Changing the Military with Servant Leadership

2608 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Martin luther kings leadership

There are a number of significant difficulties for today’s military - the Global War on Terrorism or what has recently been termed the “Long War;” weapon system acquisitions and personnel draw downs. The focus of this paper is on one strategic component of the military quest—Leadership. More specifically, it will center on servant leadership and its impact on the military’s vision.

This paper first explores the significance of the leadership change, followed by an examination of three notable characteristics of servant leadership and their historical influence through the eyes of a famous leader. Whether one studies Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, Martin Luther King Jr.’s extraordinary passion for equality, or even Vince Lombardi’s coaching genius, one can easily find models for inspirational leadership and strategies for success. Inspirational leadership conveyed through motivational speakers boosts the passion of its audience because it taps into emotions. So what is it that draws people to a leader? Is it charisma, passion, kindness, or fairness? Is it the ability to cast a vision that the entire organization can understand and support?

Next, this paper will look at servant leadership and its comparison to the terms leadership and management. Members of the military all swear an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Whether they knew it or not, by swearing that oath, they accepted the responsibility to lead our subordinates. Speaking from experience, I worked for many highly qualified managers over the 24 years I spent in the Navy, but only a few life-changing, organization-transforming leaders. Running from meeting to meeting and desperately trying to stay ahe...

... middle of paper ...

...ber 25th, 2010 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/leader.

Leadership. Dictionary.com.(2010) Webster's revised unabridged dictionary. MICRA, Inc.

Retrieved November 25th, 2010 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/leadership.

Management. (2008). Websters Online Dictionary. Retrieved November 25th, 2010 from

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Management.

Responsibility. Dictionary.com.(2010). Webster's revised unabridged dictionary. MICRA, Inc.

Retrieved November 25th, 2010 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/responsibility.

Spears, L.C., and Lawrence, M. (2002). Focus on leadership: Servant leadership for the

twenty-first century. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

IMDB.com. (2010). We were soldiers. Retrieved from The Internet Movie Database on

November 25th, 2010 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277434/quotes.

Show More
Related

  • Southwest Airlines: Servant Leadership

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Bedford Boys

    508 Words  | 2 Pages

    In deed on June 6, 1944, the little town of Bedford, VA, suffered a tragedy that would never be forgotten. But through the pain and hardship some of officers who leaded the Bedford boys displayed remarkable leadership’s principles. One of the basic functions of leadership is to unite people: bring people together to achieve common objectives. There is truth in the statement, where there is unity there is strength. This essay will offer a working definition of effective leadership principles and discuss the function of leadership as it relates to followers, motivation and power.

    Read More

  • Colin Powell: Military leader, Statesman

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Military leadership qualities are formed in a progressive and sequential series of carefully planned training, educational, and experiential events—far more time-consuming and expensive than similar training in industry or government. Secondly, military leaders tend to hold high levels of responsibility and authority at low levels of our organizations. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, military leadership is based on a concept of duty, service, and self-sacrifice; we take an oath to that effect.”

    Read More

  • The Human Resources Framework By Bolman And Deal

    1107 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Effective Leadership Style of Martin Luther King Jr.

    631 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our world is filled with many successful leaders. The gift of being a leader can be learned; however some individuals have a natural born talent to be a leader. Each leader has his or her own unique leadership style. The gift of being a leader can be learned. Certain individuals are born with a charismatic style and can easily be a leader. A successful leader is one who can inspire and motivate people towards a goal. Martin Luther King Jr. was an individual with a born gift to lead people. The following paper will discuss how Martin Luther King Jr. was able to inspire and motivate people with his effective leadership style.

    Read More

  • Critique on the Book The Leadership Challenge

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner (2007) is the result of twenty years of research on the factors that influence and create great leadership. Through studies and stories from leaders with various backgrounds throughout the world, the practices and characteristics that create great leadership are delineated. Leadership is viewed not as a group of inherent characteristics, but as learned behavior that anyone can achieve. The goal of Kouzes and Posner’s book is to inspire and educate leaders through transformational leadership. As such, leadership is about mobilizing others to become and do extraordinary things.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Creative Followership: In The Shadow Of Greatness By Jimmy Collins

    848 Words  | 2 Pages

    There have been countless books, lectures, and and trainings, and retreats constructed around the idea of cultivating leadership in an individual. However, cultivating individuals’ ability to follow great leadership has received far less attention. Who are these people leading if each person within an organization is being trained to be a leader? The word follower has negative connotations, evoking the images of a weak, uncreative, milquetoast personality. However, Jimmy Collins, in his book, “Creative Followership: In the Shadow of Greatness”, suggests that the ability to be led brings as much creativity, consciousness, and indeed leadership to an organization or team as the leader himself.

