Fulfillment Of Key Characteristics Of Servant Leaders

I have recently completed a service project at the animal shelter in Bulloch County, Georgia. For four days I rode with my group to the animal shelter to play with the animals. Playing with the animals shows them compassion. We played with many dogs over the course of four days. Doing this service have made myself and my group servant leaders. What is a servant leader you ask, well a servant leader wants to help others better themselves. They want to help even if they do not look like, think like, or talk like us.

Servant Leadership is “an approach to leadership with strong altruistic and ethical overtones that asks and requires leader to be attentive to the needs of their followers and empathize with them; they should take care of them by making sure they become healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous, so that they too can become servant leaders” (Valeri, 2007). Although there is not many servant leaders in this world but the concept of servant is one of the most leadership approach leaders today struggles with. Servant leadership is mainly about the leader helping to grow their followers or members personally and professionally through empathy, listening skills and compassion. The concept of servant leadership which was proposed by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 writing indicated that servant leadership is a theoretical framework that advocated a leader’s primary motivation and role as service to others.

Throughout this past week I have had several misconceptions resolve regarding servant leadership that have resolved. The main misconception or preconception that I had was that servant leaders were pushovers and that they would have difficulty in leading others to reach a common goal. Through the readings that were assigned, specificially in chapter 6, I now understand that a servant leader values relationships with their follwers and by doing so that they can use the gained trust to influence them to reach a common goal (DelHousaye & Brewer, 2004). I had never really thought about how much influence played a part in the success of a leader until this class and yet I completely agree. I think back to the mangers that I have had

A servant leader is that leader who shares power, puts the interest of others first and then help them grow and perform as highly as possible. As Robert Greenfield argued when he comes up with the servant leadership philosophy back in 1970’s, he asserted that as a servant leader, one must start by becoming a servant first. That is, as a leader, one must start by focusing on the needs of others particularly the team without considering his or her personal interest first. Currently, the significance of servant leadership has been justified by the need to make any organization more relationship-oriented and the force their leaders to step aside from personal-centeredness including narcissism and thereby integrating such businesses goals with

According to Greenleaf (1970), servant leaders “want to serve, to serve first” and there are ten key characteristics of servant leadership, which are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community. The bottom line within an organization looks to measure the success of the business by looking at more than its financial success. It also looks at factors such as how well the organization treats its employees and even the environment. According the video, statistics showed that in the survey of the 100 Best Places to Work, about one-third of these companies claimed to be servant lead companies. Additionally, public held companies, who also claimed to be servant lead, showed significantly better financial success than those companies who were not servant lead. Servant leadership allows for team members to feel more empowered and involved and therefore in control of their work. Servant leadership can be a company’s competitive advantage. In the video we learn that many of the top companies which are considered as being the best companies to work for are servant lead companies. These companies are able to realize the growth and development of employees and in the process, the company benefits as well. Servant lead companies have shown to be able to survive difficult times and are able to continue to thrive when other companies are struggling.

Question 1. What are the characteristics of servant leadership as propagated by Greenleaf (1970)? Give examples of servant leaders that you may know.

Servant Leadership Paper: (5%) After reading the book “The Servant” complete a 2-3 page paper on how:

Michael, your post was well written and you organized your thoughts in a concise and easy to read format. Servant leadership does require specific moral virtues, as you mentioned in your post. Servant leadership was first introduced in the late 1900’s and brought a previously absent moral dimension to the leadership field (Sousa & Dierendonck, 2017). Servant leaders are distinguishable from other leaders because servant leaders, instead of serving their own needs, focus on the needs and interests of others and serving them (Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012). You stated, “A leader does not have to surrender their leadership abilities when it comes to serving others.” This is a correct and appropriate assessment. Leaders must continue to lead and simultaneously assess the needs of their subordinates or their organization.

The concept of servant leadership emphasizes on the behavior of the leader who focuses on serving the led (Simmons, 2010). The servant leaders existed since the biblical time. But, the people could not understand the way it actually functions or experience it personally, most of the time. The concept about the followers that mentions, followers exists to support the leader (The Pennsylvania State University, 2013) has been deep rooted in the community since a long time. Therefore, the connotations of the term servant in the concept of servant leadership do not match with the glorious meaning of leadership. For example, if an employee happened to see the manager cleaning up a mess at the workplace, that employee may not comprehend the fact

You pose a great question; how does one go about sharing the our knowledge regarding servant leadership without detracting from respect, responsibility, accountability, and if needed authority? I believe that the answer lyes in ones personal values and demeanor. For example, as a nurse I serve people every day, putting their needs above my own while showing them respect and empathy among other principles of servant leadership; yet I am still able to retain respect from my peers and patients. I believe that the principles of servant leadership when applied at the right time and place is imperative to retaining respect, responsibility, accountability, and authority. To help others understand servant leadership principles, I would be

If you are a highly effective principal, you seize opportunities that enable you to serve others through your leadership. The trait of being a Contributor requires being a servant-leader who inspires and empowers their teachers, students, and parents by making a contribution to their success. Being a servant leader doesn’t mean you are in the spotlight, but rather the one behind the scenes supporting others, and making parents, teachers, and students shine. Principal, Christy Johnston, embodies several benchmark characteristics of a Contributor.

The expression of servant leadership characteristics in service to others is putting other people first. Every leader should have a servant’s heart, show care and concern for others and be mentor minded, that is, have the desire and concern to build and develop others, even at his or her own expense. (p. 25)

Servant leadership is a unique style of management that ensures the needs of employees are met even if it means the leader has to make personal sacrifices. The idea is that by serving others they will in turn not only do the bare minimum required for their occupation but rather put forth the extra effort because they respect the authority of their manager. This method of management is absolutely applicable in the field of nursing for anyone because it makes everyone accountable for their own actions, not just the charge nurses or managers of a unit. A nurse can exemplify the role of servant leader by setting the needs of their patients as priority. The following paper will look into a few of the

This review acknowledges that additional empirical research is needed on servant leadership especially its current and potential future role in organisations. The authors state that Greenleaf warned that servant leadership would be extremely difficult to apply in an operational setting such as a company.

R. Dennis, L. Kinzler-Norheim & M. Bocarnea in Servant Leadership Theory: Development of the Servant Leadership Assessment Instrument argues that Servant-leaders are those who serve with a focus on the followers, whereby the