Servant leadership underscores service. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first (Greenleaf 2002, p.4). Servant leaders are not only team builders, motivators, but they are ready and willing to take matters in their hands. Besides, they act on their visions and their actions inspire people to become involve. A leader can ascend from anywhere in this world. Moreover, as our leaders rise we are able to examine their attributes, actions, and identify the servant leaders. The ten characteristics that are associated, with servant leadership are; listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. This paper will explore and analyze the actions, qualities of a young female head, as it relates to the ten characteristics of a servant leader. The road to servant leadership for this young girl was totally spontaneous. A native of Summerville, North Carolina, she was given the responsibility to care for a cabbage seedling. Interestingly, this was a project administered through a Bonnie Plants program at her school. Her cabbage sapling grew to forty pounds and faced with the dilemma as to the disposal of the cabbage, the young girl and her mother contacted Fields to Families. This is a local organization that works closely with farmers who contribute crops to organizations that feed the hungry (Stagliano, 2012). A decision was then made to give
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.
Over the course of my career, I have tried to model various leadership behaviors based upon successful leaders that I have worked with or for. This has led me to incorporate different styles into my own. Considering my current leadership strengths and how I view successful leaders I will use a servant leadership theory to analyze my own competencies. Servant leaders have 9 different aspects comprised of: emotional healing, creating value for the community, conceptual skills, empowering, helping subordinates grow and succeed, putting subordinates first, behaving ethically, relationships, and servanthood (Boone & Makhani, 2005, pg. 86). The aspects of a servant leader are those that I personally value and identify with. In addition to this, it is my belief that servant leaders, because they are people oriented, are more effective in a variety of environments and situations.
Servant leadership is defined by a willingness of a leader to put the needs, desires, recognition and success of their employees and organization above their own interests. They often inspire followership through their example resulting in deeply loyal subordinates that are motivated to emulate the leader’s behavior not out of fear or a desire to please and impress but because of its intrinsic value. Reading through the results of my Seven Habits Profile I noticed that I was comparatively deficient on a few of the foundational and organizational habits such as putting first things first and beginning with the end in mind. Conversely, I had a much higher level of empathetic traits with synergy, seeking first to understand, and thinking win-win taking the top three spots. These traits are highly consistent with servant leadership.
The two theories that I chose to do my self-assessment by are the authentic leadership theory and the servant leadership theory. The authentic leadership theory was chosen due to my desire to stay true to who I am and what I stand for. However, the servant leadership theory was chosen because of my desire to meet the needs of others while doing what I can to help others succeed as well as meet their set goals. Being a servant while being authentic are the traits I want in my style of leadership and are assessed throughout this paper along with my strengths and weaknesses in the area of leadership.
Throughout history servant leaders have proven to be some of the greatest leaders and idols. Anyone can be a servant leader if they show certain characteristic: Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment, or building communities. Being a servant leader is one something people want to be and is a very good thing to be. Two of the best servant leaders are Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, which is true because of the characteristics they share building communities, commitment, and foresight. They first trait they both show is building communities.
This article poses a very vital question to the perspective leader. It simply asks, “Do you have what it takes to be a servant leader?” The authors of the article introduce servant leadership by asking a series of questions, which causes the reader to determine if they may be a perspective servant leader. Next, the article focuses on 11 characteristics that identify a servant leader. Some of
“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” - Robert K. Greenleaf. This is Robert Greenleaf’s definition of servant leadership. If members of the scholarship selection committee were to walk around my high school Delphos Jefferson and Vantage Career Center my peers, teachers, and school administrators would describe be as a servant leader for many different reasons.
The servant leadership focuses on conceptualizing emotional healing, and putting followers first as some of its characteristics. These are qualities that are viewed by society as female characteristics. Therefore, many individuals would not consider a male following this style of leadership. For example, the book mentions Mother Teresa and her service for the hungry and homeless. These nurturing qualities continued to be stereotyped in women than
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).
The servant-leader will communicate diplomatically and carefully (Marquis & Huston, 2015). The servant-leader has moral maturity and thinks, acts, and judges ethically with a strong sense of self (Liden, et al, 2014). The list can be enhanced depending on the situation, but as a nursing student, there are characteristics I value as the most important servant-leader qualities.
Through identification and ongoing assessment of her leadership style and ability this leader is able to develop and understand her own strengths and limitations in order to grow and develop into a more effective leader. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of servant leadership, contingency, path-goal styles leadership to gain an understanding of current leadership models, identify this author’s style of leadership and explore why leadership is important to organizations, society and this author.
As a leader in Nursing, I understand that my leaderships rely on services based on the context of traditional science education. This writher experience as a clinical nurse evolution as a follower leader serving at the bed site care. However, the Servant leadership establish an increased service to others, a holistic approach and decision-making. (Greenleaf, 1970). According, to Greenleaf’s ten characteristics was establish for the servant leader and it was considered a critical concern. The following components are central to the development of servant leaders, as listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community (Greenleaf, 1970).
Although numerous females have contributed essays and research on servant-leadership, there is still a considerable gap in the literature addressing feminist perspectives and issues of gender in servant-leadership. This theoretical study attempts to fill that gap by presenting a discussion of servant-leadership that is informed by feminist scholarship. Authors’ construct a logical justification for comprehending servant-leadership as a gender-integrative method to influence. A further purpose proposes gender-integrative discernment in leadership education programs suggested servant-leadership is a behavior for gender in leadership and organizations. Implications for leadership education programs discussed terms of outcomes and assessment.
In the Komives article on leadership, servant leadership is defined as “viewing the leader first as a servant - a person who first wants to serve others,” (Komives 2013, p. 69). Empathy for others plays a huge part in this leadership theory. In order to serve others, you have to understand their struggles and what they need. Komives continues on the say that a leader leads “with the sole goal of serving others to make a difference,” (Komives 2013, p. 69). My identity as a woman has informed my understanding of leadership by opening my eyes to the reality of dealing with stereotypes while in a leadership position. I gravitate to the servant-leadership style because I am a woman.