Known to all as the foundation upon which we stand, the helping hands and guiding leaders of our global society are both the world’s tools for progression towards unconditional happiness. Kindled by religious enthusiasts and community leaders, these aspects of support and guidance are embedded in families, societies, and the future generations. Service and leadership make up the thread of our society. In homes, both parents and children can serve and lead. In the public aspect, advocates of religion, advisors in community service or social mediators for peace all have the ability to support and guide the neighborhood. In schools, educators and peers can both help each other and lead by example. Regardless of how a society functions, every individual is blessed with the gift to serve and lead others to better livelihoods.
More often than not, my service and leadership appeals to the emotional and spiritual expanses of a person. I am a servant and leader, and both encompass my life at home, as a part of my family’s structure. I know my role in the house; I am a mediator, a peacemaker for the misunderstandings that may occur. I instill an essence of joy, they tell me, in still times. My parents see it fit to enrich me with advice. When they do share their wisdom, I apply it all to my life, directing myself in a way that leads to a positive outlook on life. I reflect on my family’s perspectives after every quarrel, to share my opinions about how just I believe they are. I do this by referencing my religion’s own statutes, as I am religious, and take them to be true and righteous. In all that I do in my home, in all that I provide for my family, goodness is what drives me to support and guide. Goodness is what the hum...
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... community needs community outreach, social support, and opportunities to better the lives of people of it. Guidance and support are the fuels that drive these things in a community. My religious personality inspires me to state: first, a servant of one man is a leader for others to follow into service and, second, a leader of many who provides for many is a servant of one, that “one” is God. To be good, in my terms, is to experience God in our lives, to develop within our society and to spread the goodness to others in the world. Since, not all people believe in my God, they will feel the goodness that He is of, but not take it to be Him. Even without the religious perspective, I learned still of the morality in which serving and leading coexist; I gained an immaculate, great sense of purpose in my life, of my existence and of service and leadership for others.
...se they do carry a great responsibility to care for others. As the author declares it, they are the ones who keep watch over the souls of the believers in the faith community, exercise leadership in light of the final Day and will give an account to the Lord for their shepherding. Also, they will be unprofitable, if they do not do it with the joy of the Lord. Rhee as well as the author of this article wants us to see the full responsibility of a leader over a faith community and the qualities he or she must carry in order to lead others to Christ and to the final day of our Lord’s return.
Primary service is the key. Many view this as a contradiction because the leader is leading and serving. How can a person do both? Good servant leaders are good listeners. The communication between the leader and the follower being served allows the leader to listen to the follower first, in order to understand what the other person has to say and to understand their needs. These leaders practice empathy as well. Understanding what the follower is facing or feeling is comforting to the follower because it validates their importance to another person. The ability to heal a person through care and the concern for a person’s well being is another quality of a servant leader. These are only a few of the characteristics that generate a strong servant leader. Mother Teresa said, “The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.” Her words describe exactly what servant leaders do. Servant leaders serve others willingly because they find joy and pleasure in doing so. The outcome of serving others in this manner is growth and social impacts for a greater good. When there is an improvement in self-actualization, followers improve in their goal reaching or task completion by understanding their full potential to do
Servant leadership is becoming a more “sought-after” concept in today’s society, but what exactly is servant leadership? Does it mean different things to different people? Although the three books, The Servant as Leader, The Servant, and Lead Like Jesus, all center around servant leadership, each author takes a different perspective on the meaning of being a servant leader. Robert Greenleaf addresses leadership from a straight-forward stance; saying that a good leader must be a servant-first by finding the will within themselves to put the needs of their group before their own. James Hunter discusses servant leadership through a story involving everyday people that the reader can relate to. He uses Jesus as a guide to explain how to initiate character development that will, in turn, fashion servant leadership. Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges offer a new perspective on servant leadership by bringing Jesus into the picture on an even deeper level than Hunter. They explain that by knowing Jesus Christ and developing an intimate personal
3). Through the service of others, servants as leaders create positive changes in the lives of others that lead those served to act more autonomously (Block, Blanchard, Wheatley & Autry, 2006). The goal of a service leader is to help others achieve their highest level of functioning. Those served are then motivated to become service leaders as well (Block, Blanchard, Wheatley & Autry, 2006). Thus, servant leadership focuses on commitment to helping the individual served grow in their abilities. In turn this gives the served individual confidence in their work and personal abilities which then transforms into a desire to help others do the
Many organizations today place multiple demands on its leaders to provide vision, initiate change, and make difficult decisions when necessary. In order for leaders to handle these demands, leaders must be able to be flexible and most importantly be able adapt to change. Having strong leadership skills and a sense of direction are part of the trades that successful businesses seek in a leader. Therefore, it is important for leaders to engage effectively with their subordinates in order to build commitment, in order to motivate and improve the quantity and quality of their work. Good leaders will find innovated ways to motivate their staff using a variety of skills whether it is through training or experience, which will help to accomplish a common goal.
