Servant leadership - Servant Leadership

Robin T. Wilson

CURRENTLY, ORGANIZATIONS UTILIZE THE FOUR essential functions of planning, organization, leading, and controlling in making up the management process. (1) Planning is vital for establishing the short-term and long-term goals or directions of the organization. Organization allows the necessary resources to be brought together. Leading tries to build commitment and enthusiasm in the workforce. Controlling has the primary purpose of making sure the goals or objectives are met. Of these four, leadership seems to have changed the most and probably has the greatest impact upon those organizations within the marketplace.

There are at least four major forces affecting leadership that will become increasingly important in the near future, These include globalization, the need to satisfy multiple stakeholders, environmental deterioration, and the growing shortage of qualified labor in developed countries. (2) The growing shortage of qualified labor is particularly impacting organizations that are striving for cost reductions through downsizing.

Although this crisis of leadership and management seems to have appeared only recently, due to basic human nature it has existed for some time. This is, in large part, due to a common problem of individually unique and different people coming together and working cooperatively as a team. Whether it is a team, section, entire department, or organization, there are four stages of community-building. These stages in progressive order of least to most effective are: (1) Pseudo community, (2) chaos, (3) emptiness, and (4) true community. (3)

The pseudo community is that initial period where people try to be very cordial and careful not to offend anyone. The second stage, chaos, is a painful, unpleasant phase in which individual differences are not only allowed, but encouraged to surface. In contrast to allowing differences within chaos, in the earlier stage of pseudo community there is an unwritten assumption that differences do not occur among people.

The third stage, emptiness, occurs because people are commonly terrified of emptiness and have a strong desire to heal or fix someone or something. This state of discomfort is usually bypassed by the people forming themselves into subcommittees or organizations to move past the feeling of emptiness into true community. True community is the ultimate goal in which individuals come to a state of acceptance of themselves and consequently, those around them. It is at this time that teams or larger groups of people can effectively and efficiently pursue the overall goals and objectives.

Views of leadership

For many years, there was almost a single standard theory or approach to management. As America underwent a transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society, there was a prevalent managerial philosophy toward its workers and production systems. This was generically referred to as 'Theory' (4) and it incorporated three common tenants.

The first was that management is responsible for organizing the elements of productive enterprise, including money, materials, equipment, and people to achieve the highest economic benefit to the company. The second tenet is that management purposely directed, motivated, and controlled the employees in the hope of modifying their behavior to fulfill the overall goals and objectives of the company. Lastly, this was felt necessary because employees were labeled as passive, almost even resistant, to the overall organizational goals and objectives.

To counter "Theory X," McGregor (4) proposed an opposing "Theory Y." In this approach, management's essential task is to establish working conditions and processes that will allow employees to pursue their own personal goals and objectives by being empowered to direct their individual contributions toward the overall organizational goals and objectives. This is in sharp contrast to the "Theory X,' mindset that people are not individually motivated and are by nature passive or resistant to overall organizational goals and objectives.

Christian and non-Christian religious writings offer much insight about labor/management relations. The Holy Bible (5) in Colossians 3:22-24 states:

"Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men; knowing from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance. ft is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

Although the current workforce does not usually see themselves as being slaves or their manager/leader as being a master, these principles can be easily applied. Through a change in attitude, sincerity of heart, the workforce of today should do their best to "please" their leaders. The employees should conduct themselves with a servant's heart and a genuine willingness to cooperate.

A retrospective review of Gandhi's life documented that his successful pursuit of a higher standard of leadership encompassed a single standard of conduct, a spirit of service, and decisions and actions bounded by moral principles. (6)

Chinese history records the following by Lao Tzu:

A leader is best

When people barely know that he exists,

Not so good when people obey and

acclaim him,

Worst when they despise him.

