did not serve me so well at my following assignment.
At that assignment I had a subordinate who felt he was management material. He described himself as much when I did his initial feedback upon arriving to my unit. In addition he told me he had received a bachelor’s degree in computer science before joining and that he also managed a Target department store. He also described how he was the quarterback for his high school’s football team that had about 2,400 students. He was also supposedly recruited to pay baseball in college, but an injury prevented him from following through. As he told me all of these things, I remember how I reflected much of the characteristics of servant leadership in my responses, including listening, empathy, healing, and commitment (Northouse, 2016).
It turns out that much of what he had told me was a gross over-exaggeration of what he had done. My subordinate had done this as one of multiple attempts to manipulate me into being subservient to his needs. For example, he would make indications of suicidal ideations by saying self-defeating statements and how he has got nothing to live for. He would do this to gain sympathy from me and also to keep me from motivating him give a higher level of performance. It turned out he also did not have a bachelor’s degree, and only told me he did so I wouldn’t encourage him to take college classes.
What I failed to know at the time were the antecedent conditions that contribute to the effectiveness of servant leader behaviors. One such condition is follower receptivity (Northouse, 2016). As shown in the study by Meuser, Liden, Wayne, and Henderson (2011), a negative impact occurs when servant leadership is applied to followers that don’t desire it (Northouse, 2016). These followers “do not want their leader to get to know them, or try to help, develop, or guide them” (Northouse, 2016 p. 233). Unfortunately, I learned this far to late to benefit myself and my team, however I share my story to you in the hopes it will help your application of servant leadership in the future.
Best of luck to you!
Simon
References
Meuser, J. D., Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., & Henderson, D. (2011, August). Is servant leadership always a good thing? The moderating influence of servant leadership prototype. Paper presented at the meeting of the Academy of Management, San Antonio, TX.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
My dad once told me that to lead is to serve others, which is something that has stuck with me throughout the years. After learning about the servant leadership approach, I realized the validity of my dad´s comment. With the servant leadership approach, I find myself thinking the same thing that I think of in regards to transformational leadership, which is that many of the described characteristics seem to me to be those of a genuinely nice person who thinks of others. In this sense, I see a strong overlap between servant and transformational leadership. What is more transformational than someone with authority and leadership assuming a position that we do not normally associate with that role? Many of the characteristics overlap between the two approaches. Servant leader characteristics such as, empathy, building community and persuasion could be employed by the leader in order to achieve the first factor of Bass’s Full Range of Leadership model as cited in Northouse (2016). These characteristics would allow the leader to effectively rally and connect followers to a common vision through idealized influence. To achieve inspirational motivation, leaders must communicate high standards and expectations and communicate them to the rest of the organization seeking commitment that goes beyond basic transactional exchanges (Northouse, 2016). For this, leaders could employ the servant leadership characteristics of awareness, conceptualization, foresight, and stewardship. The third factor of transformational leadership refers to intellectual stimulation wherein the leader encourages followers to think creatively and to challenge their beliefs (Northouse, 2016). To achieve this factor servant leadership characteristics such as awareness, conceptualization, and persuasion may be of use. Finally, for transformational leaders to effectively practice individualized consideration, where the follower is made to feel unique and recognized (Northouse, 2016), the leader may benefit from employing listening, empathy, healing, and commitment to the growth of people. Many of the servant leadership characteristics can be more universally applied across the transformational leadership approach, as well as other leadership approaches and theories. When a leader is able to put others first and truly care about their followers as individual human beings with their unique needs and wants is when true transformation is achieved.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications