What is Servant Leadership?

In other recent Leadership pieces, I have looked at multiple Leadership Styles including Adaptive Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Present Leadership & the importance of humility to becoming a ‘Good to great’ Leader.

Today though I want to take a closer look at Servant Leadership.

Robert K Greenleaf first coined the phrase Servant Leadership in an essay published in 1970. The Servant Leader is a Servant-1st he wrote:

“It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. The conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead”.

Greenleaf argued that this individual was different from one who is a Leader-1st, perhaps because the Leader-1st needed to assuage an unusual power drive or was motivated to acquire material possessions.

So, would a Servant Leader be Shakespeare’s Henry V or Prince Hal?

As Prince Henry says in Henry 1V, Part 1 — Act 1, Sc 2:

“… I imitate the sun , who doth permit base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world”.

Through his actions Hal is serving some other purpose and chooses not to reveal himself and what he truly feels. In fact, he’s having a fine time romping & carousing with Falstaff, Pistol, Bardolph and the rest of his gang.

Yet this Prince of course, becomes Henry V who many would cite as a clear example of a Leader-1st.

Greenleaf suggests that the Leader-1st & the Servant-1st are 2 extreme types and in between these 2 distinct archi-types are shadings and blends that are part of the, “Infinite variety of human nature” and represent the full spectrum of the Human Condition.

The real difference manifests itself in the care taken by the Servant-1st to make sure that other peoples’ highest priority needs are being served & the best test is then to ask whether those served grow as people?

Do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous through experiencing this Leadership? And are they likely to become Servant Leaders themselves?

Afterall surely the real purpose of a Leader is to create more Leaders?

There are also both societal & organisational dimensions at play here. For example, within the Servant Leadership model a question can be raised concerning the effect/impact on the least privileged, or least equipped?

Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived, or disenfranchised by such Leadership?

Whilst on an organisational level, the challenge to Institutions and wider society as a whole, is to both ask and answer the question of whether the capacity to serve and the very act of Servant Leadership contributes towards creating greater personal and social resilience, together with social wellness. Big themes, Mai Oui?

What Prince Henry was recognising in his journey from callow youth to future King, is that as a Leader he would become responsible not just to his immediate coterie of followers, but also to a much wider society — His future Kingdom!

When Hal continued with his metaphor of the Sun, saying (Act 1, Sc 2) —

“… When He pleases again to be himself, Being wanted, He may be more wondered at, by breaking through the foul and ugly mists of Vapours, that did seem to strangle Him”

He was giving voice and form to His internal conflict as he actively sought meaning and tried to understand his future role and purpose; how to reveal himself & then how to Act?

I have already written in previous pieces that the 1st responsibility of a Leader is to understand what is needed by defining reality & knowing the story they want and need to tell — See the link to my ‘Leader as Story Teller & Story Doer’ piece below.

This is in fact one of the 2 fundamental needs identified by Peter Senge as being key to acquiring Personal Mastery in his book, ‘The Fifth Discipline’.

I suppose in conclusion, E M Forster might have written, “Connect All” and achieve a Common Purpose!

Afterall as my ‘Leader as Story Teller & Story Doer’ piece explains — creating a common purpose is part of a leader’s DNA and key purpose.

Paul Mudd is the author of ‘Uncovering Mindfulness: In Search Of A Life More Meaningful’ available on Amazon and www.bookboon.com; the ‘Coffee & A Cup of Mindfulness’ and the ‘Mindful Hacks For Mindful Living & Mindful Working’ series. He is also a Contributing Author to The Huffington Post and a Contributing Writer to Thrive Global. Through The Mudd Partnership he works with business leaders, organisations and individuals in support of change, leadership excellence, business growth, organistional and individual wellbeing and well doing, and introducing Mindfulness. He can be contacted at paul@themuddpartnership.co.uk and you can follow the continuing journey uncovering Mindfulness on Twitter @TheMindfulBook and at @Paul_Mudd