What is Servant Leadership

Question:

Discuss about the meaning of Servant Leadership along with some of it’s Characteristics.

Servant leadership is a term that is widely relevant in most of the companies in the present day scenario. The very term servant leadership is oxymoronic in nature. This is a term that was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in one of his essay. The two words servant and leader are totally different in nature. This is because of the fact that a leaders is known to be someone who always leads whereas a servant is someone who is known to serve everyone (Trastek et al., 2014, pp.375).

Hence the very basic meaning that comes to our mind the moment we talk about servant leadership is that of a leader who is a servant first. It begins with the very natural feeling that a servant leader is someone who will have to serve first (Marshall, 2016, pp.312).

It begins with this very natural feeling that a servant leader is one who will have to have to serve first. In other words, a servant leader is someone who will have to cater to the needs and demands of the people. Serving the basic needs of the people will be the first and foremost priority of the leaders. A servant leader is someone who will always focus on the growth and well being of the people (Marshall, 2016, pp.312). He will always consider himself as the servant first. In other words, before being a leader he will always try to recognize himself as a servant. Rather a servant who will have the people. Servant leaders are the ones who feel pride in serving others. Others here refer to the people or the community to which they belong. This is different from the normal leadership because a normal leader is one who usually tries to accumulate and exercise his power or his position on his fellow followers or on his subordinates. In other words a normal leader is one who always tries to stay at the very peak or at the very top of the pyramid. However servant leadership is very different. A servant leader is someone who always tries to place his service first and then his power (Marshall, 2016, pp.312)

The term servant leadership was coined by Robert k. Greenleaf in his essay called the Servant as Leader. According to his opinion a servant leader is different from that of a normal leader. This difference that persists between the servant leader and the normal leader is the way they take care of their position and their responsibility (Marshall, 2016, pp.312). In other words, a servant leader is one who always considers himself to be a servant first and then a leader. The leader first and the servant first are two extreme types. There are however some misconceptions that exists in the concept of servant leadership (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76).

History of Servant Leadership

 Many are of the opinion that it is perhaps the inverted pyramid structure where the top management has to report to the lower levels of management. In the present days, a large amount of study is being carried on by the group of organizational psychologists in order to see how much effective is the concept of servant leadership in the present day leaders (Marshall, 2016, pp.312). These bands of psychologists are being led by Adam Grant. According to his study, the servant leaders are not only much more valued and respected by their followers or their employees but they are also much more productive in nature (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76).

This is perhaps of the fact that the servant leaders are not very selective in nature. In other words, servant leaders always consider that they must serve the community in a generous manner. In other words they just lend their service to everyone in the society or in the community to which they belong. They are not very selective in nature. They never usually waste much time in deciding whom to render their service to.

Figure1: Servant leadership Model

(Source: greenleaf.2014)

Listening

Listening and communication is of utmost importance in any and every kind of leadership. However in case of servant leadership it is all the more important because of the fact that they need to listen to all their followers quite intently. (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76). The servant leaders believe in persuasion and understanding. They render majority of their time in listening to and understanding the people and their grievances in order to solve them.

Empathy

One of the major important aspects of servant leadership is empathy. In other words, being just sympathetic to ones employees or one’s followers is not always enough (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo, 2014, pp.76).

A servant leader is one who will try to place themselves in the place of their followers while solving their problems. Servant leaders will always try to find out the potentiality and the confidence of hiss co workers.

Healing

This is one of the major qualities present within a servant leader. A servant leader is someone who must know how to render emotional support to his followers as well. It can often happen that some of the employees or followers are suffering from poor or broken self confidence. It can also happen that they are undergoing a series of mental breakdowns. In such cases, it is the duty of a servant leader to understand and share the feelings of his fellow followers.

Key Components of Servant Leadership

Awareness

A servant leader must be very much well aware about himself and also about his fellow followers. Awareness is something that will always enable a leader to take logical decisions regarding business ethics. Servant leaders who believe in awareness are the ones who are not running after solace. Rather they are the ones who want to stay aware and awakened about each and everything going on around them (Trastek et al., 2014, pp.375).

Persuasion

The servant leaders are the ones who do not believe in imposing their decisions on their followers. Rather they try to persuade and convince people rather than dominating and bossing over them. (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76).

Conceptualization

This is also very much important in case of the servant leaders. This enables them to view and deal with each and every problem from a conceptualizing perception. They try to draw in their knowledge of day to day lessons in solving the problems. They believe in developing a proper concept of the solution that they are about to provide to their people. It is because of the fact that they want to promote the general good of the people and hence believe in developing their concepts first before rending help to their followers.

