Robert Greenleaf Servant Leadership Examples

Many have developed elements that they believe are the foundation of servant leadership. In summary, included in the fundamentals are healing, creating value for community, empowering, empathy, listening, awareness, behaving ethically, and helping others grow and succeed. Healing refers to leaders trying to help solve problems and relationships. Creating value for community refers to leaders serving as an example and encouraging others to also serve the community. Empowering refers to leaders providing followers with autonomy. Empathy refers to leaders understanding others. Listening is a trait all leaders should possess. In order to understand, one should first listen. Awareness refers to leaders attentive to the things happening around them. Behaving ethically refers to the demonstrating of integrity to gain the trust of followers. Helping others grow and succeed refers to leaders providing support to followers to help them develop and accomplish professional and personal goals.

Over the course of my career, I have tried to model various leadership behaviors based upon successful leaders that I have worked with or for. This has led me to incorporate different styles into my own. Considering my current leadership strengths and how I view successful leaders I will use a servant leadership theory to analyze my own competencies. Servant leaders have 9 different aspects comprised of: emotional healing, creating value for the community, conceptual skills, empowering, helping subordinates grow and succeed, putting subordinates first, behaving ethically, relationships, and servanthood (Boone & Makhani, 2005, pg. 86). The aspects of a servant leader are those that I personally value and identify with. In addition to this, it is my belief that servant leaders, because they are people oriented, are more effective in a variety of environments and situations.

Servant leadership is defined by a willingness of a leader to put the needs, desires, recognition and success of their employees and organization above their own interests. They often inspire followership through their example resulting in deeply loyal subordinates that are motivated to emulate the leader’s behavior not out of fear or a desire to please and impress but because of its intrinsic value. Reading through the results of my Seven Habits Profile I noticed that I was comparatively deficient on a few of the foundational and organizational habits such as putting first things first and beginning with the end in mind. Conversely, I had a much higher level of empathetic traits with synergy, seeking first to understand, and thinking win-win taking the top three spots. These traits are highly consistent with servant leadership.

Servant Leadership is “an approach to leadership with strong altruistic and ethical overtones that asks and requires leader to be attentive to the needs of their followers and empathize with them; they should take care of them by making sure they become healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous, so that they too can become servant leaders” (Valeri, 2007). Although there is not many servant leaders in this world but the concept of servant is one of the most leadership approach leaders today struggles with. Servant leadership is mainly about the leader helping to grow their followers or members personally and professionally through empathy, listening skills and compassion. The concept of servant leadership which was proposed by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 writing indicated that servant leadership is a theoretical framework that advocated a leader’s primary motivation and role as service to others.

Robert Greenleaf and James Hunter are both experts when it comes to leadership. Greenleaf coined the term “servant leadership” and published his first essay regarding this topic in 1970. Hunter is a world renowned author and speaker because of his leadership forte, and has worked with thousands of business executives on developing leadership skills that create successful businesses (Hunter 1998). Both of these men are distinguished professionals because of their philosophies and approaches to efficacious leadership, but they each have a different approach of how they present and represent these ideas.

From the servant-leadership perspective, employees' needs should be the most important concern of the leader. Greenleaf suggests "servant-leaders are deeply committed to the personal, professional, and spiritual growth of each and every individual within the institution" (Spears, 1995, p. 7). I sometimes find myself thinking of self before my other teammates. In order for me to be effective as a leader using the servant leader style I need to make a concerted effort to make sure I think of everyone that will be effected by decisions I make. It comes natural to think of yourself before others, but if selflessness is practiced correctly the team will prosper as a whole.

In the process of interviewing a servant leader, this paper investigates the defining behavior of servant leadership from a practical and philosophical standpoint. There are practical behavioral characteristics that can be uniformly integrated into the business infrastructure that is founded upon Biblical principles yet not used as a pool to proselytize. Through research and group discussion boards, this paper analyzes the institutional applications and the interpersonal relationships

Dr. Kent M. Keith was a presenter on behalf of the Greenleaf Seminar on Servant Leadership at the 53rd annual conference for the Arizona School Boards Association in December, 2010. He correctly pointed out that servant leadership is about serving others, about becoming distinguished through the altruistic desire to serve, and about the "…universal recognition of the importance of serving others" (Keith, 2010).

Servant leadership, as it applies to the modern world, is a concept that Robert Greenleaf defined in his influential 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf’s essay explains that servant leadership is an amalgam of concrete leadership styles and “fragments of data” that came to him through “intuitive insight” (1970). Having worked at AT&T from 1926-1964, he accumulated a number of leadership qualities throughout his professional career. After retirement he began teaching at Harvard Business School, but became distressed by younger generations and their rebellious attitudes. After careful consideration, he decided institutions were doing a poor job of serving, so they were doing a poor job of leading. His

It is imperative to understand these principles to develop a servant leader mentality, take leadership skills beyond the basics and enhance emotional intelligence paying attention to the differences in generations. The emotional intelligence implies recognizing, understanding and managing the emotions of the leaders while trying to influence the emotions of others. The authors explained that leaders could recognize opportunities to increase the principles of servant leadership when leaders are in touch with their emotional development. The authors asserted that true servant leaders are to focus on the needs of other individuals to make decisions and raise those individuals who they serve. The authors stated that the ten principles of servant

Servant leadership is a term defined by Robert L. Greenleaf in 1970 (Spear, 2010). Marquis and Huston, (2015, p. 56) describe servant leadership as, “…put serving others…as the number-one priority. In addition, servant leaders foster a service inclination in others that promotes collaboration, teamwork, and collective activism.” This is a type of leadership style that can positively impact one’s relationships with others. Servant leadership has various characteristics that distinguish this unique style of leadership. Listening, awareness and empathy are three major characteristics that one must possess to truly be a servant leader. These characteristics can be implemented in the every day practice of nursing to better the work environment.

Servant leadership can be a difficult leadership approach to utilize in every organization. Being able to conceptualize is undoubtedly an important cognitive capacity in all kinds of leadership, but why is it a defining characteristic of servant leadership? A clear explanation for its central role and servant leadership needs to be addressed and defined in further research. (Northouse p.241) The focus of servant leadership is on others and meeting the needs of others. Self-interest should not motivate servant leadership; rather, it should ascend to a higher plane of motivation. (Stone p.352) Successful servant leaders must be able to provide and share the organization’s vision while also supporting and build the trust of others.

Introduction Servant Leadership is a form of principled leadership, which to me is leading with intent and purpose, from a strong vision of what you believe and unwavering core values. (Daft, 2015) Servant leadership builds bridges through humbly serving others, thereby developing a deeper level of interactive leadership, and creating higher levels of interdependence. Power, respect, or monetary rewards do not drive the Servant Leader. Instead, it is a deep intrinsic desire to serve others. “The servant leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first…

The phrase “Servant Leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as a Leader, an essay he first published in 1970 ("What is servant," ). The servant leader serves first, while aspiring to lead second. The servant leader serves the people that he or she leads, implying employees are an end in themselves rather than a means to organizational purpose or bottom-line. Servant leadership is meant to replace a command and control, top-down, model of management. Servant leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment. A few famous examples of servant leaders are George Washington, Gandi and Caesar Chavez.

“The great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness,” says Robert K. Greenleaf in an essay “The Servant as Leader” in which he explains and defines servant leadership (Phi Theta Kappa 75). Greenleaf talks about many qualities important for servant leaders: inter alia, the servant leader is the one who takes the responsibility for both success and failure, he has the vision, he listens and understands his followers, “he always accepts and empathizes, never rejects” and he knows about the love needed for a growth of a healthy