The unfamiliar idea of servant-leadership has been around for several centuries now. Robert Greenleaf made this idea popular in his classic essay, “The Servant as Leader” in which he brings up this unique idea of a servant-leadership. Greenleaf said, "The servant-leader is a servant first." What he meant by this is that the desire to serve is a fundamental characteristic of a servant-leader. It is not about being servile; it is about wanting to help others. He “believed that leaders should serve employees, customers, and the community.” While the unanimous decision of what exactly defines a servant leader has not been concluded, Greenleaf’s essays are the basis for today’s view on servant leadership. Throughout the basis of this course, we covered a variety of elements that a servant leader should possess and carry with his or herself both inside and outside of an organizational setting.
According to the text we analyzed in class, Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James Sipe and Don Frick, there are seven basic pillars that a servant leader should possess. This book offers the concrete, functional skills necessary to practice Servant Leadership; by doing exactly what Robert Greenleaf says: to lead by serving first. Included are the behaviors of integrity, courage, humility, accountability, empathy, persuasion, foresight, adaptability, collaboration, and moral authority, among various other skills. As Robert Greenleaf says, “Everything begins with the individual” and an effective servant-leader in today’s society needs two things: “an ego that values humility and Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership (Ken Melrose).” Rather than merely listing the characteristics of Servant Leadership as so many others have done, Seven Pillars...
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...nce of the Holy Spirit, a Servant Leader recognizes and fulfills needs in a loving and selfless manner, and motivates others to act as well. I truly believe in this quote and whether its saying a simple, “hello” to one another as they walk down the hall, or cleaning up after themselves at lunch, Everyone should actively be seeking to become a true servant leader, having Christ as their model and strength. I truly believe that I have developed some basic forms of servant leadership by listening to my colleagues, being empathetic, and being a man of strong character. My father has always told me this, “Be a man of character, and you will be the man you’ve always wanted to be.” I couldn’t agree more with this statement and by consistently putting forth the effort to serve and live a morally good life; you will become an effective servant-leader in the image of Christ.
Servant leadership, as defined by Kretiner and Kinkicki (2015, p.486), is putting the needs of others, including employees, customers, and community ahead of one’s own needs. This management style requires selflessness and humility from management so the organization can focus on serving key stakeholders. There are ten characteristics of a servant-leader as identified in the text
There has been a bit of research done on the nature of servant leadership. The belief is that many organizations are moving from the traditional style of leadership to a more servant based style. Larry C. Spears (2010) and Kent Keith (2016) note a few characteristics of one who is a servant leader. The characteristics proposed by Spears (2010) are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to others growth, and community building. These traits will often manifest naturally becoming more enriched as time goes by through experience. Keith (2016) references only four elements of servant leadership. He begins with an element of morality, then of the servant focus, concern for others’
Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that augments the lives of individuals, builds better organizations, and creates a more just and caring world, they put the team first, and themselves second (MindTools, 2015). Servant leaders are able to demonstrate their traits through interaction with followers and other leaders within the organization. The characteristics of servant leaders include their commitment to the growth of people, stewardship, and building community, and provide leaders with the opportunity to experience change and to invite followers to change (Savage-Austin & Honeycutt 2011). Servant leadership encourages leaders and followers to ‘raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality’, and set their leadership focus: follower’s first, organizations second, their own needs last (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). The servant leader focuses on the needs of others to include team members.
The importance of servant leadership should not be underestimated and it can be simplified and embodied in one timeless phrase: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When applied to leadership the result can be phenomenal. Those who wish to serve do so with their hearts, it is not forced nor is it with resentment. The servant leader serves out of acceptance and ownership of their ability and duty.
purpose for this book is dual. First goal is clearly defining servant leadership and second one is
Servant leadership is defined as a philosophy that one carry outs to supplement the lives of others and shape organizations to become better. In order to become a servant leader, you have to first become a servant. One must be want to serve first. There’s a difference between servant leadership and an authentic leadership style. The impression of servant leadership can be traced back to have started two thousand years
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
Servant leadership is a perplexing theory. It takes on radical ideas like a lifetime employment policy, or employee-wide furlough, to illustrate how putting the leader at the service of their employees can result in efficient leadership. “When individuals engage in servant leadership, it is likely to improve outcomes at the individual, organizational, and societal levels (PSU, 2014)". The servant leadership actions of Charlie Kim and Bob Chapman depict how the proper use of servant leadership creates trust, and inspires productivity; benefiting their organization, their employees, and
Introduction Through identification and ongoing assessment of her leadership style and ability, this leader is able to develop and understand her own strengths and limitations in order to grow and develop into a more effective leader. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of servant leadership, contingency, and path-goal styles of leadership to gain an understanding of current leadership models, identify this author’s style of leadership, and explore why leadership is important to organizations, society, and this author. A Personal Model of Leadership Servant leadership was a term that was first used by Keifner Greenleaf (1970) in his first essay, The Servant as Leader (as cited by Crippen, C., 2005). Greenleaf based his essay on his belief that a servant leader is a servant first, and explained that it would begin with the natural urge to serve and then the leader would make a conscious choice to become a leader, in doing so he makes the choice to ensure that others needs are met first (2005 ). As a servant leader develops he should always keep aware of those who he serves and strive to ensure that they are becoming healthier, wiser, freer, have an increase in autonomy, and become more like servants themselves (2005).
To be a servant leader you have to have certain qualities. Not only have the qualities but
Most cultures I find relate in many ways. They all display characteristics of servant leadership. I discovered that the Indian culture holds one to moral and ethics within the culture and religion. In a mirror image of Christians, Indians believe that your destiny is base off the seeds one sows while here on earth. The Indian culture does not recognize their beliefs and morals as servant leadership and have a different way of presenting the concept. One of the ways that one will find that servant leadership is presented different is in their religious practice of Hindu. Over all the Indian culture diverse context and religion
I understand that leadership, a positions of power and rank must be respected, but whenever availed if the leader can take some characteristics of a servant leader they will create a better following. I quotes Sun Tzu earlier saying “A leader leads by example, not by force.” (Stone, Russell, Patterson, 2004), and Tom Peter explained that ”Sun Tzu Leaders don 't create followers, they create more leaders.” (Stone, Russell, Patterson, 2004) I believe that this is very relevant in servant leadership. With this thought, servant leadership is the most effective form of leadership to create more leaders who have a passion for what they do and want to continue working for a cause rather that a rank. “Successful corporations don’t wait for leaders to come along. They actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential.” (Kotter, 2001, p.
When stepping into a leadership role, one must have values, morals, and standards. These characteristics are not taught but developed over time. Servant Leaders must be happy with one self in order to leader others or having the expectations of having followers to develop them in to future leaders or believe in. One must have the characteristics of courage, humility, competency, mentoring, decision making, citizenship, and reflection. Being an educator or role model requires having the skills of a servant leadership is important.
Servant Leadership means to serve others and to lead. It puts everyone else first teaching to put others before yourself, with this leading qualities emerge. Just being or having leadership qualities doesn’t always work. Most leadership models show possessive towards the better for themselves, some work out while others don’t, mostly I think because the unwillingness to see others before yourself is a hard concept for some to understand and use. You can be a great leader but if you don’t understand servant qualities or serve for the benefit of others your probley not much liked. Most I don’t think know what Servant Leadership is or means, I didn’t until this course opened it up to me.