By: Christopher Garcia

Servant Leadership

What is Servant Leadership?

Idea was first coined by Robert Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay published in 1970.

Servant Leadership is very similar to the participative leadership style as well as Transformational Leadership

Highest priorities includes encouraging, supporting and enabling subordinates to unfold their full potential and abilities.

Servant Leadership reveals that the leader is not the master of all but servant of all. It seeks to build others up to bring the maximum benefit to the organization.

Origin of the Idea(As much as I dislike reading off the slides...)

Hermann Hesse: Journey to the East (1958)

“In this story, we see a band of men on a mythical journey… The central figure of the story is Leo, who accompanies the party as the servant who does their menial chores, but who also sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until Leo disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator, one of the party, after some years of wandering, finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo, whom he had known first as servant, was in fact the titular head of the Order, its guiding

spirit, a great and noble leader.”

Principles of Servant Leadership

10 Principles of Servant Leadership

Listening- Reinforce communication skills by making a deep commitment to listening intently to others

Empathy-Servant-leaders strive to understand and empathize with others

Healing- “There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the contact between the servant-leader and led is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something that they have.”

Awareness- General awareness especially self-awareness

Persuasion- Seeking to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. The servant leaer is effective at building consensus within groups.

10 Principles of Servant Leadership

Conceptualization- Thinking beyond day-to-day realities. Able to see beyond the limits of the operating business and also focuses on long term operating goals.

Foresight:Ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation. Learning from the past in order to better understand the current reality. Helps identify consequences about the future.

Stewardship: Holding their institution in trust for the greater good of society. Servant leadership is seen as an obligation to help and serve others.

Commitment to the growth of people: Believing that people have an intrinsic value beyond their contribution as workers.

Building Community: A servant leader identifies means to build a strong community within his organization and wants to develop a true community among businesses and institutions.

Benefits of Servant Leadership

Focuses shifts from self

Adopts a team approach

Adopts a higher purpose

Adds value to the members of your team

Fosters an atmosphere of trust

Can lead to high employee identification with the enterprise