United Airlines: Servant Leadership

Dr. Kent M. Keith is the Chief Executive officer for the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. Over the past thirty years, Keith has become an advocate of servant leadership. According to his website, Keith focuses on aiding to others and has a mission to help people find personal meaning in the world. In one of his most recent publications, The Case for Servant Leadership, Keith highlights the servant leadership model while explaining how and why it can be used in order to establish a better world.

The foundation of my personal leadership philosophy can be found in the principles of servant leadership as spelled out by Greenleaf (1970, 1977). Leadership is granted to individuals who are by nature servants. An individual emerges as a leader by first becoming a servant. Servant leaders attend to the needs of those they serve and help them become more informed, free, self-sufficient, and like servants themselves. Leaders and those they serve improve, enhance, and develop each other through their connection. A leader must also be conscious of inequalities and social injustices in the organizations they serve and work actively to resolve those issues. Servant leaders rely less on the use of official power and control, but focus on empowering those they

The last practice is “hold themselves and others accountable for their commitments.” I find it very important to make sure that all of my team members are crystal clear in knowing what their jobs are, plus what my expectations of them are as well. By clearly defining each member’s job duties and explaining how their leader will measure and evaluate their work deliverables, my team members have very clear and precise goals on what to spend their effort on and what to achieve.

Consistent, high-quality customer service is essential to the sustainability of the company; something that is only possible to deliver through engaged, motivated and properly-trained employees. Certainly stakeholders agree, as labour relations and employee engagement rank highly among the issues they consider of greatest materiality.

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,

The shared themes discussed in these articles aligned with my thesis – caring for the least able, service before leading. Liden, Wayne, Chenwei, and Meuser (2014) suggest a servant leader must guide followers to emulate the leader’s behaviors by prioritizing the needs of others above the leaders'needs. Liden et al. (2014) further attest that servant leaders cultivate servant leadership attributes among those they lead, creating a serving culture which influences performance and enhances followers’ traits and skills through mediating influence of personal identification. For leaders to operate under ethical leadership framework, the leader must possess character, competence, and commitment. The leader must also lead by example, thrive on the

Step 2 Since middle management appears to be the bond for the organization the type of leadership necessary to carry the agency through the appointment of a new director will come from servant leadership. In the 1970’s Robert Greenleaf brought a moral dimension to the leadership field with his development of servant leadership (Sousa & Dierendonck, 2015). Servant Leadership View To begin, Sousa and Dierendonck (2015) believe a dual mode of virtue and action is essential in framing the core motivation to serve.

My leadership philosophy for this organization is: “Enabling customer success through world-class service. I came to that by reflecting on the diverse missions of our organization. We are Subject Matter Experts who support our customers through quality control, strategic sourcing strategies, and critical analysis. We serve a variety of partner organizations including Supply Chain Management, Contracting, and Financial Management. We are expected to have the answers and serve our customers in the best way possible. Our

Jesus encouraged his disciples to serve all humans no matter there ethnicity and at the same time lead his church that is supported by the same people his disciples must served. Jesus’ disciples were some of the first and finest servant leaders. From the multitude of Popes and US Presidents to our many local deacons and post masters, any one has the willingness be a servant leader as set by example by Jesus’ early disciples. I genuinely believe I have the idiosyncrasies to be a servant leader. I possess the listening skills, empathy, and virtues of a fair servant leader.

Leadership plays a significant role in many different areas of peoples everyday lives. Businesses, communities, and organizations all use and need leaders to make things run efficiently. A lack of effective leadership can create many difficulties in all aspects of life. “Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world” (Liden, Wayne, Liao & Meuser, 2014, p. 1435). The capacity to be a servant leader to meet the needs of the people that you are leading was encompassed throughout the book The Servant by James Hunter (2012). Hunter (2012) describes leadership as “the skill of influencing people

In the process of becoming a leader, I have had the opportunity to learn a variety of leadership styles. “The Servant Leadership caught my eye as it begins with “the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first”. In chapter ten, I was able to identify the characteristics of Jesus as the first servant Leader; I quickly connected the passage to a bible verse Matthew 20:26 “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. “I make a strong connection with Greenleaf’s phrase that the “servant-leader is servant first.” Jesus is the perfect role model of servant leadership. Throughout my life, I have encountered numerous leadership styles and for that, I am thankful that I had the opportunity to learn from them.

Servant-leadership in the workplace. There are several individual that show servant-leadership, however, our first line supervisor has shown outstanding displays in Servant-leadership. He displays most, if not all of the Ten Characteristics of the Servant-Leadership. Using his skills, he learned as a First Sargent in the Air Force has helped him out shine the other supervisors.

What type of servant leader behaviors did Herb Kelleher exhibit in starting the airline? What about Colleen Barrett?

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 critical factors in the successful transformation of British Airways were changing the culture of the organization for the employees and the consumers. British Airways embarked on an aggressive media campaign that helped change the “face” of the airline. Their new tag line was “The worlds favourite airline”. Customer service became the number one priority for all employees. Lead by Colin Marshall, “an enabling culture (was put) in place to allow customer service to come out, where rather than people waiting to be told what to do to do things better, it’s an environment where people feel they can actually come out with ideas, that they will be listened to, and feel they are much more a part of the success of the company” Jick (2011)(p.30). A “Putting People First” (PFF) program was instituted for all front line employees. This helped to unify the employees with the new vision of customer service first for the company. During these two day mandatory meetings, all front line staff interacted with all levels of managers and leaders on an even playing