The concept of servant leadership is nothing new, although application in the business realm is. Servant leadership does not rely on the hierarchal power structure that typifies some organizations, but rather on strategies fueled by a leader’s desire to serve others. Servant-leaders are not only effective in what they do, but they also fulfill what they see as their purpose in life.
The History of Servant Leadership
The precepts of servant leadership have been promoted by Christians, Jews, Taoists, Buddhists and many, many others for centuries. In his book, The Case for Servant Leadership (2008), Dr. Kent M. Keith referenced great thinkers and leaders who professed this concept – Aristotle, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. to name a few. Keith also quoted Nobel Prize winning Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore who said, “I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy,” (pg. 3). This sentiment captures the essence of servant leadership.
In 1962, Robert K. Greenleaf founded the Center for Applied Ethics. Eight years later Greenleaf coined the phrase “servant leadership” in an essay entitled “The Servant as Leader,” (Keith, 2008). The organization he founded later took on his name and became the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership; and, true to his ideals, it remains dedicated to the promotion servant leadership. As stated on the Center’s website, “The Greenleaf Center promotes the awareness, understanding, and practice of servant leadership by individuals and organizations.”
What is Servant Leadership?
Who better to define servant leadership than Robert Greenleaf? The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership website was the source for the following Greenleaf quotations:
"The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."
"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"
A number of prominent authors have added their endorsements to Greenleaf’s doctrine - Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, M. Scott Peck, and Peter Senge to name a few. For example, Covey commented, "Leaders are learning that this kind of empowerment, which is what Servant Leadership represents, is one of the key principles that, based on practice, not talk, will be the deciding point between an organization’s enduring success or its eventual extinction." Covey’s point, one reinforced by others, is that servant leadership is an effective and powerful leadership style in the business place.
Leadership Styles
There is an abundance of literature describing numerous leadership styles, servant leadership being just one of them. One online resource identifies 10 Popular Leadership Styles:
- Autocratic leadership
- Bureaucratic leadership
- Charismatic leadership
- Democratic leadership or participative leadership
- Laissez-faire leadership
- People-oriented leadership or relations-oriented leadership
- Servant leadership
- Task-Oriented leadership
- Transactional leadership
- Transformational leadership
With credit given to Robert Greenleaf, Dr. Keith contrasted servant leadership to a form or autocratic leadership, the power leadership model. Leaders who adhere to the power model are more concerned about gaining power than using it wisely. They focus on their own interests, not those of others, and in so doing they promote conflict.
Conversely, the service model of leadership has a moral base. Keith characterized servant-leaders as “facilitators, coordinators, healers, partners and coalition-builders,” (pg. 29). Servant leaders use power, but they use it as a tool to help others. Furthermore, servant leaders are intrinsically motivated. Their leadership style helps them fulfill their personal mission, their purpose if you will. Keith put it this way, “Loving and helping others gives a servant-leader meaning and satisfaction in life,” (pg. 9).
Characteristics of Servant-Leaders
On the Trinity Western University website one can find a number of servant leadership quotations including one from Charlie Brown. This beloved Peanuts character is quoted as saying, "Few people are successful unless other people want them to be." The prophetic young Brown captured a key element of servant leadership. Whether people want their leaders to be successful or not often depends on their leadership style. Servant-leaders typically have the support of those they lead and serve.
Kent Keith made reference to a book by James Autry, The Servant Leader (2001), and indicated that leadership is not about controlling people, being the boss, holding on to territory, or pep talks. It is more building community, letting go or ego, and paying attention. He also contended that it requires love.
According to Keith, there are seven key practices that characterize a servant leader. Servant-leaders:
- maintain a keen self-awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses;
- identify the needs of others by listening to them;
- abandon the pyramidal, hierarchal organization structure of leadership;
- help their colleagues develop;
- coach rather than control others;
- empower others in the sense that they help others unleash their energy and intelligence; and
- employ a keen sense of foresight into what may lie ahead.
The Lives of Servant Leaders
Throughout the ages, there have been many great servant-leaders - Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. to name just a few. These individuals led their lives following a set of precepts that can be applied by anyone. In fact, Greenleaf, Keith and others have admonished everyone in a leadership role to practice servant leadership.
What should be evident is that servant leadership is about more than leadership; it is about a life style. Keith wrote that servant leaders add meaning to their lives. They fulfill the purpose they have identified for themselves, the purpose to serve others. And what if a person does not have a purpose, a moral and socially conscientious purpose that is? Consider the words of Thomas Carlyle who was quoted by Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose Driven Life (2002). Carlyle wrote, “The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder – a waif, a nothing, a no man,” (p. 27).
References
Autry, James A.. The Servant-Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom Line Performance, Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2001.
Keith, Kent M. The Case for Servant Leadership, Westfield, IN: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 2008.
Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.
Paul Hummel - My name is Paul Hummel, and learning has been a life-long pursuit of mine. I began post secondary quest in 1965, and it earned me three ...
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