Robert K Greenleaf's Theory Of Servant Leadership

In Greenleaf’s work he describes ten characteristics of servant leaders. While serving the animal shelter I showed three characteristics. Listening, Empathy, and healing.

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.

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

Robert Greenleaf was the first individual to introduce the concept of a servant leader. Greenleaf was born in 1904 in Terre Haute, Indian. In 1970, after spending the majority of his professional career with AT&T as their director of management development, he released an essay entitled “The Servant as Leader”. This essay described the servant leadership style in detail. Greenleaf stated that he believed the best leader is one who is a servant first. He stated that there were a few key factors for being a servant leader which included; listening, persuasion, access to intuition and foresight, and use of language.

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.

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” throughout history has always been a vital concept to grasp as leaders, however the actual term was not coined until the 1970’s by Robert Greenleaf in his essay The Servant as a Leader. Greenleaf depicts the concept of servant leadership as being a servant first meaning the leader is always willing, ready, and eager to assist those around them in order to create the best environment for everyone to work towards achieving goals.

Barbuto, J. & Wheeler, D. (2007). Becoming a servant leader: Do you have what it takes?

In the process of interviewing a servant leader, this paper investigates the defining behavior of servant leadership from a practical and philosophical standpoint. There are practical behavioral characteristics that can be uniformly integrated into the business infrastructure that is founded upon Biblical principles yet not used as a pool to proselytize. Through research and group discussion boards, this paper analyzes the institutional applications and the interpersonal relationships

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.

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).

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” (Spears,

In the book The Servant, the author James C. Hunter discusses Servant Leadership, and the impact it has on every aspect of life. The book begins with a middle-aged man, John, who has it all, a supportive wife and kids and an authoritative job as a manager at a glass factory. John however, feels his life is falling apart, his employees aren’t respecting him and his relationships with his wife and kids are becoming distant and negative. In an attempt to make a change, John attended a week long religious retreat that’s main focus is Servant Leadership. The attendees at this retreat were all very different, their careers varied greatly, and their views on how to be a leader were not alike either. In the end though, they all agreed on one thing, making a change to become a Servant Leader was going to reshape their lives, through both their careers and relationships.

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

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.