"Fail to honor people, they fail to

honor you":

But of a good leader, who talks little,

When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,

They will all say, "We did this ourselves." (7)

Categories of leadership

One contributing factor to the challenge of leadership is that there is not a consistent, uniform, specific model by which a leader can be characterized. When types of leaders or different leadership roles are evaluated, there are usually at least four to five different types of leaders identified. Jabidan, when assessing the leadership roles of senior executives or managers, delineated the five roles: Mobilizer, ambassador, driver, auditor, and servant. (8)

Farkas and DeBaker identified five different approaches of leaders in Maximum Leadership: Strategic, human assets, expertise, box, and change-agent. In the strategic approach, the goal is to be the top strategist by envisioning the future and developing a specific plan. (9) The human assets leader manages through people, policies, programs, and principals. If a leader has incorporated the expertise approach, then he or she will become the champion of a specific proprietary expertise and, thereby, focus the organization on that area. A box approach leader builds a set of rules, systems, procedures, and values that, in effect, control individual behavior and outcomes within the well-defined boundaries of the box. As a change agent, the leader would act as an agent of radical change, transforming organizations to welcome and embrace the new and different.

In characterizing leaders by the activity and passivity of their followers, Graham proposed the delineation between charismatic authority, celebrity charisma, transformational leadership, and servant leadership. (10)

In Developing the Leader Within You, Maxwell outlined five levels of leadership (please see Figure 1). (11) These levels are progressive leadership stages depending on the degree of commitment and the strength of the relationships involved. The first level, position, is distinguished by "rights," in that people follow because they have to, Level two or permission is characterized by "relationships," where people follow because they want to.

Production, the third level, focuses on "results" and people follow because of what you individually have done for the organization as a whole. Level four or people development is associated with the concept of "reproduction" and people follow the leader because of what he or she has done for them individually. The fifth level of leadership is that "personhood" and is marked by "respect." At this highest level, people follow the leader because of who he or she is and what he or she may represent. This level is usually only reserved for leaders who have spent years growing and developing people, along with the respect of organizations.

Servant leadership

A consistent thread among the leadership models already cited is that of servant leadership. This concept was first introduced in a 1970 essay by Robert K. Greenleaf entitled, "Servant as Leader" (12) and arose through his near half century pursuit of shaping large institutions and by reading Herman Hesse's short novel, Journey to the East. In this story, the main figure, Leo, accompanies a group as their servant on a long journey. At one point, Leo disappears and without his caring spirit, the group quickly falls into a state of disarray and abandons the journey. After years of searching, the narrator finds Leo and is taken in by the religious order that originally sponsored the journey. It is at this time that the narrator discovers that although Leo was perceived as and functioned as a servant, he was the head and guiding spirit of that religious order. It was through this reading that Greenleaf solidified his concept of servant leadership on the basis that great leaders must first serve others and this si mple fact is central to his or her greatness. (12, 13)

As presented by Greenleaf, this new kind of leadership model puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, as the number one priority. (13) Servant leadership emphasizes the need for individuals to provide increased service to those around them, a more holistic approach and mindset to the workplace, a sense of well-being and belonging in a community, and increased opportunities for decision-making power. In the Servant as Leader, Greenleaf wrote:

"It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first, then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant- first to make sure that other people's priority needs are being served. The best testis: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" (12)

The following quotation clearly outlines Greenleaf's central theme.

"Caring for persons. the more able and less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated in institutions- often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent, sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, and provides greater creative opportunity for its people, than the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance, as servant, of existing institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them. " (14)

Characteristics of servant leadership

Through his affiliation with the Greenleaf Center and personal relationship with Greenleaf himself, Spears was able to outline 10 characteristics manifested by servant leaders: (13)

1. Listening

Servant leaders are not only there for communication and decision-making skis, but also to make a deep commitment to listening intently to others.

2. Empathy

Servant leaders understand and empathize with others, accept them, and value them for their special unique spirits.

3. Healing

Servant leadership has a tremendous potential for healing oneself and others of broken spirits and emotional hurts and scars.

