Servant Leadership

The Greenleaf Center is an international, not-for-profit institution with the goal of helping people understand the principles and practices of servant-leadership; to nurture colleagues and institutions by providing a focal point and opportunities to share thoughts and ideas on servant-leadership; to produce and publish new resources by others on servant-leadership; and to connect servant-leaders in a network of learning. The information found below has been gathered from the research of the Greenleaf Center and other sources.

What is servant leadership?

• What is Servant Leadership?
• The term Servant leadership was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970.
• The essential idea behind Servant Leadership is that the leader serves the people he/she leads which imply that they are an end in themselves rather than a means to an organizational purpose or bottom line.

What do servant leaders do?

Servant leaders are felt to be effective because the needs of followers are so looked after that they reach their full potential, hence perform at their best. The strength of this way of looking at leadership is that it forces us away from self-serving, domineering (autocratic "bossy") leadership and makes those in charge think harder about how to respect, value and create a motivating culture for the people reporting to them.

Leadership for a knowledge driven world

• ALL employees can lead, not just the boss, where leadership means promoting new directions as opposed to managing people.
• Leadership is shifting from position to knowledge.
• Anyone with critical knowledge that could alter business direction can show leadership. This is thought leadership.
• Leadership can be bottom-up as well as top-down. It can even come from outside. Leadership can be shown between organizations too as in market leadership.
• Only management is a formal role. Leadership is an occasional ACT, like creativity, not a role or position.
• Those at the top sometimes lead, sometimes just manage. Other times they operate as venture capitalists investing in the best ideas (leadership) emerging from below.

Leading without authority

Why is leadership portrayed as how managers manage people? How can you be said to LEAD people when you have the authority to tell them what to do?

The best example is thought leadership - champion any good idea to improve things and you can lead up, down and sideways without formal authority.

• Conventional theories of leadership are about how those with AUTHORITY influence others.
• Situational theories focus only on adjusting the use of authority.
• Historically, you had to have a position of authority to be a leader - just like in the military.
• This worked in business too...in the old days when direction was easy to determine.
• As authority waned, leaders became, so long as their will prevailed.

The move away from authority

• As the power of knowledge increases, we urgently need new models of leadership.
• A leader is just ANYONE who can show us what direction to pursue on a specific topic.
• A leader on one specialist subject will be a follower on another - regardless of position.
• This is thought leadership.
• Such leaders, like the leader in a golf tournament, need not have charisma or great interpersonal skills - they just need to be seen to be ahead of others in a critical respect.
• Following such leaders is a matter of emulating them but also of striving to beat them.
• While we call knowledgeable people authorities, they do not have the RIGHT to tell you what to do - unlike positional authorities in organizations.
• Leadership is ultimately Know-How and it works by example. Direct influencing skills help but they are not the essence of leadership only one of its means for creating an impact on prospective followers.
• Some leaders are more interested in getting somewhere than in influencing you.
• Would-be leaders who explicitly influence you always have their own needs at heart.
• A disinterested leader simply shows us the way by example or other means that we want to emulate.
• If you have no charisma, you cannot emulate, you can only worship.
• Followers who only worship are not as desirable as those who feel they can exceed you.

Leaders or managers? How do leaders differ from managers?

• Leaders direct, managers execute.
• Management is like investment - getting the best return from all resources - your own energy, talent and time plus all other resources at your disposal.
• Management requires efficiency, profitability, depends on minimal inputs for maximum returns.
• To manage well, regularly review your priorities, just as you would your investments.
• The same person can both lead and manage - they are different functions.
• Managers are like sports coaches - they inspire and develop people to get the best peformance out of them.
• They also provide structure and meaure output.
• Leaders champion change. They may or may not manage people.
• Management is a role, a set of responsibilities.
• Leadership is not a role. It is an occasional act, like creativity.
• Managers can be inspiring, empowering, nurturing, supportive and encouraging. An inspiring leader moves us to change direction. An inspiring manager moves us to work harder.
• Managers use open questions to draw solutions out of others as a way of reaching better decisions, fostering broader ownership and developing people.
• By contrast, leaders propose novel solutions. They want to persuade prospective followers that they know a better way of doing things.
• Managers occupy a role of responsibility for people. They may show leadership too, but leadership can also be shown by non-managers.

How do managers differ from leaders?

• Managers are often not seen as leaders but as administrators.
• These pages are about how all employees can be leaders.
• This page discusses how managers specifically can be leaders.
• Managers do not differ from leaders based on their personalities or their styles.
• Leaders are not just more lively, charismatic or larger than life managers.
• Any manager can lead by devising new directions.
• Managers can be as inspiring as leaders - they just do so to improve performance rather than inspire a change in direction as leaders do.
• Both leaders and managers can influence quietly or by example without being charismatic.
• Quiet conviction can be as powerful as a cheerleader's enthusiasm.
• Management is only a role not a type of action.
• You can lead regardless of role provided you devise new directions that are compelling to others, either in themselves or in your presentation of them.

