Leadership And Culture Of The Field Of Organizational Leadership

This paper will first discuss briefly what ethics are and provide the definition for an ethical issue. An ethical leadership issue is identified and explained for this author’s practice area. We will then identify and discuss key strategies for leadership that are pertinent to the ethical issue. Next, empirical evidence which supports the strategies discussed will be analyzed. Then, the impact and importance of the strategies will be stated. The final step will be to provide a conclusion to the reader that summarizes the content and strategies.

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 from a Christian perspective is a replica of what Jesus Christ symbolizes. Jesus was a servant because he showed truth, vision, humility, commitment, teacher to his followers, and brought about change; he was a suffering servant, yet was merciful, he was a teacher, yet willing to be taught by the Holy Spirit. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

This paper will respond to three questions, “Are all managers leaders?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 425) “What are some common barriers preventing leaders from behaving ethically and how can these barriers be overcome?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 450) And “Is it possible for leadership substitutes to be effective?” (Phillips & Gully, 2014, p. 450)

Servant leadership is one of several models that have some basis in ethics, according to Northouse (2013), in this way servant leadership distinguishes itself from trait, path-goal or transformational models. The aim of this paper will be to examine on attribute of servant-leadership, describing how the principles might be applied, and the impact of such an approach, in a practical setting. The second part of this paper will evaluate servant leadership’s relationship with the Christian religion and ask whether the model is compatible with other belief systems.

Servant leadership is a theory based on Robert K Greenleaf’s belief that all men have a primary motivation to serve others and through this service they aspire to lead (Parris & Peachey, 2012). Although this leadership model has very little in common with charismatic and situational does however compare to transformational leadership in several areas. The main area of commonality between the two can be found as transformational leaders serve as stewards to change enable the followers to accept the change and move forward with the organization (Tichy & Devanna, 1990, p. 75). In essence, servant leadership becomes the long-term transformational approach to life and work.

From the group Biblical Integration Paper, it was understood that servant-leadership is not only a gift of purpose that God places in the hearts of His people, but it is also a calling in one’s life to truly touch the lives of others in need. Living a successful life, as a servant-leader is not one that focuses on self-fulfillment, rather it is in seeking a fulfillment that comes from Christ when one pours him/herself out for the sake of others. It is through servant-leadership that one is able to bring hope into hopeless situations (Group Integration Paper,

“Servant leadership emphasizes that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture

Some scholars categorize servant leadership, transformational leadership, and authentic leadership as post-industrial styles of leadership (Guthrie and Osteen, 2012). These theories have some similarities because they each contain elements of the other. For instance, Marques and Dhiman (2016) state that servant leadership and authentic leadership are primary expressions of spiritual leadership. Both servant and authentic leaders are altruistic, trustworthy, and honest. Having said that, the assigned readings show that servant leadership represents a shift from followers serving leaders to leaders serving followers. Therefore, this critical analysis focuses on the difference between servant leadership and the other two leadership styles, namely; transformational leadership and authentic leadership.

Servant leadership theory is defined as “A leader who leads by serving others, and place their employees’ interests and needs ahead of their own self-interests and needs, because they value building their communities, the development of their employees, acting authentically, and sharing power” (Grimsley, n.d., para. 1).

In conclusion, without a ministering heart it is virtually impracticable to develop a servant leader. Concurring to the Holy Bible, to grow into a servant of God and to appreciate serving others is not merely a choice that an individual desires to take, it is primarily a merciful talent from God. Because of our new-fangled character, as Christian leaders we should discover ourselves enthusiastically captivated to the Christ-Centered servant guidance

Christian leaders are called to be servants and differ from other forms of leadership. Tidball relates in this article the challenges in Christian leadership and investigates the role of Christian leaders as servants as taught by Jesus Christ to his disciples. It further considers the potential conflict of fulfilling the roles of leaders and as servants. The author presents five ways people seek to resolve the tensions that are common but are insufficient. The article considers the context of leadership in the old and the New Testament of the Bible.

At the end of the day, the best explanation for fostering an ethical behavior is not a difficult one, but an encouraging approach by the leaders of the organization (Mullane 2009). Ethical behavior is essential and must be reflected in the leaders and shaped by those they led. Ethics-based approaches to leadership believes that the leader is not always the one with all the knowledge. Such an approach believes that the followers are just as important as the leader and that the followers should be the main focus and encouraged. Ethics-based approaches believe the leader should put aside his or her personal interests. The following pages will review some perspectives regarding ethical leadership.

In the past, the term “authentic leadership” is used to define ethical leadership. Researches examine authentic leadership as an attempt to discover more about ethical leadership. Researchers argue that authentic leadership is concerned with self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral perspective, and balanced processing (Gardner et al., 2005; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Although Authenticity is an important aspect of ethical leadership and the above definition creates a good list of behaviors, it doesn’t solely define all aspects of ethical leadership. It has also been argued that Influence processes used by leaders are driven by the underlying ethical values (Groves et al., 2011). Therefore, another approach to inspect ethical intent would be to examine the influence process used by leaders. Since leader’s influence processes are very much linked to her leadership styles, it’s appropriate to look at some leadership styles and the compatible influence processes.

Since this article was a systematic literature review, the authors did not provide their own definition of servant leadership and thus the theory remains under-defined. Parris and Peachey note that most researchers quote Greenleaf’s definition of servant leadership verbatim.