Recently I was working in Singapore, China and India for a U.S.-based client. In working with their independent value-added reseller team (owners and managers), we discussed the effectiveness of various management styles. During this discussion, a very accomplished regional manager employed by my client chimed in to share her observations about management and styles of management.
To summarize, she basically encouraged the leadership teams to place a high focus on recruiting and retention. Her message really focused on the care and feeding of the employee team, acknowledging that performance goals can and will be more easily achieved when a leadership team is successful at meeting the needs of the employee team. She encouraged the leadership teams to adapt an attitude of servant leadership.
So what is servant leadership?
Larry Spears, the CEO of the Greenleaf Center, says this about servant leadership: “As we near the end of the 20th century, we are beginning to see that traditional autocratic and hierarchical modes of leadership are slowly yielding to a newer model – one that attempts to simultaneously enhance the personal growth of workers and improve the quality and caring of our many institutions through a combination of teamwork and community, personal involvement in decision making, and ethical and caring behavior. This emerging approach to leadership and service is called servant-leadership.”
The concept of servant leadership started with Robert Greenleaf (1904-1990). He spent his first career in management research, development and education at AT&T. After retirement, he began a second career teaching and consulting at institutions ranging from Harvard Business School to the Ford Foundation. Greenleaf’s ideas sounded soft to some people, and they seemed to go against common wisdom about leadership and management. But after reading about his comments on management philosophy, he is very clear about the fact that “management is the study of how things get done” (execution).
That being said, let’s talk about why the servant leader is effective in today’s organizations.
What do servant leaders do?
• They devote themselves to serving the needs of those they lead.
• They devote themselves to serving the needs, and achieving the goals of the organizations they work for.
• They facilitate personal growth and development in those they lead.
• They encourage and value input and self expression from those they lead.
• They are good listeners and effective at building strong cross functional and collaborative teamwork.
Servant leaders tend to be very effective in today’s work world because they place a high importance on making sure the needs of their team members are being met. This is not to imply that the servant leader is not entirely focused on meeting the performance goals of the organization. The servant-leader simply understands that a happy team leads to employee engagement, retention and sustainable high performance over time. Simple concept isn’t it?
Servant leadership is…
More than anything, servant leadership is an attitude that says I am here to serve you, and to assist you in your personal growth and development in support of achieving the organization’s growth goals.
In today’s world, leadership/management style is more accurately described as a style of influencing and motivating people in order to accomplish individual, departmental and organizational goals.
Leaders-managers set direction, ensure execution, and ensure that organizational goals are met. The task of executing direction and achieving corporate goals does require the care and feeding of the subordinate team. And as mentioned previously, Larry Spears points out that, “…traditional autocratic and hierarchical modes of leadership are yielding to a newer model.”
Leaders are people who stand out from the crowd and challenge the status quo. They find new ways to compete and differentiate, and they behave in a way that supports the achievement of individual, departmental and corporate goals. The best leaders accomplish their departmental and corporate goals by engaging their team through servant and service oriented leadership-management styles.
Today’s highly effective leader realizes that their best employees have numerous employment options. Consider your style of leadership and management. Ask yourself if you are as effective as you could or should be in engaging your team in support of achieving both their personal goals as well as your corporate goals.
If you are effective at meeting the needs of both the individual and the corporation’s goals, congratulations. You most likely behave in a way that is consistent with being a servant (service oriented) leader-manager.
If you are not as effective at engaging your employee team, and in achieving your corporate goals, it’s time to self evaluate and to possibly get assistance in achieving this goal.
