Critique of Servant Leadership

Without doubt managers could better motivate employees by serving the needs of subordinates. Leaders determine direction, managers execute it. Determining new directions often requires boat-rocking single mindedness that may run contrary to the needs of followers. The management task of executing direction does require the nurturing of subordinates, but this is not leadership. The manager-as-servant is not a problematic concept, but leaders cannot really be servants - they are too focused on achieving goals that they deem worthwhile regardless of the needs of followers. Yes, leaders might nurture people to influence them but this is only a means to an end - to achieve an external purpose. A critical difference here is that serving people, for a servant, is an end in itself, not a way to achieve other goals. It should be noted that this critique of servant leadership is based on a total separation of leadership and management. The latter might be somewhat servant-like but the leader must challenge the status quo to promote new directions. On this view, leaders are boat-rockers not servants.

In short, leaders are people who:

stand out from the crowd
do the unexpected
challenge the status quo - strive to find new directions, popular or otherwise
focus on achievement - getting somewhere new first
are self-absorbed in their dedication to achievement
make others uncomfortable by rejecting the familiar

The idea of servant leadership is therefore little more than a clever gimmick. It is not so obviously a contradiction in terms in public sector organizations where direction is more or less fixed and effectiveness is only a matter of providing excellent service at high quality and low cost. In fast moving markets where constant innovation and new directions are regularly sought, executives cannot help but make people feel uncomfortable at times. Their focus must be primarily external, not so much internal on the needs of followers. But if an organization's direction is more or less fixed, little or no leadership is necessary. It is mainly good management that is required.

The reality is that a lot of what managers do is simply not leadership. It may be management, coaching, motivating, developing, but these activities do not constitute leadership. It might be acceptable to see managers as servants, but even here, if leaders must be rebels to some extent, what kind of role model for developing leaders is provided by a manager who is primarily a nourisher of others, a servant type?

The danger of the Servant Leadership concept is that it can prevent us from seeing that anyone at any level can be a leader and that to do so they have to be competitive high achievers who are determined to excel and differentiate themselves from others. Certainly you have to have some of the characteristics of servant leaders in order to get along with people, but these characteristics are by no means what leadership is all about.

You might object "Cannot a leader do both: set challenging new directions and be servant-like?" Consider carefully what it means to be a servant. A servant must be unquestioningly dedicated to serving his master's every whim. If his master wants to be a drug addict, it is the servant's duty to supply any drugs his master requests. A true servant should do precisely what his master requests regardless of whether it is good for his master. Is this a useful metaphor for a leader? Compare this model to that of a coach. A coach is like a sculptor. He has an image of what he wants to create and he will push, challenge and stretch any athlete he is coaching to shape him into the image he wants to see realized. If a leader must challenge the status quo to be a leader, it would not be inconsistent to imagine him challenging individuals also as any good coach would do. But can a servant challenge his master? A servant is essentially a slave and a slave who challenges his master is either a dead slave or a free man - hence no longer a slave. Basically, the point here is that the whole idea of leader-as-servant is conceptually bankrupt.

Again, the principles of servant leadership - to nurture and develop employees - is most laudable. It is just the servant metaphor that is all wrong. To advocate nurturing leadership (or management) is much less extreme than to expect leaders to be servants to their employees. There is a world of difference between showing consideration for employee needs and being a servant to them. The former is good common sense. The latter is a form of extremism that is just as harmful as the idea that the leader should be a tyrant or autocrat.