The Benefits of Servant Leadership

There are many types of leadership that are still being practiced today despite being outdated. In order for leadership to work correctly, it needs to evolve with the times as people and business practices do. Many dominant types of leadership do not work in a society such as the one we have currently. It may have driven sales in the 1920’s but it often does little more than cause resentment and lack of productivity today. In the article “How Humble Leadership Really Works,” by Dan Cable, (2018) there was an interesting study that followed a UK food delivery service who’s management were driven by numbers rather than care for employees. There were weekly performance evaluations along with questions and complaints that were addressed with the drivers, and as the author said, this was not very inspiring and caused many of the drivers to become resentful with this metric-driven approach to productivity and leadership (Cable, 2018).

This top-down approach to leadership that could be compared in some ways to transactional leadership, is quite outdated and damaging to organizations by being so counterproductive (Cable, 2018). Leaders who use this style are often met with difficulty in meeting goals as they are too concerned with numbers and outcomes rather than focusing on empowering their employees to be the best they can be (Cable, 2018). This is akin to treating employees as a means to an end instead of a valuable company asset. It would seem that the old saying, “You attract more flies with honey,” is quite true. So the question is, how does one go about being a leader but also being a servant at the same time? It would seem that these two principles do not go together. While it can be tricky to understand, servant leadership makes a lot of sense depending on appropriate application of concepts.

Servant leadership means that the leader puts the followers first in an attempt to empower them and build them up to achieve the best that they personally can (Northouse, 2016). This is a type of “lead from behind,” approach. A leader practicing servant leadership will want to know the answers to questions such as, “Are those who are being served developing well and becoming wiser and more autonomous?” and “Are they being freed and empowered to be better servants themselves?” (Northouse, 2016). Servant leadership highlights important characteristics that leaders need to have as well. These competencies include placing followers before their own self-interests and developing them to reach their full capacity as a valued employee (Northouse, 2016). Furthermore, a servant leader will have a strong moral compass when interacting with followers, stakeholders, and shareholders within an organization in order to bring the most good and minimize the most harm (Northouse, 2016).

There are ten characteristics of servant leaders which are as follows; “listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community” (Northouse, 2016 p. 228). Most of these need no introduction as they are commonly known, so let us just look at the two that could use a definition, conceptualization and stewardship. Conceptualization involves the leader having vision for their followers and their organization by communicating clear ideals of goals and direction for the company and all involved (Northouse, 2016). Stewardship refers to leaders who take responsibility for their roles and also take care in their leadership position to direct their followers and the organization in such a way that reflects trust (Northouse, 2016).

I can recall an example of servant leadership with a department manager I used to work for. He hardly seemed like leadership material at the time, but in looking back, I just failed to see the type of leadership he was using and why it was so effective. Many people liked him and no one ever had any ill feelings towards him. We always met our goals and repeatedly had all our affairs in order when we were going to be inspected by higher management. We never really questioned why we all liked him, why we did whatever he said without hesitation, or why we were always so successful. We just thought we happened to have the best team by chance I would assume.

This manager was the type that would repeatedly remove obstacles from our paths in order for us to grow and in turn, serve better ourselves. For example, he would help us clean our areas, which he did not need to, in order for us to have more time to learn our computer ordering system which was important for us to be proficient in so we could better serve clients. He would also take over our desk positions and allow us to step into different leadership roles ourselves. An example being that we could work in other departments while he held down the fort in our own department, allowing us to experience new and interesting responsibilities. The outcome was that we were learning new valuable skills that benefitted us as well as the company. In addition to this, it gave us more autonomy and job satisfaction by reducing role-stress and the boredom that can accompany doing the same menial tasks all day every day, with the same faces constantly. Expectations of what we needed to do also changed which allowed us to feel freer at work, and not locked down into one role where we had to accomplish the same goals all the time.

Servant leaders are not people who have low self-efficacy or a bad self-image. These are people who know that they can benefit by being humble and learning from those who have less power than themselves. They also know that it is their duty to increase ownership and autonomy of their followers while giving them new responsibilities and encouraging them to think for themselves and experience or create new ideas (Cable, 2018). The manager that I had worked with had demonstrated this well. He certainly increased our autonomy by allowing us to rotate within different positions while being able to make new decisions on our own within those roles. It was obvious that we had new responsibilities which made us feel important and boosted our morale, thus further motivating us to continue to take on more. The opportunities he opened up for us did allow us to think for ourselves and create new ideas because we were in charge of ourselves rather than being led from in front. I attribute much of our team’s success to this manager and when there were days where we had to work under other managers, things were certainly not as pleasant or smooth.

I can see how this type of leadership might seem unfamiliar as most of the people I know or have worked with have never experienced it aside from those who worked under the same manager as I did. But it would seem to be much more effective than older outdated methods of authoritarian type leadership. The UK food delivery service mentioned earlier is a good example of this. Management at the company took a different direction and started to ask how they could help their drivers deliver better results. Employees were skeptical but eventually started to submit ideas. When their contributions were helpful and put into place, more and more employees wanted to get in on the information exchange. In turn, the management became more enchanted with embracing new employee ideas and a positive cycle began. They learned that listening to their employees and serving them to become better had fantastic results for the company (Cable, 2018). Employees often know a lot more than they are allowed to express. By practicing servant leadership it is possible to bring out the best and increase employee satisfaction and productivity. In this way, the leader is serving the employees and empowering them at the workplace so that they can better serve themselves. These reciprocal interactions benefit everyone involved, and really seem to fit well in our modern society.

References:

Cable, D. (2018, April 30). How Humble Leadership Really Works. Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2018/04/how-humble-leadership-really-works

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781483317540/