Theory Of Servant Leadership

Prior to his appointment as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (SECVA) Robert (Bob) McDonald was already well-known for his advocacy and promotion of the concept of “Servant Leadership” a term first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. The author first wrote about the concept of Servant Leadership in an essay titled “The Servant as Leader.” In his essay, Greenleaf recounted his reason for writing the essay, stemmed from the belief that the country was in a leadership crisis and he had a responsibility to attempt to address the problem. When Mr. McDonald came to the VA, he like Greenleaf intuitively recognized the need for and his responsibility to institute and nurture this style of leadership within the department’s leadership ranks. The MyVA Integrated Plan (MIP) dated July 2015, illustrates McDonald’s commitment to this theory by recognizing the need to cultivate leadership excellence in the

He depicts this type of person as an individual who makes a conscious choice to lead others, not out of a desire for power or material gain, but rather from a desire to serve and meet the needs of subordinates. Further, he defines the leader as the person who leads the way, who is open, inspires those in his or her sphere of influence, gains the trust and confidence of others, provides motivation, takes ownership of problems, is creative in respect to new ideas and assumes the risk of failing. The author asserts the best way to determine the effectiveness of servant style leadership is whether subordinates gain greater autonomy, knowledge and freedom to affect positively, those that are disadvantaged in our society. In other words, do these employees lead by the servant leader gain the knowledge, skills and abilities, which allow them to act autonomous of their leader in order to improve the lives of those in society, which are in need of their