Process or content leadership

• There are two fundamental organizational tasks:
  • devising new directions.
  • executing existing ones.
• The former requires leadership, the latter management.
• There are two types of new direction.
  • doing something completely new - new products, services.
  • doing the same thing only better - improving quality, efficiency, customer service.
• The first type of new direction calls for content leadership.
• The second type is a mixture of leadership and management - process leadership.
• The process leader initiates change but only to improve how existing directions are executed. This is leadership with a managerial emphasis.
• All three types - content leader, manager, process leader are differentiated by what they focus on. It has nothing to do with style or personality.
• The first two have an undiluted focus while the latter combines the first two.
• Style and personality come into it only through the means used to influence followers.
• Quieter types set an example or express quiet conviction. Lively types make more noise but their style is not the differentiating factor between leading and managing.
• Leaders influence changes in direction, managers motivate performance improvements.
• For example, a lively Sales Director might have the personality we associate with a conventional leader but if his/her focus is strictly performance improvement then this is just management no matter how powerfully persuasive is the Sales Director's style.
• Some managers find it easier to devise improvements in how current directions are executed than to come up with fundamentally new directions.
• Similarly, some leaders do not have strong enough systems thinking, patience, detail orientation and organizational skills to improve existing processes.
• For a manager to be a leader it is a matter of focusing on what can be changed to improve things. You lead whenever you initiate any change. That's the essence of leadership. How you influence people is the means not the substance of leadership.

10 Principles of Servant-Leadership

After carefully considering Greenleaf's original writings, Larry Spears, CEO of the Greenleaf Center has identified a set of 10 characteristics that he views as being critical to the development of servant-leaders. These 10 are by no means exhaustive. However, they serve to communicate the power and promise that this concept offers:

1. Listening
   Traditionally, leaders have been valued for their communication and decision making skills. Servant-leaders must reinforce these important skills by making a deep commitment to listening intently to others. Servant-leaders seek to identify and clarify the will of a group. They seek to listen receptively to what is being and said (and not said). Listening also encompasses getting in touch with one's inner voice, and seeking to understand what one's body, spirit, and mind are communicating.
2. Empathy
   Servant-leaders strive to understand and empathize with others. People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirit. One must assume the good intentions of coworkers and not reject them as people, even when forced to reject their behavior or performance.
3. Healing
   Learning to heal is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is the potential for healing one's self and others. In "The Servant as Leader", Greenleaf writes, "There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the compact between the servant-leader and led is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something that they have."
4. Awareness
   General awareness, and especially self-awareness, strengthens the servant-leader. Making a commitment to foster awareness can be scary--one never knows that one may discover! As Greenleaf observed, "Awareness is not a giver of solace - it's just the opposite. It disturbed. They are not seekers of solace. They have their own inner security."
5. Persuasion
   Servant-leaders rely on persuasion, rather than positional authority in making decisions. Servant-leaders seek to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant-leadership. The servant-leader is effective at building consensus within groups.
6. Conceptualization
   Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to "dream great dreams." The ability to look at a problem (or an organization) from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities. Servant-leaders must seek a delicate balance between conceptualization and day-to-day focus.
7. Foresight
   Foresight is a characteristic that enables servant-leaders to understand lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision in the future. It is deeply rooted in the intuitive mind.
8. Stewardship
   Robert Greenleaf's view of all institutions was one in which CEO's, staff, directors, and trustees all play significance roles in holding their institutions in trust for the great good of society.
9. Commitment to the Growth of People
   Servant-leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As such, Servant-leaders are deeply committed to a personal, professional, and spiritual growth of each and every individual within the organization.
10. Building Community
    Servant-leaders are aware that the shift from local communities to large institutions as the primary shaper of human lives has changed our perceptions and caused a send of loss. Servant-leaders seek to identify a means for building community among those who work within a given institution.

References:

Abrashoff, D. M. (2002.). It's your ship : Management techniques from the best damn ship in the navy. New York: Warner Books

Arbinger Institute. (2000.). Leadership and self-deception: Getting out of the box (1st ed.; 1st paperback ed., 2002). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Pub..

Autry, J. A. (2001.). The servant leader: How to build a creative team, develop great morale, and improve bottom-line performance ( 1st ed.). Roseville, Calif: Prima Pub.

Ayers, M. B. (2000.). Thinking systemically, or why did that happen? In Greenleaf Center Conference (10th : 2000 : Indianapolis, IN) [Audiocassette]. Indianapolis, Ind.: Robert K. Greenleaf Center.

Bailey, E. A. (1997). Herzberg's job satisfaction-job dissatisfaction theory revisited: A national study of its application to chief housing officers in higher education. [Ph.D. dissertation].

Bennis, W. G. (1994, 1989). On becoming a leader. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Cutting edge : Leadership 2000. (2000.) (B. Kellerman & L. R. Matusak, Eds.). College Park, MD: Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership, James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership

The Greenleaf Center. (2007) http://www.greenleaf.org/leadership/about-us/html