Servant leadership is a philosophy and practice of leadership, coined and defined by Robert K. Greenleaf (* 1904 in Terre Haute, Indiana; † 1990) and supported by many leadership and management writers such as James Autry, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, Max DePree, Scott Greenberg, Larry Spears, Margaret Wheatley, James C. Hunter, Kent Keith, Ken Jennings, Don Frick and others. Servant-leaders achieve results for their organizations by giving priority attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Servant-leaders are often seen as humble stewards of their organization’s resources (human, financial and physical).
Definition of Servant Leadership
Robert K. Greenleaf has never defined servant leadership, but it can still be defined as a management philosophy which implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work and community spirit. It requires a spiritual understanding of identity, mission, vision and environment. A servant leader is someone who is servant first, who has responsibility to be in the world, and so he contributes to the well-being of people and community. A servant leader looks to the needs of the people and asks himself how he can help them to solve problems and promote personal development. He places his main focus on people, because only content and motivated people are able to reach their targets and to fulfill the set expectations.
In his essay The Servant as Leader, Greenleaf said:
“It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”
Servant Leadership is not a concept or a principle. It is an inner standard of living requires a spiritual understanding of identity, mission, vision and environment.
Servant Leadership in the context of leadership styles
The most common division of leadership styles is the distinction between autocratic, participative and laissez-faire leadership style. The authoritarian style of management requires clearly defined tasks and monitoring their execution and results. The decision-making responsibility rests with the executive. In contrast to the autocratic, the practice of a participative leadership style involves employees in decision-making. More extensive tasks are delegated. The employees influence but also their responsibility increases. The laissez-faire style of leadership is negligible in practice.
Servant Leadership can be most likely associated with the participative management style. The authoritarian leadership style does not correspond to the guiding principle. The highest priority of a servant leader is to encourage, support and enable subordinates to unfold their full potential and abilities. This leads to an obligation to delegate responsibility and participative decision-making. In the managerial grid model of Blake and Mouton, the participative style of leadership is presented as the approach with the greatest possible performance and employee satisfaction. It is here, however, the question whether a management style can be declared as universal and universally applicable. Situational contexts are not considered.
The servant leadership approach goes beyond employee-related behavior and calls for a rethinking of the hierarchical characterized relationship between leader and subordinates. This does not mean that the ideal of a participative style in any situation is to be enforced, but that a focus of management responsibilities to the promotion of performance and satisfaction of employees is set.
Characteristics of being a servant leader
Larry C. Spears, who has served as President and CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership since 1990, has extracted a set of 10 characteristics that are central to the development of a servant leader:
- Listening: Traditionally, and also in servant leadership, managers are required to have communication skills as well as the competence to make decisions. A servant leader has the motivation to listen actively to his fellow men and supports them in decision identification. This applies particularly to pay attention to unspoken. This means relying on his inner voice and find out what the body, mind and spirit are communicating.
- Empathy: A servant leader attempts to understand and empathize with others. Workers may be considered not only as employees, but also as people who need respect and appreciation for their personal development. As a result, leadership is seen as a special type of human work, which ultimately generates a competitive advantage.
- Healing: A great strength of a Servant Leader is the ability for healing one’s self and others. A servant leader tries to help people solving their problems and conflicts in relationships, because he wants to develop the skills of each individual. This leads to the formation of a business culture, in which the working environment is characterized by dynamic, fun and no fear from failure.
- Awareness: A servant leader needs to gain general awareness and especially self-awareness. He has the ability to view situations from a more integrated, holistic position. As a result, he gets a better understanding about ethics and values.
- Persuasion: A Servant Leader does not take advantage of his power and his status by coercing compliance; he rather tries to convince them. This element distinguishes servant leadership most clearly from traditional, authoritarian models and can be traced back to the religious views of the inventor Robert Greenleaf.
- Conceptualization: A servant leader thinks beyond day-to-day realities. That means he has the ability to see beyond the limits of the operating business and also focuses on long term operating goals. A Leader constructs a personal vision that only he can develop by reflecting on the meaning of life. As a result, he derives specific goals and implementation strategies.
