The Servant Leadership Misconception
After spending numerous hours of my life in discussions about what servant leadership is and is not, I have decided to go into greater depth to argue against one of the key misconceptions about servant leadership that I consistently encounter. However, before hopping up onto my soapbox, I want to you a quick history on Servant Leadership.
Dr. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the phrase “Servant Leadership” in his 1970 essay entitled “The Servant as Leader”. In that essay, he said:
“The servant-leader is servant first… 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.”
“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”
While Dr. Greenleaf may have coined the phrase of servant leadership and applied it to the business world, the concept is not new. The concepts date as far back as 600 B.C. Philosophers like Lao Tzu and Chanakya touted the same core tenants in their research and ancient writings.
With today’s history lesson out of the way, what does that mean to you? Servant leadership differs from more traditional business management models in that it focuses on morality, trust, empathy (note that empathy does not equal sympathy – more on this later) and the ethical use of power. Only when a leader effectively collaborates and obtains the trust of their team will they achieve true leadership.
When speaking with individuals and business leaders about servant leadership, the key misconception that I run into is that “it is a soft leadership style that just won’t work in modern business”. This could not be further from the truth, but from where does this idea originate? Many of the proponents of servant leadership fall into two categories that seem to conflict with a successful implementation into the business world: the religious supporters and the uneducated supporters.
Since morality and humility are cornerstones in most accepted religions, it is no surprise that many purport to the use of servant leadership. Since I have never been formally involved in this type of leadership role, I cannot argue for or against its success. What I can say is that many business leaders consider the model of a church and the model of a business to be on opposite ends of a spectrum. Churches are compassionate and giving; business is about making money and protecting the bottom line. This dichotomy of philosophy means that many business leaders do not feel that a management style that is successful in one would work in the other. In addition to this dissimilar goal, businesses have also witnessed many attempts of integrating servant leadership into the business world with failed results. Sadly, these results were due in large part to the poor education of its practitioners.
Many adopters of servant leadership easily confuse the tenant of empathy to mean sympathy. Empathy simply means to identify with someone else’s specific situation. Sympathy means the act of sharing the same feeling as someone else. Example: I can empathize with someone on my team who is having a tough time with a specific project without sympathizing (sharing their feeling of defeat) with them because I never gave up on a project. Servant leadership stresses empathy, not sympathy. Empathy is understanding, sympathy goes beyond understanding and may interfere with business decisions. By standing with empathy, the servant leader can make difficult business decisions based on performance while sympathy may drag the decision out, thus hurting the overall bottom line of the business.
This confusion by practitioners has led to the perception that servant leadership does not involve any goal setting or corrective action. Some might even call it soft. While the perception from authoritarians may be as soft and “foo foo” (actually heard that in a meeting one day), the fact is that true servant leadership still dictates goal setting and tough-love for anyone unable to meet expectations. The only difference is in how it is handled and the attitude of management. “A servant leader knows that their most important contribution is making sure the rest of the organization has what they need to succeed.” Instead of wielding supremacy and authority, a servant leader focuses influencing others to reach a common goal. If they are unable to meet this goal, then even a servant leader must take the appropriate actions to get the ship moving in the right direction.
So the next time you hear somebody say “servant leadership doesn’t work in business” or “it’s too soft”, point them to this article or one of the resources below for some edumacation J
Explanation
http://www.betternetworker.com/articles/view/what-is-a-servant-leader
http://www.greenleaf.org/whatissl/
Filed under: Management Style