4. Awareness

The servant leader, by fostering self awareness and general awareness, can aid in the understanding issues of ethics and values.

5. Persuasion

Servant leaders usually rely on persuasion rather than positional authority and convince rather than coerce. This characteristic highlights the differences between a traditional authoritarian leadership model and servant leadership.

6. Conceptualization

Instead of the traditional manager approach and concern toward short-term operational goals, a servant leader goes beyond the day-to-day realities and dreams great dreams.

7. Foresight

This is probably the only servant leader characteristic with which one may be born, while all others can be consciously developed--foresight enables servant leaders to learn from the past, accept the present, and be in tune with the future.

8. Stewardship

CEOs, staff, directors, and trustees of all institutions play significant roles in holding their institutions in trust for the greater good and benefit of society.

9. Commitment to the growth of people

Instead of people being valued only at their level of external or tangible contributions, servant leaders are committed to "seeing" the intrinsic value--personal, professional, and spiritual--of each individual.

10. Building community

Because of the shift from local communities to large institutions through the industrialization of America, there is a sense of loss of community spirit. Servant leaders pursue building community back into the workplace environment at the lowest level possible.

Listening is an intrinsic component of communication--probably the most critical tool that a servant leader can utilize. Communication is the passing of information and understanding from a sender to a receiver. (13) It is well recognized that leaders spend more time communicating than any other activity. (15) Communication does not involve only a one-way dialog from a leader down to an employee, but, in fact, is a two-way channel. Influence and effectiveness are two major goals in communication. (15) There is an analogy within the military communications field that when messages were relayed, which were of vital importance to the success of a particular operation, the receiving entity would relay back "message received and understood." Unfortunately in corporate America, many messages may be received, but until they are understood for content, meaning, and purpose, they are not of any utility. At times, misinformation is more dangerous than no information at all.

Empathy invokes both love and caring. As outlined in Maxwell's five levels of leadership," a level four or five is reached primarily when a leader develops a relationship characterized by love and concern. The old cliche that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care is very relevant even in the corporate structure.

Healing and awareness can, in part, be covered by the characteristic of humility. William Law wrote in this devotional classic, Serious Call: (16)

Let every day be a day of humility: condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow creatures, cover their fragilities, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, show compassion at their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to the lowliest offices of the lowest of mankind.

Persuasion incorporates both motivation and pacing/leading. Through motivation, leaders are better able to see those around them achieve their full potential. This is possible through enabling or empowering these individuals. In addition, McGregor's "Theory Y" encourages management to effectively motivate employees by creating opportunities, releasing their potential, removing obstacles, and encouraging growth with concomitant guidance. (4) Persuasion also can be accomplished by the concept of pacing, then leading. (15) An effective servant leader paces first and then leads.

Pacing is when a manager/leader adopts the behavior of those around him or her to establish rapport. Once effective pacing is in place, a transition can occur into leading, which is having the employees pace along with the leader. A servant leader models the way by setting the example of behaving in ways that are consistent with the shared values of the organization.

Conceptualization and foresight are related to a leader having a sense of direction and being forward-looking. Greenleaf specifically stated: "Not much happens without a dream. Leaders must be able to envision a better and positive future." (17) The Leadership Challenge reported on 1987 and 1995 surveys evaluating the effectiveness and characteristics of leadership. (18) In the Kouzes and Posner surveys, the second most important attribute was that a leader develop a long-term vision and direction for the company. An effective way of inspiring a shared vision is to enlist others by appealing to their values, interests, hopes, and dreams. Only when the people "buy-in" to the common vision does it have a chance of being realized.