- Foresight: Foresight is the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation. It enables the servant leader to learn about the past and to achieve a better understanding about the current reality. It also enables to identify consequences about the future. This characteristic is closely related to conceptualization. In contrast to the other characteristics, which can be consciously developed, foresight is a characteristic which one may be born.
- Stewardship: CEOs, staffs and trustees have the task to hold their institution in trust for the greater good of society. In conclusion, servant leadership is seen as an obligation to help and serve others. Openness and persuasion are more important than control.
- Commitment to the growth of people: A servant leader is convinced that people have an intrinsic value beyond their contributions as workers. Therefore, he should nurture the personal, professional and spiritual growth of employees. For example he spends money for the personal and professional development of the people as well as having a personal interest in the ideas form everyone and involving workers in decisions making.
- Building community: A servant leader identifies means to build a strong community within his organization and wants to develop a true community among businesses and institutions.
As a result it has to be emphasized that these 10 characteristics are by no mean exhaustive. They should not be interpreted as a certain manner to behave and they do not represent the best method to gain aims. Rather every person shall reflect, if these characteristics can be useful for his personal development.
History of Servant Leadership
The general concept is ancient. Chanakya wrote, in the 4th century B.C., in his book Arthashastra:
“the king [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects [followers]” “the king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people.”
There are passages that relate to servant leadership in the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao-Tzu, who is believed to have lived in China sometime between 570 B.C. and 490 B.C.:
The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy. When you are lacking in faith, Others will be unfaithful to you. The Sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and things have been completed, All the people say, ‘We ourselves have achieved it!’
The concept has been included in many religious text such as this quote from the Christian New Testament (Authorized King James): “But ye [shall] not [be] so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve” or this quote from Islam’s texts: “the leader of a people is their servant”.
The term of modern Servant Leaderhip and servant leader were coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. He coined this phrase in his essay “The Servant as Leader“ . Greenleaf worked a long time at AT&T and spent most of his career on management studies, management development and management training. After worling at AT&T he started a career as visiting lecturer and management consultant for many companies, universities, churches and non-profit organisations, for example at the Harvard Business School, University of Virginia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or Ford Foundation. In 1964 he founded the international non-profit foundation named Center of Applied Ethics, which was renamed to The Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership in 1985.
The idea for his essay the servant as leader came out of reading Hermann Hesse`s Journey to the East. The story is about a travel group on an exceptional and mythical journey. The main character of this story is Leo. Leo is the companion and servant of the group, but he also sustain them with his charisma and spirit and give them well-being. Everything was going well till Leo disappears. The group fall apart and the journey has to be prematurely interrupted. The group can not exist longer without their servant Leo. After reading this story Greenleaf comes to the knowledge that a good leader is primary servant. A good leader must first be a good servant. Therefore he write down his essay The servant as leader, wich actually has been sold over than 500 000 times.
Models of Servant Leadership
Most writers see servant leadership as an underlying philosophy of leadership, demonstrated through specific characteristics and practices. The foundational concepts are found in Greenleaf’s first three major essays, “The Servant as Leader”, “The Institution as Servant”, and “Trustees as Servants.”
Larry Spears, who served for 17 years as the head of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, identified ten characteristic of servant leaders in the writings of Greenleaf. The ten characteristics are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of others, and building community. Leadership experts such as Bolman, Deal, Covey, Fullan, Sergiovanni, and Heifitz also reference these characteristics as essential components of effective leadership.
The Center for Servant Leadership at the Pastoral Institute in Georgia defines servant leadership as a lifelong journey that includes discovery of one’s self, a desire to serve others, and a commitment to lead. Servant-leaders continually strive to be trustworthy, self-aware, humble, caring, visionary, empowering, relational, competent, good stewards, and community builders.