The most successful way to instill righteous and moral behavior and thoughts is by demonstrating our respectable interactions and honest problem solving approaches during difficult times of our lives. “As adults we should dare to be adults that we want our children to be”. They learn by watching and are quick to mimic our behavior with their peers outside of home. The author writes that “we should strive to raise children who: engage with the world from a place of worthiness, embrace their vulnerabilities and imperfections, feel a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others, value hard work, perseverance, and respect, and also move through our rapidly changing world with courage and a resilient spirit” (214, 218-219). All of these elements will help to transform the way we live, love, and
Before reading about characteristics of servant leadership, I tried thinking about what I already knew about this type of leadership. Some of the thoughts I had were: leaders put others before themselves and leaders go beyond their responsibilities to help others. When I read Chapter 7 from The Special Education Teacher as a Servant Leader, I found that I was correct but did not have the full answer.
Leadership is defined as ‘the process in which an individual influences the group of individuals to attain a common goal’. The goal is achieved by cooperation, communication and cohesive behaviour. A leader is someone who stands for his cause and takes responsibility, but can also motivate others to do the same. There is a clear difference between being a boss and a leader. A leader can motivate others and inspires them to aim high and achieve anything they set their minds to. However a boss plays more of a supervising role. Power should naturally come to a leader but that power should be treated with respect and never be abused. A good leader should;
Many leadership styles exist. The determining factor if a leadership style is effective or not is often how it is carried out and if it is appeasing to those, the leader is attempting to lead. One of the leadership styles that has become popular is Servant leadership. Although Greenleaf developed servant leadership more than thirty-five years ago and he identified ten characteristics that pertain to servant leadership. (book p. 56) Servant leadership has been successful in various industries and its popularity continues to increase.
He will be there for you when you have problems with your family and spouse, because he wants employees to be focused when they are working and not thinking about family problems.
Throughout the semester we discussed multiple focal leadership theories. This included Authentic Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Servant Leadership and Leader-Member Exchange. After spending some time on each style of leadership I felt there was one type of leadership that stood out to me; Authentic Leadership.
Chung, Y. (2011). Why servant leadership? Its uniqueness and principles in the life of Jesus. Journal Of Asia Adventist Seminary, 14(2), 159-170.
One of the most important components of leadership is the leader. A leader is responsible for his or her followers and the overall goal of the group or organization. Leaders are the people held accountable or everything that happens, good or bad. On the other hand, the second major component of leadership is the followers. Without followers, a leader would be worthless. Followers make up the backbone of a leader because they are the masses that get goals accomplished. A leader is just one person, but the number of followers is countless. In order to be an effective follower, there are a countless number of characteristics that allow a follower to be the best they can be. Five of these characteristics include a positive attitude, communication skills, being part of the process, being open to new ideas, and patience.
In the first major paper on stakeholder theory, Edward Freeman and David Reed state that a stakeholder is "Any identifiable group or individual on which the organization is dependent for its continued survival." (Freeman and Reed 89) Given that these groups' input are all vital part of an organization's success, creating solutions that benefit all stakeholders is important for long term success. Solutions that conflict with the interest of one of the stakeholders, could result in that stakeholder withdrawing the support that the organization needs to survive. When leaders of an organizations are servants first, when they "make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served" (Greenleaf , “The Servant as leader” 3), then the organization's stakeholders will be invested in the organization's continued success and as a result will be more likely to lend it their support.
Leadership is an awesome responsibility, and regardless of where leadership occurs, followers want leadership that is trustworthy, inspiring, consequential, and most importantly, effective. Thus, effective leadership is often weighed in theory and common indicators such as the impact on a team or process, follower attitudes and perceptions, and even career longevity (Yukl, 2010). Furthermore, leadership effectiveness may also be determined by the leader’s title, position, skills, traits, and moral behaviors (Carolina College of Biblical Studies [CCBS], n.d.). Often overlooked in all these things are God’s purpose for leadership, and the call for the leader to remain obedient to God while leading (CCBS, n.d.). Since mankind is sinful by