A servant leader is a person who makes serving a priority in their life. I grew up volunteering in my community on a regular basis; however, it wasn’t until college that I was able to understand the impact of serving your community. Thanksgiving, my dad a law enforcement officer would volunteer at restaurants serving the homeless so service has always been a part of my life. With that being said, there is a huge difference between being forced to do community service and wanting to serve your community. A lot of times we become so consumed with ourselves and our egos that we forget about those who helped formed who we are today. As humans, we should strive to work and exist together at equilibrium. This year my honor society, Phi Theta Kappa, and I participated in the Martin Luther King Day of Service Project. This project offered awards to organizations that positively impact the community. In addition, the project honored Dr. King’s legacies of non-violent activism, racial equality, service to others and social uplift. This was a 10-week project in which we served our community for eight weeks. Although I’ve participated in this project for …show more content…
Two years ago, I worked at this very school as an employee of the Healthy Out-of-School Time (HOST) program. This was an out-of-school time program that empowered students to develop in a safe, caring, and educationally rich environment. Seeing the students I taught my first semester of college, who essentially helped me want to serve my community two years later; made me realize the true definition of a servant leader. I was honored to come back to the place that served me when I was in need. From here, I was able to sow a new seed into those very students. Anyone can do community service, write down the hours and get a signature but a servant leader is a person who makes serving a priority in their
The importance of servant leadership should not be underestimated and it can be simplified and embodied in one timeless phrase: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When applied to leadership the result can be phenomenal. Those who wish to serve do so with their hearts, it is not forced nor is it with resentment. The servant leader serves out of acceptance and ownership of their ability and duty.
Servant-leadership is a way of life that evolves and matures with the passage of time. This way of life transforms spiritual people, with strong and stable emotions, into someone who has a deep understanding of truth and the world around them.
Servant leadership consists of leaders helping their followers become leaders themselves. The use personal skills such as empathy, compassion and listening to help their followers succeed. It is not necessarily the most popular form of leadership but, it has been proven successful b those leaders who implement it in their work practices. Servant leaders typically have a strong bond with their team. They are the base and the foundation of their teams.
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 defined as a philosophy that one carry outs to supplement the lives of others and shape organizations to become better. In order to become a servant leader, you have to first become a servant. One must be want to serve first. There’s a difference between servant leadership and an authentic leadership style. The impression of servant leadership can be traced back to have started two thousand years
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
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.
According to Weiss (2011) “ Servant leadership involves selflessly working with follower to achieve shared goals that improve collective, rather than individual welfare.” Again, I have to state that I believe many of those who serve in a political settling truly are there to “serve” the people that they represent. They take these positions to better the community that supported them to this role and share their goals for the body as a whole in hopes of impacting it in a positive way. Chisholm proved to be a servant leader early on, she was a teacher before becoming a Congresswoman and teach strive to better each individual in their class and educate them to the best of their abilities to be able to continue on and impact the world. And as a Congresswoman it is similar, she strived to educate her constituents an followers and impact the decision of them and her fellow legislators to impact the world in a positive way and improve the circumstances of
Servant leadership is both a leadership philosophy and set of leadership practices. Traditional leadership generally involves the
Robert Greenleaf defines a servant leader as someone who “is a servant first” (1). This means that the person is helping others before he helps himself or herself. He created the term to explain a person who is in a leadership position but makes “sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served” (Greenleaf 1). President John F. Kennedy, in his speech Ich bin Ein Berliner, demonstrated qualities of being a servant leader by using his power for the greater good. To understand this, one must know the events that led up to the speech, and the reasons why he gave the speech.
Northouse (2013) defines servant leadership as emphasizing that leaders be attentive to the concerns of their followers, empathize with them, and nurture them. Those who are truly servant leaders have the best interest of their followers at heart and are able to help them and lift them up, selflessly. Because politicians, police officers, and firefighters are all considered community and national leaders of our country, it is important that those are are put into these positions have characteristics of being a servant leader. Although some may argue that we may not be “followers” that does not take away from the leadership impact that they have.
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.
Sub-topic 3: A Leader as a servant is countercultural to today’s society. The very definition of servant leader is the one who helps to build up people in an organization by being loving, motivating and positive.
I knew a lot about transformational leadership but not much about servant. I always believed that change could be a good thing, but I always wondered what if the people you are trying to help do not want change. I like servant leadership a lot because it focus on the followers, which means the leaders listen to the followers and care to hear their opinions. With transformational leadership, to me I feel that the leaders on care to reach their goals, and just want all their followers to be on board. I like that servant leadership seem to work more side by side with their followers, while in transformational they seem to give more
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.