Introduction
Servant leadership has the ability to enhance individual lives, create better organizations and provide a world where everyone’s cares according to Robert Greenleaf (Greenleaf). The purpose of this paper is to introduce servant leader operational philosophy to the organization to maximize the capacity of the company’s performance with the ability to strengthen personnel growth from the lower to the upper level employees. By implementing this philosophy, the outcome is extremely positive and may create a win-win environment, as the focus is to grow the people to grow the organization. Servant leadership does not necessary require a title, in addition, most servant leadership in the organization does not have a title assigned to them. Servant leadership may be very contagious, a trend may be created when one service another, in-turn, the one that was served may become a servant leader. This development generates are great working atmosphere, where retention level increase, but most importantly, the knowledge of the people to grow the organization.
Servant Leadership
The mindset of a Servant Leader. Servant leaders are consistently pondering on their ability to serve and the next step they may consider when serving the people around them. Recognition and the acknowledgement of another shows respect as congratulating another on their performance creates connectedness with each other. The ability to serve others being the highest-priority may attend a
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.
This article examines the similarities and differences between transformational and servant leadership. The authors suggest the primary difference is the focus of the leader. The transformational leader’s focus is more on the organization and the servant leader’s focus is more on the follower. The authors state that both offer the conceptual framework for
One study found that servant leadership leads to higher levels of commitment to the supervisor and efficiency in work. My experience agrees with this finding. By exercising the four servant leadership practices mentioned above, I believe one will not just become a better leader, but also a better person as
A servant leader must also have a vision or goal that they promote and inspire others to meet (Parris and Peachey, 2012). Any organization has a vision with goals and interventions to meet these goals. While serving others on a day to day basis the servant leader should always be working towards and inspiring others to this vision (Patton, 2014). According to Greanleaf (2008), the vision should seek to improve the lives of others (as cited in Gunnarsdóttir, 2014). For example in healthcare, the goal is to improve the health of communities and those needing care (Victor et al,
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
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
He further explains that servant leaders are not motivated by material possessions and are not usually driven to lead for the power that comes from the position (Greenleaf et al., 2002). Instead, the servant leader will ensure that the needs of their followers, the organization, or the community are met first and are treated with the utmost priority over their own needs (Greenleaf et al., 2002). Northouse (2016), also notes that servant leaders are attentive to the needs, concerns, and the wellbeing of their followers. Servant leadership also helps to promote employee satisfaction through helping them grow, succeed, and empowering them to be more independent and successful (Northouse,
Individual adaptability to servant leadership may also be confronted by many challenges. People like comfort and predictability, and by implementing servant leadership, which create change in the comfort and predictability stand point. This is something individual may resist too and may lead to emotion control, motivation control, and lack of goal commitment. The readiness and preparation of servant leadership is recommended as the first step in engaging the workforce with this philosophy. Many emotion may be encountered during this cycle, but patience is the factor as this philosophy takes time. The changes may cause dysfunctional stress, and may lead to negative feedback and lack of interpersonal relationship with colleague. As the employee experience these emotions, workplace aggression may be conceivable.
Your assertion of a servant leader and their team completely buying into the success of the organization lends credence that individual recognition becomes less important as a servant leader grows. In reviewing material for another class, it was discovered that a successful project manager would be a type of servant leader “buying into” successful nursing of a project and project team for the organization. A Christian project leader can grow to be more humble as others are placed first in the project team and the project. Humbleness in the servant leader is honored by God; Proverbs 29:23 says “A man's pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit” (KJV). Also, the servant attitude and not the pride of leadership
Servant Leadership places great emphases on support, trust and encouragement working for the subordinates versus leading by instruction and direction, (Savage-Austin and Honeycutt, 2011). The leader’s position is to support their employees by insuring they have all of the necessary tools to complete their objective. The authors state that servant leadership is similar to transformational and authentic leadership in that the employees are encouraged through mentoring and open interaction. According to the authors, Savage and Honeycutt, (2011), little research has been conducted on servant leadership in the profit driven organizations versus not for profit or volunteer work. It was also noted that organizations that do not
A servant leader is a servant first, and then aspires to lead others (Greenleaf, 1991). By putting the needs of others first, the servant leader helps people grow (Blanchard & Hodges, 2003). Therefore an appropriate test one might to measure to determine the effectiveness of servant leadership is by asking: Do those served grow as persons? A servant leader will initiate opportunity to serve since the desire comes from within. However, leadership must also be initiated (Boone & Makhani, 2013). Leading others toward growth must be a priority if a servant leader is to lead effectively. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an opportunity initiated by this writer to practice the principles of servant leadership.
As written in the lines above, employee engagement has a significant impact on an employee and their engagement. Although there has been many articles and research written about leadership and servant leadership, in this study, it will provide and overview, key traits and influences that servant leaders use in collaboration to address significant problems with strategy and other individuals. Therefore, how do managers and leaders facilitate the engagement of their employees? Leaders do this through their leadership style. In 1970, Robert K. Greenleaf identified servant-leadership, which was different from the traditional views of leadership. According to Greenleaf, “The servant-leader is a servant first. Servant
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.