Foresight

It is farsightedness that is a must for every servant leader. It is with the help of this ability that are able to gather information and experiences from the past and also the present, in order to overcome the past mistakes, and gear towards a bright future. They always have an immense sense of responsibility towards the growth of their employees. The servant leaders always consider social service as their first and foremost duty.

Stewardship

His basically refers to the commitment that the servant leaders make towards the people or the community, to which they belong. It also gives much importance on tools of openness and persuasion rather than control (Grandy, 2013, pp.616). They always have an immense sense of responsibility towards the growth of their employees. The servant leaders always consider social service as their first and foremost duty.

Commitment to growth of people

This is the major motif of the servant leaders (Marshall, 2016, pp.312). They consider themselves as servants of the community or the people to which they belong. In other words, they render all their efforts in developing the society. They always have an immense sense of responsibility towards the growth of their employees. The servant leaders always consider social service as their first and foremost duty.

Difference between Servant and Traditional Leadership

Building community

Servant leaders are of the belief that the human history as already suffered a lot due to the transformation, from the local communities to the large institutions. They want to render all their service in building a community not via any kind of mass movements but by rendering their service and their liability to the community related group. This is the most important aspect of servant leadership. They always believe in surrendering themselves to the benefit of others that is the society to which they belong. Hence, building up the community in a positive direction is their major goal.

Nelson Mandela

One of the famous quotes by Mandela is “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy, and then he becomes your partner.”

It s evident from this fact, that he was a believer in selfless service to the people and the community to which he belonged. He never made any distinctions between people. He wanted to serve people in general (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76). He was a man of peace and he even believed in the principle of treating one’s enemy with proper love. He was someone who believed in persuasion rather than fighting and dominating on his enemies. He wanted to bring a change in the society through peace and harmony and not through fights, wars and bloodsheds. He believed in the principle of forgiveness (Grandy, 2013, pp.616).

Figure2: Servant leadership

(Source: greenleaf.2014)

Mother Teresa

She is one of the major examples of servant leadership. She was some none who had given up her life for the welfare of millions of poor, innocent and homeless orphans. It is for her selfless work that she has earned this title of “MOTHER” This is because of the fact that she has always extended her help to all the children of the world in general. She used to bestow her love and care to any and every children whom she used to find on any and every corner of road in poor miserable condition. What made her so famous is the unconditional love and care that she bestowed over all. She sacrificed her entire life towards the service of the society. She was very much empathetic to each and every one of the society. She knew how to render emotional support to the people in need (Olesia, Namusonge & Iravo., 2014, pp.76).

Examples of Prominent Servant Leaders

Martin Luther King

He is someone whose life and services can be termed as the important lessons of servant leadership. He was someone who knew how to render support and listen to them whom the society considered being unneeded and unwanted. Throughout his life, he wanted to bring the feeling of peace, harmony and justice. He wanted equal justice for each and every one of the community. He even rendered immense effort in uniting all his fellow Americans in recognizing one common vision that is to serve. Serve the nation and serve the fellow members of the nation. This is because of the fact that Martin Luther King was of the belief that there is only one way through which the Americans can achieve great heights, and that is only thorough unconditional service (Grandy, 2013, pp.616). He even claimed that he does not want to be remembered through the number of prizes he received but he wants to be remembered by people because of his service towards them.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that servant leadership is very much needed in order to serve the country and the Nation through selfless devotion. Leadership is achieved not only through domination but also through persuasion and understanding. Though it is an age old concept but efforts must be made in order to incorporate this vision. This will obviously help in improving the relationship between the employees and their leaders. This will also bring about more transparency within the leaders and their followers and it will eventually boost up the confidence and the potentiality of the employees within any and every business organization.

References

Friedman, H. H., Fischer, D., & Schochet, S. (2017). Humility and Tone at the Top. International Leadership Journal, 54.

Grandy, G. (2013). An exploratory study of strategic leadership in churches. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 34(7), 616-638.

Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2016). Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 0149206316665461.

Kashyap, V., & Rangnekar, S. (2014). The moderating role of servant leadership: Investigating the relationships among employer brand perception and perceived employee retention.

Marshall, R. C. B. (2016). Leadership Models, Processes, and Practices. In Clinical Informatics Study Guide (pp. 311-341). Springer International Publishing.

Olesia, W. S., Namusonge, G. S., & Iravo, M. A. (2014). Servant leadership: the exemplifying behaviours. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Vol, 19, 75-80.

Thompson, R. S. (2015). The perception of servant leadership characteristics and job satisfaction in a church-related college(Doctoral dissertation).

Trastek, V. F., Hamilton, N. W., & Niles, E. E. (2014, March). Leadership models in health care—a case for servant leadership. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 89, No. 3, pp. 374-381). Elsevier.