According to servant leadership model, the goal of leadership is to serve. Together with authentic leadership ideals, servant leadership is a particularly applicable approach to leadership during these modern times. Servant leadership differs from the traditional leadership in which the goal of the leadership is to mainly focus on thriving of the organization. As stated by its founder, Robert K. Greenleaf (2002), a servant leader should be focused on several important questions such as, “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?” A servant leader shares power and puts the needs of the employees first. A servant leader helps people to develop and perform as well as possible. The leader exists to serve the people, instead of the people working to serve the leader. The benefit of servant leadership is that both the leader and the followers benefit from personal growth and development. In addition, organizations grow and prosper because of improved organizational commitment and engagement. Due to these benefits, servant leadership is being practiced in many top ranked companies. In these companies, the leaders go above and beyond the call of duty, and experience higher sense of satisfaction about their leadership roles.
Greenleaf founded servant leadership after reading Hermann Hesse’s 1932 book, Journey to the East. This book served as the personal source of inspiration for him to invent the term servant leader in his 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. The story in Hesse’s book goes like this:
“In Journey to the East, the main character, named Leo, is a servant just like all the others. All the servants work well together, until one day when Leo disappears. When the servants realize that things aren’t the same without Leo, they came to the realization that Leo was far more than a servant – he was actually their leader.”
Greenleaf realized that a leader should be someone that servants or workers can relate to. Leo was first seen as just a servant. However, he became a lot more than just a servant to the other servants when they realized that they could not succeed without him. According to Greenleaf, a servant leader should be like this. He witnessed this in his own work. When Greenleaf was working as an executive at AT&T, he practiced servant leadership and experienced great success.
Greenleaf believed in the improvement of others as the true intention of a servant leader. He taught the “I serve” approach instead of the traditional “I lead” mindset. The below are the two premises from the “I serve” mentality:
- I serve because I am the leader, and
- I am the leader because I serve.
The first of these two premises signifies the act of altruism, which is defined as the practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Greenleaf felt that servant leadership starts with the natural feeling of wanting to serve first. The act of leadership is in the context of serving others and only through the act of serving others can the leader lead others to reach their full capabilities. The second premise of servant leadership starts with a deep ambition to be a leader. It can also be rooted in the personal ambitions of a leader. This is often the case with mission driven leaders who truly believe in the cause of their organizations.
Servant leadership is more applicable with some industries than others. It is particularly effective in education and government sectors. Some manufacturing environments may not be as good candidates for servant leaderships although it is hard to argue against the general merits of the servant leader mindset.
Reference:
Greenleaf, R. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ.
