Since this week’s discussion uses an article regarding Authentic Leadership kind of like with a blog post, I found an article that highlights the positives of Servant Leadership and since we just covered it in the last lesson, I thought it was still relevant. According to the text, “Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Servant leaders put followers first, empower them, and help them develop their full personal accountability” (Northouse, 2013, p.225). The article I found, The Art of Servant Leadership (Tarallo, 2019) puts servant leadership into a business perspective. The article states, “Servant leaders are a revolutionary bunch—they take the traditional power leadership model and turn it completely upside down. This new hierarchy puts the people—or employees, in a business context—at the very top and the leader at the bottom, charged with serving the employees above them. And that’s just the way servant leaders like it” (Tarallo, 2019). Also, “The end results, “Performance goes through the roof,” says Art Barter, founder and CEO of the Servant Leadership Institute and CEO of Datron World Communications, Inc. “Magic happens,” agrees Pat Falotico, a former executive leader at IBM who is now CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership” (Tarallo, 2019).
The article highlights the positives of Servant Leadership and gives examples as to why they believe servant leadership is one of the best choices. The reading for the week states, “In addition to the positive features of servant leadership, this approach has several limitations. First, the paradoxical nature of the title Servant Leadership creates semantic noise that diminishes the potential value of the approach. Second, there is debate among servant leadership scholars regarding the core dimensions of the process. Third, a large segment of the writing on servant leadership has a prescriptive overtone that implies that good leaders “put others first”.” (Northouse, 2013, p. 240-241). I think just like with the leadership theories or approaches that we have learned about this semester, it has its pros and cons. The article backed up what we learned in the lesson and further demonstrated that approach.
Work Cited:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Chapter 10: Servant Leadership. P. 225- 256. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Tarallo, M. (2019, August 16). The Art of Servant Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/the-art-of-servant-leadership.aspx
jdb6209 says
I thought this was super interesting since I have never liked being the center of attention but I always liked to think of myself as some form of leader in an organization. Even though Servant leadership is not the normal type of leadership most people think of, I think it is an important one because without followers or servants to the main leader a company is nothing. According to (Northouse), servant leadership emphasizes the leaders pay attention to the followers concerns, emphasize with them, and nurture them. This is a more ethical approach by companies which I believe works better than a more dictator type leadership approach. I believe an employee works better and harder when they are listened too and feel appreciated. It surprises me that more companies haven’t caught on to this. There is obvious evidence in the world like this article that prove that Servant Leadership does in fact work.
References:
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.