ARE YOU A SERVANT LEADER ?

So much had been talked about servant leadership in the corporate and voluntary organization in the past 10 years. Today, I would like to discuss the key aspects of becoming a servant leader.

A servant leader serves constituents by working on their behalf to help them achieve their goals, not the leader’s own goals. The idea behind servant leadership as formulated by Robert K. Greenleaf ( 1998 ), is the leadership derives naturally from a commitment to service. Serving others, including employees, customers, and community, is the primary motivation for the servant leader. A servant leader is therefore a moral leader. Servant leadership has been accomplished when group members become wiser, healthier, and more autonomous.

PLACE SERVICE BEFORE SELF INTEREST

A servant leader is more concerned with helping others to achieve their goals. It is a selfless leadership where the leader’s reward will be the success of the team members. A servant leader seeks to do what is morally right, even if it is not financially rewarding. A servant leader is conscious of the needs of others and is driven by a desire to satisfy. My mentor Robert Blakley, 88 years old, in New York was on one of this fine example. He has encouraged, coached and mentored me since I met him in 2000. He is a Past Toastmasters International President and my success in is his reward. Robert always persuaded me to continue serving the organization.

LISTEN FIRST TO EXPRESS CONFIDENCE IN OTHERS

Listening is the key of a servant leader. He or she listens to get to know the concerns, requirements and problems of the group members. A servant leader never impose his or her will on others. He/she listens carefully so that he can advise the group member on the course of actions to be taken.

Through listening, a servant leader, for example, might learn that the group is more concerned about team spirit and harmony than striving for company wide recognition. The leader then concentrate more on building teamwork than searching for ways to increase the visibility of the team.

INSPIRE TRUST BY BEING TRUSTWORTHY

Being trustworthy is a basic foundation behavior of a servant leader. So he or she is scrupulously honest with others, ,gives up control, and focuses on the well being of others. The servant leader, however, does not have to work hard at being trustworthy because people who aspire to become such leaders already have high moral values.

A servant leader does not need a leadership title to serve the community. When a servant leader leaves his or her office, he or she will take 3 steps backward to groom the leaders in office.





FOCUS ON WHAT IS FEASIBLE TO ACCOMPLISH

A servant leader may be idealistic, he or she recognizes that an individual cannot accomplishes verything. Thus he or she will listens to all the problems of his or her team members and he or she will attend to the problems one after the other depending on the priority.

LEND A HAND

A servant leader looks for opportunities to play the Good Samaritan. On Wolfgang Wellington first day as Executive Chairman of Michael Weinig GmbH, where I have worked for 12 years, he opened the door for an employee carrying a desktop computer and picked up a piece of paper the staff carried. Wolfgang’s lending a hand service to his staff, has been the top talk among the 2000 employees in the organization.

PROVIDE TOOLS

A servant leader encourage the group members to tell him or her what they need to perform theior jobs better. When giving an assignment, ask:- “ Do you have all the necessary tools and resources to get this done ? “

COMMITMENT FOR GROWTH OF PEOPLE

A servant leader believes that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As a result servant leaders are committed to the personal, professional and spiritual growth of each and every individual in the organization.

Thus they constantly seek to identify means for building community among those who work within a given institution.

CONCLUSION

Servant leadership has gained increasing support due to corporate collapses revealing the company to have very self interested leadership and a tiredness with the idea of leader as hero. Servant leadership gained support in the not-fro-profit sector, but increasingly the ideas encapsulated in this view of leadership are being sees as relevant in business contexts.

People follows a servant leader because they trust them. One of the test of servant leadership is whether those whom they led have grown, whether they become wiser and more autonomous during the process and what is the effect on he least privilege in society.