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Servant Leadership At United Service Automobile Association (USAA)

Decent Essays

As with the companies in the case studies, United Service Automobile Association (USAA) illustrates different facets of servant leadership (Northouse, 2013, p.236). The company displays servant leadership based on a mixture of a few of the ten characteristics of servant leadership (Spears, 2002) and the four of the seven servant leadership behaviors (Liden, Wayne, et al.’s, 2008). The characteristics are empathy and listening. The behaviors displayed are putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, and creating value for the community. Servant leadership is seen in USAA from the creation of the company in 1922 to present.
USAA was started on the basis of empathy. “Empathy is “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the world from that person’s point of view” (p. 221). This was displayed when 25 Army officers agreed to insure each other 's vehicles when no one else would. The felt the heartache of not being able to find anyone to insure their automobile, so after discussing the issue with each other they came up with a way to insure each other to drive within the legal perimeters of the law. These Army officers started the company for personal reasons and now USAA provides services and products to over 10 million members (n.d, 2014). The company is more than just an automobile insurance company. They provide a variety of services that include: insurance, banking, investing, real estate, retirement planning, health

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