Kent Keith, author of The Case for Servant Leadership and the current CEO of the Greenleaf Center, states that servant leadership is ethical, practical, and meaningful. He identifies seven key practices of servant leaders: self-awareness, listening, changing the pyramid, developing your colleagues, coaching not controlling, unleashing the energy and intelligence of others, and foresight. James Sipe and Don Frick, in their book The Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership, state that servant-leaders are individuals of character, put people first, are skilled communicators, are compassionate collaborators, use foresight, are systems thinkers, and exercise moral authority.
Unlike leadership approaches with a top-down hierarchical style, servant leadership instead emphasizes collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. At heart, the individual is a servant first, making the conscious decision to lead in order to better serve others, not to increase their own power. The objective is to enhance the growth of individuals in the organization and increase teamwork and personal involvement. A recent behavioral economics experiment demonstrates the group benefits of servant leadership. Teams of players coordinated their actions better with a servant leader resulting in improved outcomes for the followers (but not for the selfless leaders).
Advantages
- This concept is seen as a long-term concept to live and work and therefore has the potential to influence the society in a positive way.
- The exemplary treatment of employees leads to an excellent treatment of customers by employees of the company and a high loyalty of the customers.
- There is a high employee identification with the enterprise.
- An excellent corporate culture is developed.
- Leaders of a company define themselves by their significance to the people.
Disadvantages
- Servant Leadership should not be applied in companies outside of the service sector. The main concept of the idea consists of the following idea: Being exemplary in treating employees has an excellent impact on the treatment of customers, because employees pass the way they are treated to them. But this concept does not work if employees are not in constant, direct contact with the customers.
- Servant Leadership is deeply influenced by Christian values and used especially by American managers and companies. Therefore it is questionable whether such a principle is also applicable in other non-Christian cultures or even in different kinds of Christian cultures.
- The characteristics of a servant leader seem too excessive and partly too grotesque. There are only a few leaders who can fulfil these attributes.
- Servant Leadership is seen as a long-term application and therefore needs time for applying.
Servant Leadership at Southwest Airlines
This is an example of how the very theoretical leadership approach of Servant Leadership can be implemented in the corporate culture of a company.
Southwest Airlines is one of the largest and consistently profitable airlines in the U.S. and often mentioned in relation to servant leadership. Co-founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher and former vice president Colleen Barrett have successfully established the management style of servant leadership in the airline´s corporate culture. The pyramid of the company’s priorities is build upside down compared to other companies. The employees are at the top of the pyramid and the executives deliver proactive customer service to them. If they do a good job, the employees can spend their time to service the second important group, the customers. As result of good service to the customers the company will make a good profit which is of interest of the shareholders. Herb Kelleher compares leadership with customer service: “Just as Southwest has their customers, the passengers, the management has their customers, the employees. If the customers are not satisfied, they will not fly again with Southwest. If the employees are not satisfied, they will not deliver the required performance.”
Leadership expectations at Southwest: develop people, build great teams, think strategically, excellent results and the identification with the values of the company.
Based on these expectations it becomes clear how the theoretical approach to specific guidelines and principles of conduct was formulated. Therefore very careful attention is paid to whether potential employees meet the values of the company: “Hire for attitude and train for skill”. The value system consists of three core values: “warrior spirit”, as defined by the desire to get excellent results, “a servant’s heart” or “to put others first”, as well as “a fun-loving attitude,” which means not to take themselves too seriously. The executive’s purpose is also to create a very positive and familiar working environment. The “fun” image of Southwest has become an important part of the corporate culture. It´s also in the company´s best interests to communicate this to their customers. These are also characteristics of the behavior of a servant leader: active listening, empathy, healing and the formation of a community.
Another important executive function at Southwest Airlines is the development of people. The employees are motivated to participate in decision-making. They should be encouraged to solve problems themselves and to grow by personal success. The obligation to develop the individual also corresponds to the concept of Servant Leadership.
Further expectations of the managers are strategic thinking and outstanding results. The following guidelines serve to guide: strive for continuous improvement, understanding of the context of current actions and implications for the future, strategic goals into specific action plans and future-oriented view of things. The courage to conceptualize and far-sighted visions are also within the meaning of the servant leadership approach. Through the personal identification with the goals of the company, performance and commitment increases.