Servant Leadership for an Everyday Leader
Theories & Practical Tips
Being a leader is a big buzzword in today’s society; job descriptions and employers are constantly demanding it. But what does leadership really mean?
Sometimes, being able to lead something doesn’t necessarily translate to being a good leader. Traditional leadership is viewed as someone who is an extrovert, outspoken, and dictates. However, modern-day leadership has shifted away from these stereotypes, and leadership education has assimilated new outlooks on leadership and how to recognize it. Over the past 60 years, many experiments and theories have been developed to analyze leadership approaches. Many among these include the trait, skills style, and situational theories.
The Trait Approach explains how leadership can be demonstrated by innate traits such as intelligence, integrity, self-confidence, and determination. The theory suggests that leaders hold all of these traits in addition to those connected in the Big Five personality factors like neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
The skills theory, on the other hand, pays less attention to an individual’s abilities. These can be broken down into various technical skills and human skills. This theory particularly emphasizes the skills necessary for different hierarchical needs of management from supervisory management, to middle and top management (Northouse, 2013).
The Style Approach of leadership expands on the Skills Approach and suggests that there is a matrix (left) that displays an individual’s various concerns for people and project results. The ideal leader in this matrix is someone who displays both a high concern for completing tasks and a high concern for the relationships on their team.
Lastly, the Situational Approach takes team members’ task development levels linked with the leader’s level of supportive behavior. The four ways a leader can adapt their behavior can be observed depending on the position of follower/subordinate.
Today, in summation with these theories, society is in more need of
servant leaders. Leadership education is taking a dramatic shift; stating that servant leadership is for everyone. There is also a growing number of self-help podcasts, videos, books, and workshops for aspiring leaders all throughout the United States. A servant leader is a person who leads a team for the greater good of the mission and its members, looking outside of themselves and focusing on the growth of others. This type of leadership is developed over time, but is not impossible! Even better, it is needed for any job in any season of life. Below are four suggestions to improve your leadership tendencies both now and in the future.
1. Be humble.
The first step to becoming a servant leader is humility. Humility isn’t about allowing other people to treat you like a doormat; it is all about knowing the truth about yourself. It requires understanding your strengths and using them accordingly to assist your team. This also means acknowledging your weaknesses and accepting that you can’t be good at everything. In other words, this requires self-reflection and awareness.
Setting the foundation of humility allows you to recognize areas of growth. Once you can pinpoint areas of your leadership style that need improvement, you can change old habits into new and improved tactics.
The Digital Corps is composed of seven unique teams and a professional staff that offer abilities in a wide range of disciplines. Our team members must know the truth about different strengths and weaknesses — both in skills and personalities — so that we can have a comprehensive view of how each of us complements one another.
2. Seek benefit for others, not yourself.
Sometimes, we can have a selfish mindset when we assume leadership positions. When we manage a new project at work or in class, our first thought should not be: “Wow! This opportunity is really great for me.” Instead, reframe your thoughts! Consider:
- How can I best serve this team?
- In what ways can I make tasks easier on my team?
- How is my team benefiting from this project?
- Does the team have everything they need to complete their tasks?
Being a humble leader does not require you to think less of yourself and your ability. Instead, it requires you to think less frequently about yourself and think more frequently of others. Changing our thought patterns to be more conscientious of others enables us to be sensitive to the needs of our team and the potential impact of our efforts.
Projects at the Digital Corps often have large scopes. We create solutions and identify opportunities for a variety of organizations on Ball State University’s campus and throughout the state of Indiana. More often than not, leaders on projects have an important part because their role extends benefits to hundreds, if not thousands, of anonymous users. Leaders here must look outside their own bubble and realize how their decisions positively (or negatively) impacts others.
In our Junior Project Manager (JPM) training, a program that equips students for leadership, we learn how each individual at the Corps is unique and their skills are applicable to a variety of projects.