    Read More

  • Leadership In Servant Leadership

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    Servant leadership can be thought of as an inverted triangle where the leader is supporting the organization at the point. As a result of this leadership style, leaders are more in tune with their teams. They have more insight on their team and the inner workings of their organizations.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of True North

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author called out for servant leadership for long-term success for all stakeholders. Similar to other professions leader needs to hone their abilities to be effective in their leadership role. To find a purpose in what you achieve besides money, power, and fame resonates with the True North. A leader should act in the best interests of the organization that would lead to a greater good. To have a balance between IQ and EQ will lead to leadership with the True North. Passion, compassion, empathy, and courage matters the heart decisions are important components of the True North. To develop as a worthy human being, a leader must become self aware, integrated human being, and comfortable being his/herself. In addition a leader with the True North moves from I to we, is humble, serve customers, empower people, and align personal values with organization’s mission. A leader with True North demonstrates a high degree of integrity and walks his/her talk. A leader with a True North is an integrated leader with fine balance between personal, family, work, and community life. On a similar note, a leader with True North aligns and nourishes their mind, body, and soul.

    Read More

  • Servant Leadership From a Christian Perspective

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilkes, C. G. Jesus on Leadership: Timeless Wisdom on Servant Leadership. Carol Stream, Illnois: Tyndale House, 1998.

    Read More

  • Leadership Self-Assessment

    3035 Words  | 7 Pages

    As an officer in the United States Army, it has been imperative for me to understand every facet of leadership and why it remains important to be an effective leader. During this course, I have learned some valuable lessons about myself as a leader and how I can improve on my leadership ability in the future. The journal entries along with the understanding of available leadership theories have been an integral part of my learning during this course. For all of the journals and assessments that I completed, I feel it has given me a good understanding of my current leadership status and my future potential as a leader. All of the specific assessments looked at several areas in regards to leadership; these assessments covered several separate focus areas and identified my overall strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Over the course of this paper I will briefly discuss each one of these assessments and journal entries as they pertained to me and my leadership.

    Read More

  • Nursing Leadership Case Study

    1645 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stone, A. G., Russell, R. F., & Patterson, K. (n.d.). Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. Retrieved from http://www.regent.edu/acad/sls/publications/conference_proceedings/servant_leadership_roundtable/2003pdf/stone_transformation_versus.pdf

    Read More

  • Servant Leadership Vs. Transformative Leadership

    1693 Words  | 4 Pages

    While there is a body of research for transformative leaders, there is very little for servant leadership. This is changing as more efforts are applied to understand servant leaders. This has led to conjecture that servant leadership is little more than an extension of transformative leadership. However, as demonstrated here, there very clear and marked differences between the two. Humphreys has proposed a model of servant and transformational leadership that includes the contextual variable a model of servant and transformational leadership that includes the contextual variable. With all of the available evidence, transformative leadership is best suited for a dynamic external environment, since a transformational leadership would be aggressive enough to meet the organization’s needs. (Humphreys) In a more stable external environment, a servant leader would find the most success, since their efforts would be more evolutionary versus revolutionary in

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Servant Leadership

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Leadership is a position of power, and given a certain level of respect. Therefore; a leader can not always relinquish their command to someone below them. Every person has the capability to be a leader, yet not every person can not be a leader at the same time. It is an important characteristic of all leaders to is to recognise higher authority, and thus “A leader leads by example, not by force.” (Stone, Russell, Patterson, 2004) Servant leadership shares all that same characteristics of other forms of leadership, but don 't have an issue with command structures. This issue is solved because all the followers and the leader have the same goal of service to the servant. An effective servant leader shares the power and allows for growth of the people being served. The characteristics that make a person 's form of leadership more like servant leadership include, the ten which Larry Spears compiled from Robert Greenliefs philosophy. The greater emphasis on: Awareness, listening, building the community and most importantly Foresight, separate a servant leader and other styles of leadership. I believe these traits take the leadership beyond the leader and allow the collective team to focus on the greater task, and effectively serve

    Read More

  • Leadership and Management Reflection

    2442 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this essay we will be introduced to a leader who holds a high place of authority in the military and gain some personal insight on leadership and management. Then will look at this writer’s own personality traits and what leadership model the personality traits best match. Then look at the tenets of motivation and how this writer’s personality suites these tenets. Also look at the relationship between effective communication and motivation. Then finally we will look at some thoughts of what it takes to be an effective employee, successful manager, and an exemplary citizen.

    Read More

More about Changing the Military with Servant Leadership

Open Document