The final three characteristics of stewardship, commitment, and building community may collectively encompass the attributes of trust and honesty. In order to be a leader, one must have followers. Followers must trust their leaders. This was confirmed in the Kouzes and Posner surveys--honesty was ranked as the highest characteristic of admired leaders. The 1995 survey indicated that 88 percent of respondents indicated that honesty was critical--it encompassed truthfulness, ethical behavior, and integrity. Consistency between word and deed is how most of us judge someone else as to their honesty. (18)

Conflicts of servant leadership

Tarr discusses three potential problems or challenges faced by a servant leader. (19) The first challenge is to be an empathetic individual; it is difficult over a duration of time to continually be a true listener and empathize with the other individual. The second possible conflict revolves around being both empathetic and mutually collaborative. In this scenario, the servant leader must become vulnerable and risk sharing something of himself or herself to the other individual. The third difficulty involves the collaborative process. Being that there are usually various goals, beliefs, values, or methodologies brought to the table by different people, a servant leader must exhibit great perseverance and strength.

Another possible source of difficulty for a servant leader is the ever-present epidemic of hurry sickness--that illness brought on or exacerbated by stress, rush, and constant pressure. (20) If caught up with hurry sickness, a servant leader would be ineffective in the essential qualities of listening, understanding, empathizing, and increasing awareness with broadening of perception.

Chaos and servant leadership

The science of quantum physics, chaos theory, and complexity has recently been applied to organizational theory. In short, the chaos theory states that the universe and all that it incorporates is a nonlinear system with information feeding back on it and constantly changing in the process. (21) Of particular note is that chaos will never exceed the bounds of its particular strange attractor--a magnetic force that is constantly pulling matter toward it. The application toward management and leadership is that leadership is an amorphous phenomenon based on its own relational aspects. These relationships encompass follower-ship, empowerment, and leader accessibility. As outlined by McCollum, successful organizations can be characterized by properties of the chaos theory: (7)

* They are comprised of a network of individual agents.

* Each agent finds itself in an environment created by its interaction with the agents.

* Control is highly dispersed.

* Coherent behavior rises from competition and cooperation among agents.

* Control is learned from the "bottom up."

* There are hierarchical levels to the system.

* The organization is constantly revising and rearranging itself with experience.

* The organization can anticipate the future using an implication that is beyond consciousness.

* The system creates many niches and opportunities.

Therefore, since relationships of matter to itself are critical within the chaos theory, this focus on relationships is also a dominate theme of corporate management and leadership. "Leadership is always dependent on the context, but the context is established by the relationships we value. Love in organizations, then, is the most potent source of power we have available. And all because we inhabit a quantum universe that knows nothing of itself, independent of relationships." (21)

Applications of servant leadership

The traditional management structural model is a pyramid: The base or broad aspect represents the lowest level or line employee; the point at the top usually represents a single, individual CEO. There is, however, a gradual transformation, especially in the realm of servant leadership, in which the pyramid is inverted. This results in the CEO being the single point at the bottom and the line level employees now at the top.

As indicated in Figure 2, the traditional pyramid on the left states that rights are decreased as you climb in the organization, whereas the inverted pyramid on the right indicates responsibilities increase as you climb in the organization. (11) In the single inverted pyramid model of servant leadership (please see Figure 3), with the leader being at the base point and the worker and/or customer at the widest uppermost level, the rights increase from bottom to top, while the responsibilities decrease, from bottom to top.

Additional implications of servant leadership to corporate management pertain to the previous issues raised of the potential threat of having an adequate labor force and the theme of downsizing. On the one hand, if servant leadership principles are utilized in the initial downsizing, there will be less bitterness and resentment with less loss of self esteem by the downsized employee. Additionally, as companies try to maintain the most effective and efficient labor force, there could be great benefit by selecting or maintaining employees who understand and embrace the principles of servant leadership.

Conclusion

Because the U.S. transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society, corporate America has set an example for the world, relative to optimizing production and worker's performance. With the ever-increasing challenge from other countries, primarily Japan, America has lost its competitive edge as a manufacturing world leader. To compensate, there is a dramatic shift toward being a "service-based" economy--the perfect environment for servant leaders.

