Create Value through Servant-Leadership
When the leader becomes a servant to the team, the team delivers better business results. This occurs through more empowerment, authenticity, and demonstration of higher organizational trust. All of these lead to stronger engagement, and engagement drives results. But how can a person be both the leader and a servant to the team? Isn’t that a little like Ted Lasso doubling as the water boy?
Well, sort of…
What is Servant-Leadership
A servant leader is quite simply a leader who prioritizes the needs of the team, or organization, above their own needs and wants. This is not a new concept but is gaining in popularity as the business world shifts to more empathetic styles of leadership. Robert K Greenleaf is credited with coining the term in 1970 and wrote,
“The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve, as opposed to wanting power, influence, fame, or wealth.”
If we were to organize the different styles of leadership onto a continuum based on how much decision-making control the leader retains unto themselves, the servant leader would reside primarily in the ‘Empowering’ segment of the continuum, although they would fluctuate their leadership behavior based on how they might best serve the team in any given situation. The servant leader therefore needs to understand the different styles of leadership and when to use each and is truly a situational leader.
Principles of Servant Leadership
Greenleaf established 10 principles that define what is means to be a servant leader. My interpretations in modern terms, of these principles, are;
Listening first – the leader should always listen to the team first without interruption. In order to avoid influencing the discussion prematurely, the leader should be careful that their non-verbal language is neutral during this listening process. Nodding or shaking of one’s head may seem natural while listening, but it indicates approval or disapproval and therefore must be avoided. Listening first demonstrates that the leader respects the team member’s opinion and acknowledges that everyone’s opinion is important. This principle effectively means that the servant leader is an inclusive leader!
Empathy for team members – the leader should know the team members in order to help empower and motivate them. To be an empathetic leader, the team members must feel the support. To accomplish this, the servant-leader must be authentic, and have an authentic relationship with the team members – meaning that the servant-leader allows each team member to be authentic as well.
Promoting a Healthy Work-Life Balance – creating a healthy environment will allow team members to heal from previous experiences and become more productive contributors to the team efforts. Most people are not going to be on their A-game if they are unhealthy or going through a tough time at home. The servant-leader knows this and helps the employee understand that to be most effective at work, one must take care of oneself and their life outside of work. Everyone in Operations recognizes that there will, unfortunately, be times when extra work hours are needed, however, this cannot be the routine expectation or else the employee will be out of balance and performance will suffer both in and outside of work.
Self-awareness of own strengths / opportunities – in order to be empathetic and authentic, a leader needs to know themselves. This concept should extend to becoming aware of their own unconscious biases, and managing them!
Wielding Persuasion / Influence – the servant leader will rarely rely on positional authority to accomplish a goal. Instead, they will support the team by acting as a facilitator and consensus builder, whilst using their own business acumen to persuade and influence where appropriate. Working in this manner will encourage the development of critical problem solving skills and promote inclusivity.
Big Picture Thinking – Servant leaders map the general course, while empowering the team to navigate the details. Using the big picture thinking allows the leader to gain alignment and ensure that the business objectives will be accomplished. By staying out of the details, the leader empowers the team members, allows them to develop skills they will need to be effective, and keeps the leader’s time and focus where it belongs – ensuring that the team is on track to deliver the big picture goals.
Learn from experiences – the servant-leader should step back and analyze the situation to ensure that the organization learns from experiences and modifies behavior appropriately. This may mean making sure that analyses and investigations follow rigorous methods, but even more importantly, that the learnings from experiences are broadly shared, understood, and acted upon. An example here might be an accident investigation – too often I have seen the exact same root cause result in a similar incident in an adjacent department, indicating a gap in the leadership follow-up! The servant-leader needs to plug that gap and ensure the organization learns the important experiential lessons.
Leading by Example – this extends to what you say and do, as well as to what you fail to say and fail to do. A strong servant-leader must always be mentally present to ensure that their behavior and words align with the intended messaging and organization’s values. In this way, the leader is establishing the workplace culture.
Commitment to Develop Team members – the servant-leader must be helping to develop the team members, both for the benefit of the individual members, but also for the benefit of the organization. The servant-leader isn’t just supporting team members towards each’s aspirations, but is supporting the overall team by ensuring that bench strength is developed such that the organization can be prepared for changes. Performing solid succession planning exercises to identify team gaps is an example of this principle in action.
Promoting Trust through building relationships – the leader will support an atmosphere that builds trust between team members, thereby building team spirit and engagement. Trust is the foundation of any effective team and the essential ingredient for any servant-leader.
Benefits of Servant Leadership
There are many benefits that can be ascribed to servant-leadership. These include;
More inclusive environment where people are free to be their authentic selves. Inclusive environments generally are more productive, more creative, and generate superior financial results.
More empowered team members who trust that their manager’s support is predictable and consistent take on more responsibility, accountability, and develop faster than non-empowered team members. This benefits not only the individual, but also the organization as a whole.
Team members feel more supported and therefore are more engaged. As a sense of organizational trust develops, engagement will flourish, and greater engagement is routinely shown in research to drive better results.
Where to Begin?
Managers or Supervisors who want to become servant leaders should start with the following basics;
Be the role model. Model the behavior and speech that you want others to emulate.
Be transparent as to the ‘why’ behind situations and decisions. This demonstrates trust and also prevents ‘alternative explanations’ from filling the gaps.
Be the last to speak. This will promote an inclusive environment and improve the quality of ideas and options that the team generates. It also demonstrates respect for everyone’s opinion.
Know your own strengths and opportunities, and be authentic. Managing one’s biases (we all have them!) is critical to helping promote the best work environment. Become self-aware. Learn what others see. Work with a coach to reveal where you need to be more consistent, or to hold up a mirror and help you see what others may not be telling you.
Be empowering, while providing resources and obstacle removal. Empowering can be scary – it means giving up control. Assist when asked, but not to the extent of removing ownership and accountability from your team member. Show support by asking them what obstacles they are struggling to overcome, and then help them find a way around.
Encourage collaboration between team members. This can be challenging with a team where members have very diverse communication patterns or methods of working. That diversity is important to maintain, and team members may need some encouragement or even refereeing at times, to best collaborate. You must find ways to grease points of friction between team members with differing styles of communication. As team-member trust develops, members will come to learn that their differences are a strength not a threat, and collaboration can flourish.
Encourage and support development of each team member, toward their aspirations, while also keeping an eye on the overall needs of the team.
Demonstrate caring and empathy. While the feeling of empathy may come naturally, the act of being empathetic towards someone often needs more deliberate focus. Your team members will only think you care if they feel your caring! What are you doing to demonstrate to them that you truly care? Remember, it’s about what they feel. It’s not about your good intentions – noble as they may be!
Becoming a servant-leader is a journey. While perhaps you can relatively quickly change your own attitude and behavior to align, you need the team to develop and embrace the journey as well. Skeptics on the team will need to see a track record of consistent and predictable behavior from their leader before they will believe the change is genuine. Allow them the space to develop, and to hold you accountable as their servant-leader!
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