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Comparing two leadership theories
Essays on servant leadership and teachers
The Power of Servant Leadership
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Servant Leadership Influence on Student Mentoring
Mentoring is a committed collaborative partnership, not a dependent relationship. According to Bernier, Larose, and Soucy (2005), the relationship and commitment created within a mentoring program is crucial for its success in assisting the mentee. Past studies have focused on student mentoring and its influence on academic performance, retention, and graduation. The thesis of this paper will examine the theory of servant leadership and its influence on a mentoring approach to assist students academically. This paper will also identify a metaphor for the application of servant leadership and provide a research overview on servant leadership. It is important to know if there is a difference, in particular, testing the attributes associated with servant leadership, as well as practical mentoring processes, to determine its influence on student academic performance. The theoretical framework for this paper is Greenleaf’s theory of servant leadership and the relationship between mentoring and servant leadership and its effect on student performance.
Organizational Leadership Model
Western Governors University is a top down organization and mentoring is a key component model use by this institution. The implementation of servant leadership attributes may reinforce the execution of processes at all levels within the university. Research also reveals a relationship between student performance and servant leadership. According to Bowman (2005), an individual applying servant leadership characteristics provide a path to guide, serve, and remove obstacles to facilitate processes and improve performance.
The role of the servant leader in every department may be crucial in pro...
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...is, R. G., & Wise, D. L. (2005). Youth Friends: Outcomes from a school‐based mentoring program. Journal of Primary Prevention Special Issue: Mentoring with Children and Youth, 26(2), 129‐129.
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Sendjaya, S. (2005). Leading with the heart: Servant leadership put other people’s needs, aspirations and interests above their own. Monash Business Review, 1(2). 34-41.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan Management Review, 32(1), 7-22. doi: 812347
Toor, S., & Ofori, G. (2009). Ethical Leadership: Examining the relationships with full range
leadership model, employee outcomes, and organizational culture. Journal of Business
Ethics, 90(4), 533-547. doi: 510.1007/s10551-10009-10059-10553.
Zaleznik, A. (2004). Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? Harvard Business Review,
82(1), 74-81.
Research and Practice: The Role of Evidence-Based Program Practices in the Youth Mentoring Field. (2009). Mentoring Resource Center, (30).
Flaxman, E. Evaluating Mentoring Programs. New York: Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1992.
James McGregor Burns was one of the first people to come up with a definition of transformational leadership (Bromley). Transformational leadership is great, but Burns made a quote in his book Leadership that should be recognized, “The aim of leadership is not to just reach a goal, but also transform leaders and followers into better, more self-actualized leaders” (Komives and Wagner). This quote really explains what leadership means to me, not only as a person leading a group, but also learning how to follow as well.
There is little scientific knowledge when it comes to mentoring effects on future outcomes; in addition posing confusion as to how these programs continue to emerge. A major component in regards to program effectiveness is in measurement or evaluation of its structure (Deutsch, N., & Spencer, R., 2009). This is done by conducting surveys, focus groups, and interviews (Deutsch, N., & Spencer, R. (2009); Karcher, M., & Nakkula, M. (2010); Diehl, D. C., Howse, R. B., & Trivette, C. M. (2011); Osgood, 2012; Williams, 2011). Studies gives the researcher insight into knowledge that otherwise wouldn’t be known, in order to understand mentoring reactions and relationship styles better (Karcher, M., & Nakkula, M. (2010); Christens, B. D., & Peterson, N. A. (2012); Diehl et al., 2011; Leyton‐Armakan, J., Lawrence, E., Deutsch, N., Lee Williams, J., & Henneberger, A. (2012); Meyer, K. C., & Bouchey, H. A. (2010).
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
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
Leading by example is the main idea. Servant leaders do not want to be in the first line and they prefer to guide their employees from a distance. They distinguish because of their personality, their behavior and their values. The only disadvantage is that in a competitive financial environment it is difficult from them to be recognized.
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
According to Northouse (2013), “Servant leadership is an approach focusing on leadership from the point of view of the leader and his or her behaviors” (p. 219). The servant leadership approach was designed to put subordinates first and to build and develop them to the personal capacities. There are ten characteristics of s Servant leader: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of the people and building community. The model consists of three components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors and outcomes. An effective leader puts their subordinates first; they are honest, trustworthy and supportive in order to get the staff to work to their full potential.
To date, the majority of research on servant leadership consists of developing modern theoretical frameworks. These frameworks, as shown by Northouse’s (2016) model of servant leadership (see appendix Figure 1) outlines necessary existing environmental and personal conditions, behaviors of servant leaders, and servant leadership outcomes. According to Northouse (2016), while no general consensus regarding servant leadership exists, the current framework is comprised of the overlap of key characteristics and attributes from the findings of Laub (1999), Wong and Davey (2007), Dennis and Bocarnea (2005), Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), Sendjava, Sarrs, and Santora (2008), and van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011). Research has also focused on establishing measurement tools, such as the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ), with the intention that future scholars can utilize it to explore servant leadership in practice (Northouse, 2016; Parris & Peachey,
Wilkes, C. G. Jesus on Leadership: Timeless Wisdom on Servant Leadership. Carol Stream, Illnois: Tyndale House, 1998.
Even though my mentee and I became comfortable talking to each other, there were some mentees who did not connect as well with their mentors. This would lead to the mentee remembering the mentoring experience as a negative one(Ehrich & Hansford, 1999, p.11). If a young mentee does not have a good experience with a mentor, they might not seek help in the future from a mentor. Another disadvantage for the mentee is becoming over dependent on their mentor (Ehrich & Hansford, 1999, p.11). In the beginning, my mentee depended heavily on me to decide what activities we were going to do. Because of this, I tried to make sure that she contributed more to our decision making in order to encourage her to develop more leadership
In the Mentoring for Success program I was able to monitor the effect of mentoring on a student’s academic progress and ability to transition to college by administering regular assessments. But perhaps the best method in determining a good mentor-mentee match was observing how they interacted with one another in program meetings and outings. It was pleasing to see mentors and their mentees work as a team to excel on the health quiz and applaud each other for hitting their target number of steps in the pedometer
Melchar, David and Susan Bosco. “Achieving High Organization Performance through Servant Leadership.” The Journal of Business Inquiry 9.1 (2010):74-88. http://www.uvu.edu/woodbury/jbi/volume9/journals/achieving_high_organization_performance_through_servant_leadership.pdf
Spears’ asserts that a particular strength of servant-leadership is that it encourages everyone to actively seek opportunities to both serve and lead others, thereby setting up the potential for raising the quality of life throughout society (Spears, 2004). He believes this will offer hope and guidance for a new era in human development, and for the creation of better, more caring institutions (Spears, 2004).