By Todd Woods-CEO Guerrilla Marketing Strategies
Out of all the types of leaders in companies today, the most effective are those that serve those they lead. Gone are the days of the authoritarian management style. People want to follow, and will follow those they respect and trust. One of the best ways to earn the trust of those you lead is to serve them.
Servant leadership seeks to involve others in decision making. It is strongly based on ethical and caring behavior, and it enhances the personal growth of workers while improving the caring and quality of organizational life. In a study by Abraham Maslow, he found, through studying healthy and vibrant people who were excited about their lives and who felt terrific about themselves, that they were motivated by different factors. Both factors were positive and negative.
The Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader
1. Listening- Effective servant leaders have a strong commitment to listening intently to others. They seek to hear and understand the will and goal of the group and then do everything they can to clarify and support that will. To be an effective servant leader, you must engage in periods of reflection as well as just listening intently.
2. Empathy- People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirits. The servant leader strives to understand and empathize with others. They are genuinely concerned for those they work with and lead. This shows in their actions and not just their words alone.
3. Healing- One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is the potential for healing one's self and one's relationship to others. The healing of relationships is absolutely critical in leadership. So often, feelings get hurt whether intentionally or unintentionally. With this comes resentment for the company and even you as a leader. Poor performance and rebellion is a close cousin to resentment. Pay attention to those relationships you may have damaged. Be the bigger person and fix them.
4. Awareness - Strong, effective leaders are aware. They have a keen awareness not only with what is going on around them, but within them as well. Awareness helps one in understanding issues involving ethics, values and power. 5. Persuasion- Another important characteristic of a servant-leader is reliance on persuasion, rather than on one's positional authority. To often leaders make decisions within an organization by exerting their authority rather than using persuasion. People follow leaders who use persuasion to make decisions rather than power.
6. Conceptualization- Servant-leaders have vision. They think big. One must look beyond the day to day problems and challenges to lead effectively. For many, this is a characteristic that requires much discipline and practice to master. In contrast to the traditional thinker who is consumed by the need to achieve short-term operational goals, servant-leaders think to encompass broader-based conceptual thinking.
7. Foresight- A cousin to Conceptualization is foresight, which is the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation hard to define. Good leaders have foresight. This characteristic is developed by learning from past successes, failures, and mistakes. Intuition plays a major role in foresight as well.
8. Stewardship- A servant-leader understands and embraces the responsibility of stewardship for those over whom they preside. Servant-leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others. It also emphasizes the use of openness and persuasion rather than control.
9. Commitment to the growth of people - Servant-leaders constantly strive to find and pull out the best is people. With the vision they have, servant-leaders recognize the tremendous responsibility to do everything in their power to nurture and help develop the professional as well as the personal growth of employees, and co-workers.
10. Building community- We live in an era where giving back to the community is not only needed but expected. The servant-leader senses that much has been lost in recent human history as a result of the shift from local communities to globalization of business. The servant-leader identifies means for building community among those who work in the organization. Successful companies continually give back to the community. This giving back needs to be led by the servant-leaders.
Take the time to determine how you fare in these ten areas. Be honest with yourself. In fact, I recommend you ask your peers, your colleagues, and your family and loved ones how THEY think you do in these areas. One of the biggest challenges many face is that of being honest with themselves when it comes to facing up to the things they need to work on. Be teachable! Put your pride aside for a moment and really take a hard, close look at the areas you need to improve upon. |
