Aug 2

Servant Leadership – Forever Just a Claim?

Stephan Polomski
Stephan Polomski is director human resources, coach and trainer

The often quoted phrase of Robert K. Greenleaf´s essay “The Servant as Leader” directly leads into the dilemma we perceive when leadership is put into focus:

“It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”

Those who follow our blogs in TheCareGuys know, how much we support in our writings and our daily work the first type, the serving and the caring one, and how dysfunctional we consider the second one, ego-driven and profane.

“Those who consciously follow the practice of servant (and/or caring) leadership know, how extremely challenging it sometimes is, to live up to the standards of this leadership ideal.”

Those who consciously follow the practice of servant (and/or caring) leadership know, how extremely challenging it sometimes is, to live up to the standards of this leadership ideal.

And this challenge to come close as much as possible to this leadership ideal in one´s daily behavior is in the end nothing more but a very personal and highly individual path to leadership. And this path is as personal as the individual biography. Hence, the ten genuine principles, which Larry C. Spears summarized, can only be a hint what to concretely integrate in one´s personal leadership behavior – the path still remains a matter of personal development and potential, daily decisions and personal strategic career objectives.

“The central question is: do leaders deliberately and consciously take a decision to choose behavioral patterns which, on the long run, make them a servant leader?”

The central question is: do leaders deliberately and consciously take a decision to choose behavioral patterns which, on the long run, make them a servant leader?

Most of them certainly do not embark upon this journey of personal change as it might not correspond to their leadership style (inclination to the first type) and, furthermore, it means entering the stretch zone and herewith facing their biggest enemy: themselves as personality.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world” as Gandhi once said. And why change something, if there is no perception of the need to change something? As long as it does not really hurt, personal change is unlikely.

Therefore, here I offer another perspective: Leaders, who perceive that they do not excel in one of the following aspects certainly may find room for improvement of their leadership style as both leadership and results are linked:

- You have developed an excellent corporate culture – results of internal engagement surveys and external certificates prove that
- The same is true for high engagement, motivation and identification of your employees
- Herewith come a significantly high performance and outcome
- And thus a high index in customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Consequently you enjoy financial growth
- And finally, you perceive a positive impact on society as media talk positively about your company (without support of your PR department)

In case, leaders cannot excel in all six dimensions, they may start change right on themselves in order to improve results.

Here comes the list with the 10 cornerstones of Servant Leadership, boiled down to very concrete action patterns directly to apply:

1. Listen actively and understand without premature judgment!
2. Establish congruent contact with others through empathy – embrace people!
3. Balance human systems by managing conflicts and care for other´s needs and development!
4. Integrate interests!
5. Reflect yourself, be aware – perceive!
6. Lead with meaning, think strategically!
7. Envision!
8. Convince by trusting people!
9. Care for society!
10. Care for yourself, develop your uniqueness – be happy!

This is nothing new of course, and as old as the Ten Commandments and even older. The leadership path has always started within the leader himself.

Sometime it is useful to remember this.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2012 at 00:36 and is filed under Human Resources, Leadership, Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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