Essay on Greenleaf’s The Servant Leader

A servant leader must listen to a person fully without interrupting or judging them. While doing my service at the animal shelter there were two other people doing service. They were prisoners wearing the orange jumpsuit. Although most people would assume they are bad and not to talk to them, me and my group had a conversation with them about the dogs. They showed a lot of compassion about what they were doing. Although it was work they were forced to do they gave it their all. I listened and communicated with them the entire time without judging whatever they might have done. This was showing servant leadership in one of the hardest

Prior to his appointment as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (SECVA) Robert (Bob) McDonald was already well-known for his advocacy and promotion of the concept of “Servant Leadership” a term first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. The author first wrote about the concept of Servant Leadership in an essay titled “The Servant as Leader.” In his essay, Greenleaf recounted his reason for writing the essay, stemmed from the belief that the country was in a leadership crisis and he had a responsibility to attempt to address the problem. When Mr. McDonald came to the VA, he like Greenleaf intuitively recognized the need for and his responsibility to institute and nurture this style of leadership within the department’s leadership ranks. The MyVA Integrated Plan (MIP) dated July 2015, illustrates McDonald’s commitment to this theory by recognizing the need to cultivate leadership excellence in the department by developing “Engaged Servant Leaders responsible for establishing an organizational culture rooted in VA core values that inspires and empowers all employees.” In order to restore the trust and confidence of the Veterans and the American Public, leadership at all levels must understand what servant leadership is, embrace the concept, and inculcates the concept throughout the leadership ranks within the department.

Originating in the seminal work of Greenleaf, servant leadership is a paradoxical approach to leadership that challengers our traditional beliefs about leadership and influence. Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders should be attentive to the needs of the followers, empower them, and help them develop their full human capacities. They build strong relationships, with others, are empathic, and ethical, and lead in ways that serve the greater good of followers, organizations, and the community.

Simply, servant leaders hold a view as a servant first and leader second (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Moreover, servant leaders emphasize personal responsibility for the organization and all internal and external stakeholders (Peterson, Galvin, & Lange, 2012). As stated, expressing a genuine concern and care for people are a basis of servant leadership. In addition, servant leadership also focuses on the growth of

To be a successful servant leader one must have a true honest desire to want others around them to be successful. The major strength of the servant leader is their contribution of the organization they are leading. I believe this type of leadership really aligns

Servant leadership is an effectual way to motivate the employees. Its unique emphasis on concern for

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.

Servant leadership, as it applies to the modern world, is a concept that Robert Greenleaf defined in his influential 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf’s essay explains that servant leadership is an amalgam of concrete leadership styles and “fragments of data” that came to him through “intuitive insight” (1970). Having worked at AT&T from 1926-1964, he accumulated a number of leadership qualities throughout his professional career. After retirement he began teaching at Harvard Business School, but became distressed by younger generations and their rebellious attitudes. After careful consideration, he decided institutions were doing a poor job of serving, so they were doing a poor job of leading. His

Many have developed elements that they believe are the foundation of servant leadership. In summary, included in the fundamentals are healing, creating value for community, empowering, empathy, listening, awareness, behaving ethically, and helping others grow and succeed. Healing refers to leaders trying to help solve problems and relationships. Creating value for community refers to leaders serving as an example and encouraging others to also serve the community. Empowering refers to leaders providing followers with autonomy. Empathy refers to leaders understanding others. Listening is a trait all leaders should possess. In order to understand, one should first listen. Awareness refers to leaders attentive to the things happening around them. Behaving ethically refers to the demonstrating of integrity to gain the trust of followers. Helping others grow and succeed refers to leaders providing support to followers to help them develop and accomplish professional and personal goals.

Dr. Kent M. Keith was a presenter on behalf of the Greenleaf Seminar on Servant Leadership at the 53rd annual conference for the Arizona School Boards Association in December, 2010. He correctly pointed out that servant leadership is about serving others, about becoming distinguished through the altruistic desire to serve, and about the "…universal recognition of the importance of serving others" (Keith, 2010).

Robert Greenleaf argues that a leader is a servant. For one to be a leader, he must be willing to serve the others. Service to man is a natural feeling that is self-driven. It is the human consciousness that aspires people to become leaders. (Greenleaf, & Spears, 2002).

Servant leadership is a type of leadership whereby the leader serves the needs of the people, empathizes with them, and involves them in solving their needs. Servant leadership is all about involving the people you are leading in your decision making, being ethical and caring for the people to enhance their personal growth at the same time improve their life. A servant leader does not simply delegate roles; he starts the work and energizes the others to join him and get the work done. According to Spears (2004), the servant leader as defined by Greenleaf is one who gets the natural feeling of wanting to serve first and then a conscious choice brings him/her to lead. This leader makes sure that other people’s highest-priority needs are take

By being a servant leader, I will put the needs of my employees first to ensure that my company is socially responsible through quality customer service rendered by me and employees. Since leadership is considered a critical force in producing positive outcomes in organizations through the performance of employees, it is very important to take servant leadership seriously (Grisaffe, VanMeter, Chonko 2016). My main and foremost priority as a servant leader is to serve others with real selflessness before aiming for profit. For instance, as a non-medical owner of a care

Here, Greenleaf describes a relationship that is centered on the selfless nature of the leader. While servant leadership prioritizes serving other’s without benefiting personally, it should be questioned if this is truly possible. This is because it is not likely to act as a servant-leader without receiving something in return. An example of this would be a person volunteering for a cause

The authors of the review state that they focused on providing an informed answer to how servant leadership works and how it could be applied in organisations. A systematic literature review was conducted with a final tally of 39 studies deemed appropriate for the exercise.