Servant leadership is leadership style whereby the leader prioritizes serving over leading. Robert Greenleaf founded the servant leadership concept in 1977(Mcgee-Cooper & Looper, 2001). Under this type of leadership style, a leader usually strives to ensure that the needs of the followers come first. In the Islamic religion, the elements of servant leadership are apparent on many occasions. For instance, the leadership of the religion demonstrates persuasion, empathy, and conceptualization. In addition, the leadership is also committed to ensuring that they are committed to making sure that the followers grow spiritually. Typically, the Islamic religion shows elements that make it compatible with the characteristics that Greenleaf listed regarding the core values of servant leadership. These features will be discussed herein. Servant leadership has also been evidenced in industrial cultures. In that regards, this article will also focus on how this type of leadership has been demonstrated in TD Industries (TDI).
According to Spears (2004), the main gist of introducing servant leadership was to ensure that leaders concentrate on personal development and growth of their followers. In that respect, leaders are required to develop a natural feeling that would help them in ensuring the development and growth of their followers. In so doing, Robert Greenleaf believed that the well-being of the members would be realized. On the other hand, this would ensure that all the involved parties would have a common goal and both would benefit. In the Islamic religion, the core values are righteousness, faith, love and putting Allah first. Apparently, these are some of the values that servant leadership exhibit. The Islamic religion focuses on the personal relationship between the followers and Allah (Ahmed & Kadir, 2012). Muslim leaders serve Allah by investing in followers in order to accomplish a task that would glorify Allah.
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Notably, the Islamic religion shares some principles of servant leadership while there are some it does not propagate. The religion shows a greater difference in the manner in which it deals with both the Muslims and Non-Muslims. In most cases, the religion uses the term dhimmi to refer to the Non-Muslims. This means that the religion considers them as second-class citizens. Such status in the religion implies that they cannot testify against a Muslim in the law courts particularly those that use the Koran to reach a verdict. Therefore, the oath from such individuals is not acceptable, and the opponent will be less likely to be convicted. Nevertheless, for dhimmi to testify, he/she needs to hire the services of a Muslim witness (Ahmed & Kadir, 2012). On the other hand, the punishment that a Muslim offender will receive would be lesser where the victim was non-Muslim. Nonetheless, the Islamic religion strives to promote equality between citizens by ensuring that people are not discriminated along race, religion or anything that may cause social segregation. In most instances, the rules in the Islamic religion serve both the Muslims and dhimmi without bias.
Apart from the religious context, the servant leadership concept has been embraced in industries such as TDIndustries (TDI). In this industry, the culture of servant leadership started a long time ago. Notably, Jack Lowe, who is the founder of the industry opted to embrace the culture of servant leadership due to the religious convictions he once faced. Jack Lowe felt the need to adopt a leadership style that would make sure that both the employees personal and professional goals are achieved. The switch to servant leadership has enabled the industry to survive in difficult times. In recent times, the industry has been showing remarkable growth. Besides, it has collected good revenues, and employee satisfaction has been improved within the industry. After ensuring that the needs of the employees come first, TDI attained position 36 in the Fortune magazine. In 2006, TDI was among 100 best companies that employees strived to work for. Apparently, the reason why TDI is a great company is because it is an organization that the employees need come first. According to Mcgee-Cooper & Looper, (2001), TDI focuses on specific principles of servant leadership. The first principle is to ensure that the needs of the employees are served. Mcgee-Cooper & Looper, (2001) added that TDI serves such needs by listening to the employees. After hearing such needs, the leadership provides the followers with training that furthers their skills. Such development has been the key to ensuring that the demands of the customers are met in addition to guaranteeing constant continuous improvements in their endeavors.
Secondly, the company often conducts annual surveys, and the obtained results are compared to the nation’s average to ensure that the followers’ needs are served. Finally, the leadership of the company usually engages in regular discussions with the employees to brainstorm on how to address issues within the organization. As such, the culture of the industry promotes open communication whereby the employees have a chance provide their views and opinions. Therefore, the success of TDI is due to the assimilation of the servant leadership principles in their culture. This has led to the creation of strong commitment, trust and mutual respect between the leaders and the followers within the organization (Mcgee-Cooper & Looper, 2001).
Notably, through encouraging and promotion of respect for individuals within, the level of trust within the organization also increases. Besides, by showing respect to the employees, the leader will also earn respect from the followers. Furthermore, where trust exists, there will be a strong pledge to organizational goals. On the other hand, this helps the organization to operate profitably. Therefore, it is important for organizations or rather industries to create an environment that would make the employees feel that they are heard. This can be realized if the leaders are interested and ready to listen to the ideas from the employees.
In that respect, servant leadership is not only a leadership style. It offers mechanisms that can help companies to their employees are motivated. The motivation, in this case, would be a product of the words and actions of the leaders. Of essence, servant leaders need to ensure that the visions they communicate to the employees are in tandem with the vision and the principles of the organizations that they are serving. Serving others is a difficult task. However, the task can be eased if a leader has a common goal with the employees as well as the organization (Spears, 2004).
In conclusion, servant leadership is manifested in the Islamic religion. Despite the fact that its manifestation is dotted, the leadership of the religion invests on the followers to ensure that the religion accomplishes a particular task to glorify Allah. As such, the leaders usually try to act as mentors and ensure that there is personal development among the followers. The religion also strives to promote equality by making sure that people are not discriminated along ethical, religious, or any form of social divisions. On the other hand, various companies have adopted the servant leadership model to develop a culture that puts first the needs of the employees. TDI is an example of such industries. The articulation of the ideologies of servant leadership in the culture of the industry has enabled the TDI to move to the next level. The company has been able to initiate programs that aim at personal and professional growth and development respectively. This has been the key to elevating employee satisfaction.
References
Ahmed, K & Kadir, M.A. (2012). Servant Leadership from the Muslim Perspective. The Journal of the Malaysian Institute of Management , 47 (1 -2), 1-91.
McGee-Cooper, A., & Looper, G. (2001). The essentials of servant-leadership: Principles in practice . Dallas: Pegasus Communications.
Spears, L. C. (2004). Practicing servant‐leadership. Leader to leader , (34), 7-11.
