Review for Journal of Management
A Study of Servant Leadership and its Synthesis
Serving is being selfless, meaning that lifting others is the only way for a servant leader to rise. Servant leaders are unique, they serve before they lead and they work on building strong relationships for a better work environment. As Greenleaf published in 1970 " it all begins with the natural feeling that one want to serve, to serve first. Then the conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead".
According to a journal published by Dirk van Dierendonck (Dierendonck, 2011) , the concept of a servant leader is giving up all the usual leadership powers and gaining the support of the employees. By that the leader will have much more reliable team to work with.
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They like to express their feeling and inner thoughts to everyone, they gain trust from their followers which makes them stronger.
Interpersonal acceptance is one of the most important characteristics that servant leaders have. It is the ability to experience the feelings of others and the ability to let go of things and not carry a grudge into other things.
Providing direction for Servant leaders does not mean telling followers what to do, but providing the right degree of accountability. Dierendonck explained in his (Dierendonck, 2011) " A servant leader takes on providing direction is to make work dynamic based on followers abilities, needs, and input"
Servant leaders are willing to take responsibility and go to service instead of just controlling. It is the Stewardship character that servant leaders have.
To compare Servant leadership with other types of leaderships, Dierendonck discussed in ( Dierendonck, 2011) many other leaderships types. None of them had the character that servant leadership had, the one that stood out was true-self. Servant leaders will show humility by acknowledging that they do not have all the answers, and by that they create a working environment where followers feel trusted. It is the relationships with the followers that build the leader. Servant leadership has a unique position as none of any other type of leadership puts all six characters
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Many have tried as Dierendonck explained in (Dierendonck, 2011) but regretfully there was no accurate results to relate to. Because of the six characters in servant leadership they were only able to test one or two dimension of each of the six characters at a time. In (Table 1 & Table 2) it will be clear how all the studies did not give reliable data.
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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.
At the core of the relationship between the servant-leader and the follower stands the leader's belief in the value of each individual. Without a strong relationship between the leader and the follower, there will be no such thing as servant-leader. Servant leadership recognize the value of the relationship and people follow servant leader voluntarily. The empowering and developmental behaviors shown by
What is a servant leader? A servant leader is a individual that wants to serve first and is selfless. “The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.” (Keith) A servant leader can be anyone in a group setting from a work place, education, religion and cultures. Jesus was a servant leader. He was selfless he died on the cross for our sins. He was selfless and while here on earth was always helping people and teaching the way of the lord.
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
Servant leadership is a designation coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970 in an essay entitled The Servant as Leader. In this essay, he describes the servant leader and a servant first contrary to one who is a leader first. The difference is the servant chooses to put others needs before his own while the leader first may later become a servant from the promptings of a sense of right and wrong or simply because they are coerced in that direction (Greenleaf, 1991).
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.
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.
Integrity and servant-leadership are a huge part of being a leader. A leader needs integrity because this is a huge part of being dependable and trustworthy. An example of integrity is when a leader says they are going to do something, then they actually follow through with what they said. A leader with integrity will be consistent in all of his/her actions. Their values and principles will match what their methods are. Being a servant-leader means that the leader does not see themselves as being too good to do the tasks they ask of their followers. A servant-leader will do the task even if it seems below them. An example of a leader is a nurse. A nurse is a leader to a certified nursing assistant (CNA). A nurse can be a servant-leader by bathing a patient and changing the bedding, even though this is usually the job of a CNA, this nurse did not see themselves as too good to do some "dirty" work. A leader is willing to help out and follow through. Both of these characteristics help the followers trust the leader. This also helps build a firm foundation for a good relationship between the leader and the followers.
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
Servant leadership is becoming a more “sought-after” concept in today’s society, but what exactly is servant leadership? Does it mean different things to different people? Although the three books, The Servant as Leader, The Servant, and Lead Like Jesus, all center around servant leadership, each author takes a different perspective on the meaning of being a servant leader. Robert Greenleaf addresses leadership from a straight-forward stance; saying that a good leader must be a servant-first by finding the will within themselves to put the needs of their group before their own. James Hunter discusses servant leadership through a story involving everyday people that the reader can relate to. He uses Jesus as a guide to explain how to initiate character development that will, in turn, fashion servant leadership. Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges offer a new perspective on servant leadership by bringing Jesus into the picture on an even deeper level than Hunter. They explain that by knowing Jesus Christ and developing an intimate personal
Servant leadership is an approach that goes against most leadership styles because it has the lead being the servant to their followers. This style of leadership wants the leader to be focused on the needs of their followers, empower their followers, and help realize their full capabilities.
3). Through the service of others, servants as leaders create positive changes in the lives of others that lead those served to act more autonomously (Block, Blanchard, Wheatley & Autry, 2006). The goal of a service leader is to help others achieve their highest level of functioning. Those served are then motivated to become service leaders as well (Block, Blanchard, Wheatley & Autry, 2006). Thus, servant leadership focuses on commitment to helping the individual served grow in their abilities. In turn this gives the served individual confidence in their work and personal abilities which then transforms into a desire to help others do the
The modern use of the term servant leader derives from the act of servant leadership which has been around for many ages, but was made a final common phrase when Robert K. Greenleaf wrote his essay called "The Servant as Leader". Robert used this term to represent someone who has a natural feeling to serve others as well as someone who aspires to lead. People can now use the philosophy of leadership to try and pinpoint characteristics and behaviors that can further determine if someone should be named a servant leader. Individuals who are called to represent themselves as servant leaders better the world by setting a positive impression on young children who are growing up in a society where they are only expected to take care of themselves.
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.
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 autonomous, and are become more like servants themselves (2005). Leaders and organizations can use the principles of servant leadership to frame decisions, and service that include focus on the community, care of others and quality services (Waterman, R., 2011). Watermen states that working to higher purpose increases standards, integrity and should lead the followers through supports, shared visions and bring followers together in toward a common purpose to provide service to others.
Servant leadership can be described as the ability of serving other people, placing the collective objectives before one’s objectives and working hand in hand with your followers so as to achieve them. This type of leadership involves empowering and inspiring people as they work to achieve the set collective goals. Nelson Mandela adopted the servant leadership role in that he placed the need of the citizens before his own. While he was in jail, his desire to be free was overcome by the need for all the citizens to be free. Therefore, Mandela worked very hard to ensure that the South Africa citizens became free, and the apartheid rule that was oppressing them was abolished. Despite his imprisonment, he continued to encourage the people they had been imprisoned together through his courage. That is because he knew that his citizens needed a leader like him so that they could be
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.