JPMs plan large-scope projects that require big-picture thinking and directing a variety of team members. One key characteristic of being a JPM is that they are not permitted to contribute to the projects they lead. Instead, their position allows them to be an enabler and help their team create solutions through support and direction. In this way, it helps them position their mindset to focus on the group rather than themselves.
Erin Groff, a member of the Project Management Team, has excellent insight on this aspect of being a leader:
“A good leader is able to keep projects moving and motivate their team to reach its goals. Being a leader isn’t about being a do-er. It’s about being there for the people around you to do things better.”
3. Practice empathy
We live in a world that demands results. We often forget that we are working with people, who are sometimes subject to error and are limited by time. Sometimes we can be so concerned with achieving a task that we forget that our teammates are not machines!
Every person is incredibly unique with different sets of skills and a unique personality. Understanding each team member is important for not only assigning tasks, but it comes in handy when handling conflict and making decisions down the road. This aspect of leadership is reflected in multiple leadership theories, emphasizing on the need for human skills and team relationships as much as task completion.
At the Digital Corps, it is necessary that our JPMs know who is on their team, what background abilities they obtain, how they handle stress, how they respond to road-blocks, and how they prefer to be appreciated. Developing high levels of relationship abilities (emotional intelligence) help leaders to be more attentive to these needs.
Sometimes, it helps to “put yourself in another’s shoes.” This tactic is used best when there is a miscommunication, or when tasks are not met.
We can come across team members that don’t meet deadlines and follow proper procedures, which can result in confusion on the leader’s part. More often than not, it’s the responsibility of the leader to know where the team member is coming from so they can resolve the situation.
When we experience situations like these, there may also be instances in which a personal, family, or friend situation may be affecting their performance or mood. Although we know that it may not always be appropriate for these circumstances to come into the workplace, it still happens! Servant leaders must always be sensitive to these possibilities.
4. Learn how to communicate with your team.
Sometimes you have to adapt your leadership style depending on the team. You may encounter a self-motivated team who keeps track of their tasks effectively and can work with little supervision. In other instances, you may have individuals on your team who need a bit more guidance.
It is your job as a servant leader to understand the individuals on your team and direct them accordingly.
Not only is it important to understand how to communicate with specific team members, but it can also be helpful to know what to communicate. Certain industries come with their own unique set of lingo or jargon. For example, developers may say things like, “I wrote the entire backend in React!” or “The database has a lot of bugs.” If you didn’t major in computer science, some of these words may seem completely foreign to you!
“It is important to have effective communication as a leader in the office. If you are communicating something and those around you aren’t understanding it, you are probably going to have to change the way you say things to your team. If five people don’t understand their tasks or their role, it’s probably a ‘you’ problem. It’s your responsibility as leader to use your words effectively and change our approach to benefit others.” — Erin Goff, Project Management Team
Leaders at the Digital Corps have the opportunity to direct teams for projects in a variety of disciplines. These can range from video production, web design, mobile development, or marketing plans. Students are often given the opportunity to work on projects beyond their area of expertise. Although I am a marketing major and have never held a professional-grade video camera, I have managed projects for clients that need short documentaries and training videos. My co-worker is a video production major, and he has led projects for comprehensive website development. In these cases, leaders must learn how to use their team’s language to efficiently accomplish a common goal.
Servant leadership isn’t just for the brave or the extroverts; it is for everyone! It is developed over time and requires a conscious effort and self-awareness. In this type of leadership, individuals strive to be humble, seek benefits for others, and communicate effectively with their team. Each team has sets of unique talents and skills to offer, and it is up to their leader to recognize and understand these differences. With these tips in your leadership tool belt, you are on your way to serving your team with excellence!
References
Goldberg, L. (1990). An Alternative “Description of Personality:” The Big Five Factor Structure. Retrieved from https://projects.ori.org/lrg/PDFs_papers
/Goldberg.Big-Five-FactorsStructure.JPSP.1990.pdf.
Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Eighth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Winter, T. (2016). From Snow White to Darth Vader: Identify Your Leadership Style With the Managerial Grid. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com
/pulse/from-snow-white-darth-vader-identify-your-leadership-style-winter/.
