What is servant leadership?

Monday, 5 October 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organisations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.

While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase ‘servant leadership’ was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in ‘The Servant as Leader’, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said:

“The servant-leader ‘is’ servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve ‘first’. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is ‘leader’ first; perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, ‘while being served’, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? ‘And’, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the ‘top of the pyramid’, servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power; puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

Robert Greenleaf recognised that organisations as well as individuals could be servant-leaders. Indeed, he had great faith that servant-leader organisations could change the world. In his second major essay, ‘The Institution as Servant’, Greenleaf articulated what is often called the ‘credo’. There he said:

“This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the 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 through 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, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”