Whether in a service or a manufacturing economy, each and every individual could greatly benefit themselves and their respective workplace by boldly and faithfully incorporating the tenets of servant leadership into their lives. In contrast to previous corporate environments, in which leadership meant power, control over others, and being served, that power is being diffused--there is an evolving change in that the more enlightened leaders want to help others realize their own power and dignity, empower and enable people to freely think and be innovative, and unite cooperatively. The final piece of the leadership puzzle is the overriding desire to build and serve. (22) The servant leadership model can enable individuals, organizations, communities, regions, nations, and the world to be at peace with each other.

References

(1.) Smith. M. (1995). Power the position versus power the person. Contact Quarterly. 54(3) 8-10.

(2.) Hennessy, J.E. Killian. J. and Robins, S. "Managing toward the millennium." In L.C. Spears (Ed.). Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 162-167). New York. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.

(3.) Peck, M.S. "Servant leadership training and discipline." In .L.C. Spears (Ed.), Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp.90-93). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 1995.

(4.) Newstrom, J.W. and Davis, K. Organizational behavior: readings and exercises. (pp. 178-184). New York: New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989.

(5.) Biblical references from The Ryrie Study Bible NAS Translation. G.C. Ryrle (Ed.) Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1978

(6.) Nair, K. A higher standard of leadership: Lessons from the life of Gandhi. San Francisco. California: Brett-Koehler Publishers.

(7.) McCollum, J. "Chaos, complexity and servant leadership." In L.C. Spears (Ed.), Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 241-251). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. 1995.

(8.) Jabidan, M. and Dastmalchian, A. (1993). Assessing senior executives: The impact of context on their roles. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 29 (3) 328-342. 1993.

(9.) Farkas, C.M. and DeBaker, P. Maximum leadership: The world's leading CEOs share their five strategies for success. New York, New York: Henry Holt & Company.

(10.) Graham, J. "Servant-leadership In organizations: Inspirational and moral." Leadership Quarterly, 2(2), 105-119, 1991.

(11.) Maxwell, J. C. Developing the leader within you. Nashville. Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993.

(12.) Greenleaf, R.K. Servant leadership. A Journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. New York, New York: Paulist Press, 1977.

(13.) Spears, L. (1995). "Servant leadership and the Greenleaf legacy." In L.C. Spears (Ed.). Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership Influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 1-7).) New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.

(14.) Rieser, C. "Servant leadership as your heritage." In L.C. Spears (Ed.), Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 52-55). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.

(15.) Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. H. Management of organizational behavior: Utilizing human resources (6th ed.. pp. 325-344). Inglewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1993.

(16.) Sanders. J. O. Spiritual leadership. Chicago. Illinois: Moody Press. 1994.

(17.) Bordas. J. "Power and passion: Finding personal purpose." In L.C. Spears (Ed.), Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership Influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 180-181). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.

(18.) Kouzes. J. M. and Posner, B. Z. The leadership challenge: How to keep getting extraordinary things done in organizations. San Frsncisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995.

(19.) Tarr. D.L. "The strategic toughness of servant leadership." In L.C. Spears (Ed.). Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 81). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 1995.

(20.) McGee-Cooper, A. and Trammell, D. "Servant leadership: Is there really time for it?" In L.C. Spears (Ed.). Reflections on leadership. How Robert K. Greenleaf's theory of servant leadership influences today's top management thinkers (pp. 113-115). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.

(21.) Wheatley, M.J. Leadership and the new science: Learning about organization from an orderly universe. San Francisco, California: Brett-Koehler Publishers, 1994.

(22.) Smith. R.B. "Talent and training for leadership." In J.T. Wren (Ed.) The leaders companion: Insights on leadership through the ages (p. 471). New York. New York: The Free Press, 1995.

Robin T. Wilson, MD, MSHA, is a pathologist and Medical Staff Clinical Information Coordinator at Baptist Health System in Knoxville, Tennessee. He can be reached at 423/632-5992, via fax at 423/632-5316, or via email at rtwmd@planetc.com.

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