Member-only story
Servant Leadership — why it’s not just about leaders
And what organisations can do to make it happen
Servant-leadership has a longer history than you might think. The philosophy was described by both Sun Tzu and Laotzi in China 2500 years ago. According to the Bible (Matthew 20:27), Jesus Christ advocated servant leadership too.
The term “servant leadership” was coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, Greenleaf codified the concept as a set of ten attributes which defined the ideal Servant Leader — listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, foresight, conceptualisation, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community.
Benefits
In the modern workplace, we can find examples of good servant leaders, but also of people who act as if they own the people under their charge. The authority to hire and fire, to command action, to demand sacrifice, to foster competition between staff members, all for his (for it is almost exclusively a man) own personal benefit.
Servant leadership has become central to the philosophy of agile leadership — that leaders serve their teams, not the other way round. It may sound incongruous, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about the psychological effects on team members of leading as a servant to your team.
