Worldwide Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership
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Servant Leadership
Servant leadership entails the drive of an individual to serve others without taking control or accruing power. Traditionally, many people believed that the only way leaders could become influential is by controlling others. Not until 1970, when Robert Greenleaf, a management expert, made it clear that servants can become leaders. Servant leadership is effective since leaders interact with other stakeholders, such as employees, partners, community members, and customers, and motivate them to do what is best for an organization. Indeed, servant leaders prioritize the needs of workers, help employees to improve their performances, and they ensure that a firm has positive contributions to the community. They also value diverse ideas and opinions from employees, develop a culture of honesty and trust, help people solve life issues, and have a bright vision for a company. These individuals are active listeners, empathetic, persuasive, stewards, committed to people’s career growth and development, and they are self-aware. For this reason, servant leaders have outstanding leadership qualities and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization, which lead to increased productivity.
The application of servant leadership in the real world starts by leaders accepting to serve others. In reality, not many managers humble themselves and serve those who are below them in the management hierarchy. The majority of leaders want to accrue power so that they can take control of things by commanding others. However, servant leaders interact with all stakeholders, and they act as role models. They give good examples to their followers so that they can perform their duties in the right way. These individuals are not afraid of getting their hands dirty while working together with junior employees, which enable them to develop a trusting relationship. Additionally, servant leadership is applied in the real world when leaders are encouraged to listen to their followers, help them improve their careers, persuade workers to do things that are beneficial for an organization, self-awareness, and being empathetic to others, particularly when addressing life issues (Eva, Robin, Sendjaya, Dierendonck, & Liden, 2019). Consequently, servant leaders do not put their needs first, but instead, they emphasize serving others and showing them the most appropriate way of doing things effectively.
Servant leaders are there to serve others and not to be served. Their primary objective is to transform the functioning of an organization for the better by working in close collaboration with all stakeholders. As such, servant leaders interact with workers, community members, management teams, customers, and suppliers to understand how they can improve the operations of a firm for the better. These people listen to others keenly so that they can give an appropriate response. They are empathetic to fellow workers and do everything to help them solve career-related or personal problems. Servant leaders understand that if employees are undergoing crises in their lives, they cannot be innovative or contribute to the production process optimally (Lemoine, Hartnell, & Leroy, 2019). They act as good role models so that other employees can follow their footsteps and do things appropriately. These leaders encourage others to perform their duties well, and they think about the future of an organization. They are not only committed to the growth of a firm, but they facilitate the career development of workers. Servant leaders create a trusting culture in a company and value the opinions and ideas of other stakeholders. As such, they cultivate trusting relationships among employees, which make them be committed to fulfilling a common goal.
Individuals cannot talk about servant leadership without recognizing Ken Blanchard. Blanchard co-authored "The One Minute Manager," which has been translated into forty-two languages. His latest book is entitled "Servant Leadership In Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results." He is the Chief Spiritual Officer (CSO), and co-founder of international management consulting and training firm called The Ken Blanchard Companies (Kruse, 2018). In particular, Blanchard is passionate about transforming many people into servant leaders through his powerful and insightful books, consulting services, and speeches. Servant leaders are different from transactional leaders since the latter promote followers' compliance via punishments and rewards. Transactional leaders keep their followers motivated in the short-term. When it comes to transformational leaders, they rely on charisma, idealized influence, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Servant leaders are different from transactional and transformational leaders since they emphasize serving their followers first before directing them to undertake their duties. In the long run, they become so close to others and gain respect such that employees understand the significance of doing the right thing or performing their duties well for the betterment of an organization.
Empowerment entails the development of some measures to increase people's degree of self-determination and autonomy so that individuals can become confident about themselves. In other words, it can be called the social process for helping people to gain confidence and control of their lives. Self-leaders require to develop various skills so that they can be successful. They include motivation, empathy, self-awareness, social skills, influence, dedication, and self-regulation. These skills help self-leaders to interact with others and understand them correctly. That way, these individuals make proper decisions that lead to the success of an organization.
Some of the skills that a one-minute manager needs are setting goals, planning and coaching, caring, and the reinforcement of positive behavior. Specifically, a one-minute manager should be aware of what an organization needs from the start. The most significant thing about one-minute objective is that it offers immediate feedback to employees. Besides, the feedback becomes a motivation. In addition, a one-minute objective involves praising. When a one-minute manager gets an individual doing the right thing, he or she takes a minute to praise him or her (Blanchard & Johnson, 2015). For instance, one can say that a person did an excellent job. For this reason, a one-minute manager should know how to set appropriate objectives through proper planning so that individuals can adhere to them. The person should as well reinforce positive behaviors by praising workers when they do things correctly. In reality, individuals get motivated when they are congratulated for doing something excellently.
Teams fail due to different reasons. First, the lack of focus on a common objective makes team members not to concentrate on achieving the best result. All individuals in a team must understand their responsibilities so that together they can meet a collective objective. Second, the team fails due to the lack of appropriate resources or planning. Whenever members unite to do something, they must have relevant materials and plan how to achieve their goals. Third, successful teams emphasize mutual accountability (Leonard & Stephanie, 2006). On that note, members are not afraid to own their mistakes. On the contrary, the lack of accountability and transparency makes the team fail since members keep pointing fingers when an error occurs instead of addressing it. Fourth, teams fail when me...