Lecture on Servant Leadership

Introduction: Servant Leadership Theory

Servant leadership is a modern theory of leadership aimed at reinvigorating practices in organizations to promote effective and beneficial structures for the good of all involved. Leadership models often fail to influence followers while growing an organization toward the intended vision. Organizations frequently sacrifice the well-being of individuals to achieve the greatest outcome of success. Other organizations, which focus on individuals, sometimes struggle to achieve overall goals. Can you do both?

Originating in the writings of Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, the last several decades have seen a rapid increase in research on servant leadership. To most in a secular setting, the leader acting as a servant seems counterintuitive. Leaders cast vision, make decisions, and influence. Followers carry out these expectations for the sake of a group’s mission and vision. Alternatively, Greenleaf and others make the case that the leader as a servant can simultaneously benefit followers and organizations in their growth.

What is servant leadership?

Peter Northouse provides an overview:

Servant leadership is an approach focusing on leadership from the point of view of the leader and his or her behaviors. 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 capacities. Furthermore, servant leaders are ethical and lead in ways that serve the greater good of the organization, community, and society at large.[1]

[1]Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, (United States: Sage Publications, 2019), 227.

I think it is helpful to hear from Greenleaf on some important nuances of this leadership:

The servant-leader is servant first—as Leo was portrayed. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve—after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends thar are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will he benefit, or, at least, will he not be further deprived?[1]

[1]Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader, 7.

Two spectrums:

Leader first: Have you ever worked with a leader first? What are strengths and weaknesses?

Servant first: why might this model have some less than desirable qualities for Class Meeting?

Michael Coetzer, summarizing scholarship based on this theory, defines servant leadership as, “a multidimensional leadership theory that starts with a desire to serve, followed by an intent to lead and develop others, to ultimately achieve a higher purpose objective to the benefit of individuals, organisations, and societies.”[1]

[1]Michael Fredrick Coetzer, Mark Bussin, and Madelyn Geldenhuys, “The Functions of a Servant Leader,” Administrative Sciences 7, (February 2017), 5.

Characteristics of a Servant Leader

Listening

Empathy

Healing

Awareness

Persuasion

Conceptualization

Foresight

Stewardship

Commitment

Building Community

1. Listening. Leaders have traditionally been valued for their communication and decision-making skills. While these are also important skills for the servant-leader, they need to be reinforced by a deep commitment to listening intently to others. The servant-leader seeks to identify the will of a group and helps clarify that will. He or she seeks to listen receptively to what is being said. Listening, coupled with regular periods of reflection is essential to the growth of the servant-leader.

2. Empathy. The servant-leader strives to understand and empathize with others. People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirits. One assumes the good intentions of coworkers and does not reject them as people, even if one finds it necessary to refuse to accept their behavior or performance.

3. Healing. One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is the potential for healing one's self and others. Many people have broken spirits and have suffered from a variety of emotional hurts. Although this is part of being human, servant-leaders recognize that they also have an opportunity to "help make whole" those with whom they come in contact. In "The Servant as Leader" Greenleaf writes: "There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if implicit in the compact between servant-leader and led is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something they share."

4. Awareness. General awareness, and especially self-awareness, strengthens the servant-leader. Awareness also aids one in understanding issues involving ethics and values. It lends itself to being able to view most situations from a more integrated, holistic position. As Greenleaf observed: "Awareness is not a giver of solace--it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace. They have their own inner serenity."

5. Persuasion. Another characteristic of servant-leaders is a primary reliance on persuasion rather than positional authority in making decisions within an organization. The servant-leader seeks to convince others rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant-leadership. The servant-leader is effective at building consensus within groups.

6. Conceptualization. Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to "dream great dreams." The ability to look at a problem (or an organization) from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities. For many managers, this is a characteristic that requires discipline and practice. Servant-leaders are called to seek a delicate balance between conceptual thinking and a day-to-day focused approach.

7. Foresight. Foresight is a characteristic that enables the servant-leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future. It is also deeply rooted within the intuitive mind. Foresight remains a largely unexplored area in leadership studies, but one most deserving of careful attention.

8. Stewardship. Peter Block has defined stewardship as "holding something in trust for another." Robert Greenleaf 's view of all institutions was one in which CEOs, staff, and trustees all played significant roles in holding their institutions in trust for the greater good of society. Servant-leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others. It also emphasizes the use of openness and persuasion rather than control.

9. Commitment to the growth of people. Servant-leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As a result, the servant-leader is deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual within the institution. The servant-leader recognizes the tremendous responsibility to do everything possible to nurture the growth of employees.

10. Building community. The servant-leader senses that much has been lost in recent human history as a result of the shift from local communities to large institutions as the primary shaper of human lives. This awareness causes the servant-leader to seek to identify some means for building community among those who work within a given institution. Servant-leadership suggests that true community can be created among those who work in businesses and other institutions. Greenleaf said: "All that is needed to rebuild community as a viable life form for large numbers of people is for enough servant-leaders to show the way, not by mass movements, but by each servant-leader demonstrating his own unlimited liability for a quite specific community-related group.[1]

[1]Larry C. Spears, “Practicing Servant-Leadership,” Leader to Leader 34 (Fall 2004): 8-10.

Any surprises to this list? Given what we have defined as a servant leader, do you agree with this? Anything missing?

Look around the room, what characteristics do you see already? Which one is your top characteristic for yourself?

Antecedents

Characteristics or qualities that focus on trainable and identifiable evidence that servant leadership can exist. These are largely for me because I am trying to find people that have these so that they can build the qualities we just talked about. But if you are feeling overwhelmed with the previous list, this is where you start:

Desire to Serve others: Serving the needs of others, primarily

Emotional Intelligence: “the ability to understand and manage moods and emotions in the self and others”

Moral Maturity and Moral Conation: Capacity for ethical/moral judgement and the conviction to act on it

Prosocial Identity: Predisposition for the community over the self

Core Self-Evaluation: Self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and neuroticism. “Competent, worthy, and effective”

Narcissism (low): Humility and loving others without overvaluing self

Surveys: Are you encouraged, or discouraged with the results?

Can anyone sum up what a servant leader is?

Why is it important for us to act as servant leaders for class meeting? Be specific about what you have learned throughout our time together about the class meeting.