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Servant leadership is a very popular leadership model. It was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. The servant leader serves the people he/she leads, which implies that employees are an end in themselves rather than a means to an organizational purpose or bottom line. Servant leadership is meant to replace command and control models of leadership, to be more focused on the needs of others.
Servant devote themselves to serving the needs of organization members, focus on meeting the needs of those they lead, develop employees to bring out the best in them, coach others and encourage their self expression, facilitate personal growth in all who work with them and listen well to build a sense of community and joint ownership
Servant leaders are felt to be effective because the needs of followers are so looked after that they reach their full potential, hence perform at their best. A strength of this way of looking at leadership is that it forces us away from self-serving, domineering leadership and makes those in charge think harder about how to respect, value and motivate people reporting to them.
Looked at critically, should we not regard employees as partners rather than view leaders as servants? Strictly speaking, servant leadership applies best in politics, associations and community clubs where elected officials are required to serve their members or citizens. But employees in a business are not members of a club or citizens.
Servant leadership also has paternalistic overtones as it suggests doing things for employees rather than helping them to think for themselves. Treating employees as partners is more respectful and valuing. Serving people's needs creates the image of being slavish or subservient, not a very positive image. In addition, leaders need to serve the needs of shareholders ahead of those of employees.
Surely, it makes more sense to say simply that leaders should CONSIDER the needs of employees not be a servant to them. Shifting metaphors from leaders-as-autocrats to leaders-as-servants is going from one extreme to the other. Neither end of the spectrum is very revealing about how organizations function. The principles of servant leadership are admirable. It is the image of SERVANT that is problematic and misleading.
Advocates of servant leadership emphasize two factors, serving employees and being selfless. The latter is a valuable trait, but we don't need to call it servant leadership to advocate selflessness. A good example of being selfless is a political leader who champions an unpopular policy, like eliminating carbon waste by a tight deadline because he or she feels it is in the best interest of the country. The leader who campaigns mainly on the basis of popular policies like cutting taxes serves the needs of the electorate, but is really just buying votes. How can this be leadership? This person is more interested in getting elected than doing what is best for the country. We naturally take a cynical attitude toward such people and question whether they ought to be regarded as leaders at all.
The selfless leader is willing to risk his or her own fate in order to do what is right. This is real leadership, like that of Martin Luther King who risked going to jail and being killed in order to stand up for what he believed in. Of course, many professionals are also selfless without being leaders - many doctors and nurses, for example. Do we need to talk about servant doctors and servant nurses or is the simple term "dedication" not sufficient? So, it is not only leaders who are selfless. In any case, selflessness is possible without being a servant.
A general definition of leadership is that it shows the way for others, either by example or by advocacy. Crucially, this definition is sufficiently general that it does not entail being in charge of those who follow. The advantage of this definition is that it includes Martin Luther King promoting justice for African Americans, bottom-up leadership such as when the developer of PlayStation convinced Sony to adopt his product, green leadership where someone's advocacy of green initiatives has a leadership impact on communities all around the globe and market leadership, such as Apple shows to its competitors.
All such leadership takes the same form: showing the way for others either by example or by advocacy. Servant leadership is really like green or financial leadership: efforts to lead people in a particular domain or with respect to a particular set of values. Green and financial leadership, for instance, are thus domains in which leadership is shown rather than distinct models of leadership. Is not the same true of servant leadership?
If so, then you can't lead others BY serving them, you can only lead by example or by advocating a new direction. You can APPLY such leadership to the value of serving others or a higher cause. But this is an application of the same model of leadership, not a distinct leadership model in its own right. These criticisms are thus not meant as an attack on the VALUES that servant leadership advocates hold dear. The only point is that we need to be clear what leadership actually means. Another advantage of defining leadership in a way that makes it independent of being in charge of people is that it is very empowering: all employees with a good idea who suceed in convincing others to adopt it either by setting an example or through persuasion can show leadership without taking charge of others, even informally.
Many people would disagree with this way of defining leadership. I admit that it is my own personal opinion, nothing else, but I would love to hear your explanation of why you think servant leadership is a good idea. Please use the comments section below to express your views.
What personal qualities do you have that might make you a good servant leader? What attracts you to this concept? Why not use the comments section below to share your views on this topic and why you think you might be a servant leader yourself?
See No Servant Leaders for an in depth look at why serving people shouldn't be considered a way of leading them. See also The Post-Heroic Manager for a replacement for servant leadership.
Comments
Benjamin: You ask whether my arguments are empirically validated. Well, I don't actually think I'm making any empirical claims. I see all my writing as being exercises in conceptual clarification. I look at the meaning of concepts. For example, what does it mean to have the right to vote? Does that right apply in a dictatorship? I’m not saying whether or not certain people do in fact have the right to vote in certain countries, which would be an empirical matter, but rather asking what that right MEANS. Hence, I don't think I am making any empirical claims, unless you can convince me otherwise.
Regards
Mitch
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