What Is a Servant Leader?
A servant leader is a servant first. Servant leaders are committed to the growth of others, build influence through authentic, trust-based relationships, and achieve goals without jeopardizing the future or harming well-being. Greenleaf outlined 10 principles that help servant leaders lead effectively.
The Impact of Servant Leadership in an Organization
The impact of servant leadership in an organization can be seen in employees’ performance, commitment to their work, and their level of trust in leadership. Servant leaders demonstrate care toward employees, keep them motivated, and help them feel psychologically safe, resulting in these positive impacts.
Why Servant Leadership Is Important in Business
Servant leadership is important in business because it puts people first and emphasizes relationships over results. The principles of servant leadership are conducive to a positive employee experience, support a collaborative, inclusive work environment, and keep employees motivated to consistently perform well.
How to Be a Servant Leader (7 Steps)
Authenticity and trust-based relationships are central to servant leadership. Servant leaders are able to build strong relationships and generate cultural buy-in in ways that contribute to a high degree of employee engagement and employee satisfaction. Some of the common characteristics of servant leadership include appreciation, a caring attitude, humility, strong listening skills, and a high degree of trust.
The Role of a Servant Leader
The role of a servant leader is to serve others first rather than seek material rewards and more power for themselves. The servant leader is a good steward of the organization’s resources, particularly its people, and inspires leaders to serve others first as they guide teams toward achieving a vision.
7 Key Principles of Servant Leadership
The seven key principles of servant leadership are authenticity, strong communication, integrity, compassion, empowerment, continuous improvement, and putting others first. They reflect the values of servant leadership, support a positive employee experience, and keep team members motivated to perform well.
How Leaders Influence Others
Leaders influence others in positive ways by building trust-based relationships with them, committing to their growth, maintaining authority while offering them autonomy, fostering a culture of accountability, articulating a vision that unites them with a shared sense of purpose, and valuing people over profits.
10 Characteristics of Servant Leadership
The 10 characteristics of servant leadership are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. These characteristics are conducive to building authentic, trusting relationships with team members.
The Main Principles of Servant Leadership
The main principles of servant leadership are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. These characteristics are conducive to building authentic, trusting relationships with team members.
5 Responsibilities of a Leader
The five responsibilities of a leader are articulating a vision that unites team members, communicating culture, modeling core values, fostering a harmonious, inclusive work environment, and inspiring and motivating their teams to consistently produce exceptional work.