Leadership is about having a vision and a strong sense of the direction that the leader wants the organization to take. It involves setting the organization's goals, objectives ad directions. Leaders usually have different leadership approaches that determine how they interact with their teams. The different leadership styles are crucial in determining the level of the team's inspiration, motivation, trust, commitment, and desire to produce results (Johnson, 2018). Among the best leadership approaches is the servant leadership style. In this essay, the focus is on discussing servant leadership as a leadership style and outlining its benefits.
An Overview of Servant Leadership
Servant leadership is a leadership approach founded on the ideology that leaders need to serve for the good of others rather than their satisfaction. A Servant leader seeks to achieve the team's vision by developing the team members and providing vital support that the employees or team members can rely on to learn and grow (Spears, 2009). Additionally, servant leadership anchors on the creation of influence and authority rather than intimidation and control. This leadership style contrasts with the traditional leadership models as it prioritizes the subordinates and their needs. In this model, the team's productivity depends on the investment in the team; in that, the more the leader invests in serving the team, the higher the team's outcome.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The servant leadership model involves balancing between the top-down direction and the bottom-up empowerment. A servant leader is expected to lead in vital situations, such as providing the priorities, providing guidance, and setting the strategic vision (Spears, 2009). It means that the leader is responsible for clarifying the team's values and direction or organization. After providing the critical guidance, a servant leader places him/herself in the service of the subordinates with a focus on setting them to flourish in attaining the set vision. Servant leaders ensure that the teams have all they need for them to achieve their ultimate best. This level of servant leadership means that the leader has to support the team members in building up their confidence, risk-taking skills, collaboration skills, creativity, and decision-making ability (Spears, 2009). The leader has to motivate and inspire the employees by extending support, trust, and encouraging ownership.
Benefits of Servant Leadership
The main benefit of servant leadership is that it ensures better collaboration between the leader and the teams, which leads to the creation of more substantial teams. Since the servant leadership model is service-oriented, the employees take on the value of extending service to their colleagues (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). This model of leadership encourages employees to drop unproductive behaviors for productive behaviors. Additionally, since the leadership approach fosters interaction between the leader and the employees, it creates a better bond in the teams, which results in better team productivity.
In addition, servant leadership creates a positive work environment. Servant leadership encourages daily interactions between the employees and their leaders. The daily interactions are often constructive and straightforward and enable the servant leader to contact the subordinates. The interactions also help the leader identify the team's weaknesses and create adequate support that empowers the team to work towards the shared goal rather than being divided to impress the leader at individual levels (Lam, 2015). The free interactions inspire positivity in the team.
Servant leadership also offers the benefit of employee commitment, loyalty, and trust. Servant leadership promotes transparency between the employees and the leaders, especially on how the employees' alignment contributes to the organization's objectives and goals. The employees feel much better when they understand their position and importance to an organization and how their potential and creativity contribute to an organization's success (Griffith et al., 2011). Further, a servant leader trusts the employees to make the right decisions and encourages them to be innovative and creative.
Additionally, servant leadership creates a culture of belonging and creates greater organizational agility. In a servant leadership model, employees feel appreciates, valued, and recognized since the leader views them as individuals and stresses their value to the organization, which makes them feel that they belong and are part of the organization (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Also, supporting the employees and allowing them to make decisions, have more responsibilities, and equipping them with the tools and skills needed in their jobs increases the agility of the organization since the employees can respond and adapt quickly to changes.
The good thing about servant leadership is that it is beneficial to the organization and the employees. Servant leadership accelerates employee learning and development. In this leadership model, employees learn more efficiently and have the chance to build on their strengths while also working on their weaknesses with the support of the leader (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Also, this leadership model empowers employees to have ownership and responsibilities, which prepares them to be leaders in the future.
In summary, s ervant leadership is a leadership approach that is based on the idea that leaders need to serve for the larger good rather than their own satisfaction. The focus of servant leaders is to empower and develop their employees through inspiration and motivation. This leadership model is beneficial to the organization. Servant leadership ensures better collaboration between the leader and the teams, creates a positive work environment, encourages employee commitment, loyalty, and trust, creates a culture of belonging, and creates greater organizational agility. It is also beneficial to the employees as it promotes development and learning and prepares the employees to be future leaders.
References
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269. http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jmr
Griffith, J. A., Connelly, S., & Thiel, C. E. (2011). Leader deception influences on leader-member exchange and subordinate organizational commitment. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 18(4), 508-521. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051811403765
Johnson, C. E. (2018). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow (6thed.). https://www.redshelf.com
Lam, C. (2015). The role of communication and cohesion in reducing social loafing in group projects. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 78(4), 454–475. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329490615596417
Spears, L. C. (2009). Servant leadership. Leadership Excellence, 26(5), 20-20. https://www.hr.com/en/magazines/leadership_excellence_essentials/
