Critique of Servant Leadership

Reply to objections in defense of Servant Leadership

Some people have objected strongly via email to what they see as my overly narrow conception of what a servant does. They say: ''Does not the servant leader serve the organization's needs as well?'' Yes, but this is not the original concept of servant leader who focuses on the needs of followers.

More importantly, saying that a leader is a servant in the sense of serving the organization or some broader objectives adds nothing to what it means to be a leader. The problem is that it doesn't help us distinguish what it means to be a leader from what it means to be a manager. Actually, this is also true of the notion of servant leader as serving the needs of followers. Managers also do this, so we are no further ahead in trying to differentiate them.

In fact, you could say that all dedicated professionals are servants - doctors, teachers, public servants. Anyone who is dedicated to serving some higher cause beyond immediate gratification or selfish motives is, in this broader definition, a servant. Is this not true of leaders also? Yes, but then we have watered down the concept of servant so much that it tells us nothing that is distinctive of leadership as leadership. Certainly, a good leader shares a dedication to serve along with all and sundry other dedicated professionals. In trying to understand the nature of leadership, however, we want to understand what differentiates leadership from other professional roles. This watered down notion of being a servant is simply unhelpful in this quest while the narrower definition of servantship is simply false as a portrayal of leadership. An analogy would be: suppose someone asks you what is an elephant and you reply: a mammal. This is true but, by itself, this does not say what differentiates elephants from other mammals, which is the more interesting question.

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