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Explain the concept of servant leadership in theory and practice
Introduction of servant leadership
Introduction of servant leadership
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De Pree (2004) argues against exclusive leadership as he believes it leads to “selfishness,” entropy, power hoarding, and legalistic thinking within an organization, which in turn produces a perpetual cycle of employee turnover as there is no team mentality to keep all the parts (e.g., People) together (p. 1-148). (p. 1-148). While this type of leadership is great at promoting organizational efficiency, it comes up short in promoting a team oriented environment and instead emphasizes a bureaucratic hierarchy that is resistant to change where the needs of senior management take top priority. In contrast, De Pree (2004) argues favorably for authentic-participative servant leadership claiming that it emphasizes “being abandoned to the strengths
Teams are making a positive impact on many businesses and are proven to be very beneficial for accomplishing tasks within the organization more efficiently; however, there must be an awareness of how power plays an integral part when managing or leading these teams. Businesses are also recognizing that in order for their organization to be successful, effective leadership is vital to motivate, reward, and empower their employees; therefore, if leaders do not use their power in a constructive way, the impact on the infrastructure of the organization would be devastating. For example, morale is lowered, excessive absenteeism from work, and employee turnovers within the organization. A common problem found within organizations is the abuse of power. Individuals who abuse power, exhibits fear of losing that power due to a lack of confidence in job performance. Perhaps what most leaders do not understand is that the critical element in a company’s success is interdependence on one another. In other words, in order for the company to move forward, the leader must encourage, support, and i...
The quality of any organization that uses servant leadership improves, because of the organization’s continuous efforts on development. These efforts help create more efficient, content, empowered and innovative teams to generate more profitability (Schmidt, 2013). Starbucks’ employee satisfaction rate has increased and they have markedly grown since 2014 with their attempt to build a community by offering the free college tuition (Business Wire,
In addition to confirming the theological core of servant leadership, the project will seek to build unity and a culture of teamwork which will enhance discipleship, commitment to serving and an overall healthy environment where the heart of Christ is manifested for the world to see God incarnate through the church. Healthy leaders are important for this project because healthy leaders will foster teamwork, unity and greater fellowship. As a result, of teamwork and unity healthy leaders will establish a culture which will aid in developing future servant leaders.
The need to serve combined with a motivation to lead is the base of servant leader. Self determination has been positioned as an essential condition to be able to act as a servant leader (Dierendonck, 2009). It is expected that the power comes with a leadership position is used to provide others with the opportunity to become self-determined. servant leadership is also based on culture, countries with strong human orientation tend to have more servant leaders. As it is common for citizens to serve.
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. Great followership is a reflection of great leadership. In this, the follower is just as important as the leader in the relationship. Many great leaders have asserted that a leader with even a modicum of understanding of what drives their subordinates can take their organization to previously undreamt-of heights in creativity and productivity. Collins does not disabuse us of this notion, he does however add that the follower is indispensable agent in this interplay between leader and follower.
“Leaders come in every size, shape, and disposition-short, tall, neat, sloppy, young, old, male, and female” (Bennis, 2009, p. 33). Unlike Johnson (2011), Bennis (2009) proposes additional components to leadership. First, there must be a vision. A leader has to have a well-defined direction and purpose. They must understand not only the direction they will take, but also the steps to achieve the stated objectives. The vision must be articulat...
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
In your discussion board topic you convey how important it is for each servant leadership to keep communications open with their employees; by doing this they created trust among their people. Servant leadership is not self-serving, their goal is to motivate and mobilized others to achieve a task to think with creativity, integrity, vision and skills for the benefit of all who are involved. As a servant leadership they do not negate on accountability or responsibility; for them it is a way of life and is part of a team working together for the same goal. Sometimes their roles require for them to recommend correction or a suitable discipline, but always taking into consideration the interest and emotions of the criminals and others for the
The principles and characteristics of servant leadership are difficult for organizations to define because its philosophy lies in the essence of spirit rather than the concrete substance of it, (2010). The seven different emphases reviewed by Stephen Prosser in our text book attempt to frame the concepts of servant leadership to the needs of their organization, rewriting and interpreting a holistic mindset to justify a lineal contribution to their business. I found the majority of the seven different emphases of servant leadership described unreservedly divergent in my understanding of the philosophy of true servant leadership. Conversely, the majority of the emphases and the principles applied in their operations seemingly missed Greenleaf’s main principle, the commitment to being a servant, or the servant-leader is servant first, (2010). The emphases most divergent to my philosophy of servant leadership were the Egalitarians, Poets, Peripherals, Managerialists and Systematizers. Such as, the Egalitarians main focus is redistributing power, sharing authority equally amongst the group and consensus decision-making, lacks Greenleaf’s main concept, servant-leader is servant first. Whereas, the Managerialists ideology has taken
In organizations aspiring for growth and continual improvement, relationships are more intricate and alternatives more numerous than the either/or imposition implied by the notion of leaders and followers. Practically no one leads all of the time. Leaders also work as followers; all in all, “everyone uses a portion of their day following and another portion leading” (Galie and Bopst, 2006, p. 11).
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
Many leadership styles exist. The determining factor if a leadership style is effective or not is often how it is carried out and if it is appeasing to those, the leader is attempting to lead. One of the leadership styles that has become popular is Servant leadership. Although Greenleaf developed servant leadership more than thirty-five years ago and he identified ten characteristics that pertain to servant leadership. (book p. 56) Servant leadership has been successful in various industries and its popularity continues to increase.
The leadership is a privilege and it is such a privilege and an honor which will carry the tremendous responsibility which will inspire others to direct them to accomplish goals and vision of the organization. Leadership is about influencing the people, by producing direction, purpose and motivating in order to accomplish the mission, vision and improving the organization. The leadership philosophy is evolved based on the experiences, both positive and negative, in most of the initiatives and activities that we undertake. It is also one among the collaboration and teamwork within which the team members can utilize each other’s strengths to counter the weaknesses of the individuals. By observing, introspecting and experimenting we can developed a leadership paradigm which is inclusive, collaborative and proactive. We can develop the ability to recognize which will approach in order to reach the productive conclusion. The great leaders know their limitations and are capable at utilize their strengths and also the strengths of others to compensate.
Leadership Theories and Studies. (2009). In Encyclopedia of Management. Retrieved July 20, 2011 from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3273100155.html
Many people associate leadership with a specific job title or form of power within an organization. However, through personal experience, I have concluded that leadership can come in many forms and position as well as from multiple sources of roles and job titles both with and without power. Based on the definition of leadership, anyone can be considered a leader as long as they have the ability to influence people to achieve a particular result or goal which benefits the organization or group as a whole. Individuals with a secure sense of self and understanding, acceptance of diversity within an organization tend to be the strongest leaders that not only make others want to follow, but they also encourage other leaders to gravitate to their