I taught the information on my subject matter. I shared how this information was applicable in the workplace. I expected respect from students to the degree I respected them.
Discipline was consistent regardless of the financial or community status of their parents. And I encourage you to feel the same. In construction, pedestals serve as barriers to prevent columns from touching soil. Or, they can hold up an object. But pedestals are not reserved for people to place themselves on to tower over and dominate other people. If you choose servant leadership as a character trait, you are powerful.
You are comfortable enough with yourself to not feel subservient. And, there is no reason to feel that way. Their humility and willingness to aid others is a strength. Some have difficulty understanding this. Greenleaf says the servant leader puts the interest of customers and employees first. Some basic principles he notes include listening, empathy, awareness and persuasion.
Examine these traits and you get the picture of a solid leader. All their efforts focus on improving some element facing employees or the organization.
They are the rocks upon which successful organizations build. That's your work. If serving staff is the bedrock principle of servant leadership, two core practices toward achieving that goal are close listening and searching questions.
Darryl Spivey, a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership CCL who coaches executives on servant leadership, says that asking the right questions is the "secret sauce" of great coaching, and is crucial for servant leaders.
Servant leaders build relationships with staff primarily by listening closely and by asking many questions—on anything from the employee's background to detailed queries about their assessment of the firm's business environment, Spivey explains. If an employee is struggling, leaders should ask questions about what might be impeding his or her progress. Even questions about smaller aspects of operations, such as the best use of time during meetings, are helpful.
And the emphasis on questions works both ways. Employees should feel comfortable asking the servant leader questions without worrying that the leader will feel badgered, threatened or implicitly criticized, Spivey says. Such questions help drive the development and growth of the employee. Carefully asking questions is related to another crucial practice—listening to understand. This means listening to the employee silently and making an active effort to understand his or her point of view.
Even if the leader feels the need to disagree or interject, they will wait until the person is finished speaking. If need be, the leader can briefly summarize what the employee has just expressed, as a way to communicate understanding.
While this may strike some as merely common courtesy, listening to understand is becoming harder with the rise of technology and the decrease of attention spans, experts say.
For example, a leader who keeps the iPhone on the desk, and glances at it repeatedly during conversations, is not listening to understand. Servant leaders can do more than listen to staff: they can encourage them. Indeed, in many ways encouragement is the hallmark expression of a servant leader, and it is a tremendously powerful tool, experts say.
Whatever the type of interaction with staff, servant leaders are consistent in showing encouragement and humility with an egalitarian attitude.
In practice, this means that when employees make mistakes, the leader isn't treating them as children who need to be scolded. Instead, the servant leader engages in respectful conversation which demonstrates trust in the employee to make the needed adjustments. Trust is both a defining characteristic and defining outcome of servant leadership, says Stephen M. To Covey, it's important to remember that servant leaders are both servants and leaders.
Competence means that the leader has a track record of high ability and achieving results, with skills that are relevant. Character means that results and accomplishments are achieved with integrity and ethics.
Trust is a prerequisite for servant leaders, because the leaders must trust that the employees are worth serving, and that they, and the organization, will benefit from their service. Practicing servant leadership generates trust in the employees, who may be inspired by their manager's competence and character and convinced by their manager's serve-first practice that he or she has their best interests at heart.
Mark Tarallo is a senior editor at Security Management Magazine. All rights reserved. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. By Mark Tarallo May 17, Reuse Permissions. Image Caption. Origins and Applications Servant leadership can be considered something of a universal concept, because it has roots in both Eastern and Western cultures, researchers say. Kelleher's philosophy of putting employees first resulted in a highly engaged, low-turnover workforce and plus consecutive years of profitability, an unheard-of record in the turbulent airline industry Barter, who now leads the California-based Servant Leadership Institute, came to the concept by a circuitous path—working for companies that did not follow its practices.
Best Practices Experts offer a range of best practice suggestions for top executives who aspire to become successful servant leaders. Encouragement, Humility, Trust Servant leaders can do more than listen to staff: they can encourage them. Leadership and Navigation Organizational Culture.
This style of leadership promotes the use of agile business behaviours such as:. This helps the teams create acceptable solutions for the project. Servant Leaders need to be able to liaise with other departments to remove external blockers, so they need to have excellent interpersonal and communication skills. The value that project managers bring is not their position but the fact that they make everyone better.
There are some observations about the skills Servant Leadership add to project management, but this list is not exhaustive:.
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