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Greenleafs theory of servant leadership essay
What are the comparisons between the autocratic and participative leadership
Key elements of servant leadership robert greenleaf
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One of the most indicative characteristics of the post bureaucratic era is the relationship between effective communication and leadership practices. The post-bureaucratic era saw employees given greater independence, trust and reliance from their leader. A leaders’ beliefs include employees being empowered and the managers encouraged to interact with their followers in decision making to gain optimum performance, hence leading the organization to success.
One of the most crucial functions of leadership is to use communication tools to influence, motivate and direct the followers to attain the organization’s desired objectives and to work towards the organization’s mission and vision. This era has also seen increased awareness, creativity
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Modern post-bureaucratic organizations focus on the communication styles that bring about knowledge management and knowledge shared among teams. Hence the most important issue with leadership practices is to adapt communication styles in order to motivate followers, which further supports knowledge and sharing.
There are two leadership styles that this paper will analyze, that is the autocratic and the participative leadership style. The autocratic leadership style involves a leader directing, instructing, supervising and ensuring that the task is completed under the instructions provided by the leader. One of the best examples of an autocratic leader is Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple, who solely focused on getting the iPhone completed as compared with motivating the employee to do the activity
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Introduced by Greenleaf, himself a servant leader who set examples in order to gain followers. A servant leader is known to be unassertive and their beliefs include listening to the suggestions of followers. They are also known a to try and determine the inclination of a group and help in clarifying their objectives. This quality helps in effective engagement in listening as a communication skill. They also should display patience and listen to the opinions and wills of the team members prior to proposing solutions. The wellbeing and growth of a servant leader entail in effective listening as well as engaging in reflective thinking (spears, 2010). In this practice, reflective thinking and listening are the most crucial principles to effective decision making. A servant leader is identified by their demonstration of the ideas and practices of teams to follow. The portrayal of work processes also ensures that a servant leader to participate effectively in interpersonal communication. This style of leadership is most useful in non-governmental and healthcare facilities where the servant leader seeks to gain a balance between diverse stakeholders by engaging in effective communication management (Dierendonck,
The Servant Leader discusses the importance of leaders who adopt a service oriented attitude in which they care for the needs of others before their own. A servant leader need not be an actual servant or have ever been a servant to become a servant leader. Rather, a servant leader is born with or adopts an “others first” disposition. Climbing through the ranks may help to create a servant leader, though it is not necessary. When leaders choose to see that the needs of their followers or their organizations are the highest priority they become servants.
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. They acknowledge people’s perspectives, and give them the support needed to meet their goals. Servant leaders involve members when decisions are appropriate helping build a stronger commitment within the team. Strong qualities of servant leadership are trust, appreciation for others, and empowerment. Honesty and integrity form the moral foundation of effective leadership through the four values of truth telling, promise
Following this, I’ll contrast the argument by drawing upon Shackleton’s “leadership in the face of crisis” (Browning 2007 pg198) suggesting that the changes in practices within the post-bureaucratic era have “branched” and remained influenced by bureaucratic leadership styles (Grahn 2008). In section two, I discuss the changes in the “pedagogy” of leadership development through the practices of an organisation and how such courses transfer theoretical learning of leadership to a practical application (Herman 2007). Following this, I attempt to compare Meindi’s (1997) Article “the romance of leadership” considering the strong romanticised conception of leadership, being a strong part of social reality. In doing so exhibit, that bureaucracy has not been “suppressed” but rather ”refurbished”. Finally, within the conclusion I propose my views on bureaucracy being inherent within contemporary post-bureaucracy society, becoming a “hybrid” form as Clegg and Courpasson (2004)
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
The different leadership styles of men and women was discussed. Women prefer democratic and participative styles while men preferred autocratic styles (Landy & Conte, 2013, p. 508). Women can tend to be more interpersonal where men are more focused on tasks versus worrying about how their staff
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
The theme emerging from the data collection will support the research questions in the action plan. After collecting both qualitative and quantitative data it was discovered that the current communication strategies were inappropriate for the organization structure. The leadership style was autocratic, which gives the leader sole control over the organization without receiving input from other employees. According to the text, “leadership will need to become more focused and more distributed, because the task of leading these changes is just too large for one person” (Buczynski & Hansen 2014). An effective leader display strong communication skills by listening, communicating, and involving others in the decision making
Being an effective communicator is the key to success for a leader. Communication is defined by the authors in the text Organizations: Behavior, Structure, and Processes as transmitting information and understanding, usi...
The idea of what’s morally right and wrong changes within each culture whether an organizational culture or between individuals. However, the best leaders are the ones who do what’s right and best for the organization. During this research paper I will attempt to define the term leadership style and its concept. Moreover, I will attempt to describe three leadership styles, the development and the process one would follow to modify their leadership style. When pertaining to myself, I never saw myself as a leader but I will attempt to describe my leadership style and the advantages and disadvantage I would have in a business environment.
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).
Autocratic leadership theory is a part of the behavioural approach. In this leadership theory, leader makes all decisions and uses power to command and control the followers to achieve goal. According to Lewin(1939), “autocratic leaders are associated with high-performing groups, but that close supervision is necessary and feeling of hostility are often present” (p.173). It is incredibly efficient and tasks are completed quickly. Autocratic leadership can be beneficial when decisions need to be making quickly. For example, in emergency situation surgeon uses this theory because the patient’s situation is between life and death and there is no time to discuss with other members. Bass (2008) mentioned in the Leadership styles and theories article, “Autocratic leaders can be effective because they create good structure, and determine what needs to be done. They provide rewards for compliance, but punish disobedience” (Giltinane, 2013, p. 35-37).
In this paper I will look at the four major leadership styles, their characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and in what situations a particular leadership style is desired. Additionally, I will look at my leadership style and how I acquired this style throughout my career.
This essay is fueled by my research into understanding me as a servant-leader in training. I grew up in a house where my dad owned his own company, though he worked alongside his employees. Both of my parents worked within the community, meeting the needs of those around them. Growing up in the house and watching them give of themselves gave me paradigms of servant-leadership, and helped me to recognize it when it existed. Their models of servant-leadership have helped to inspire and reassure me in my decision making. According to Robert Greenleaf, one must first take on the role of a good servant, before that of a good leader (2002). At the time I was first introduced to this concept by my parents it was
There are a few different types of well known leadership styles, authoritarian, delegative, and democratic. To assess my leadership style I used two online tests to help me determine my style. I felt the results were accurate and I fall into a democratic style/participative style. If I am leading I prefer to include the group and get their feedback on solving issues. However, I still make the final decision after listening to the thoughts of the group on a particular topic. This is considered to be a positive style of leadership that is inspiring to the group involved. The leaders decision making tends to be more accurate due to the input of other experts. (Cite)
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.