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Summary
Leadership has many forms and definitions all which are determined by the role of the leader particularly in how they relate with those they are expected to lead or guide. Servant leadership is one of the most revered forms of leadership in that it stresses on the importance of service as the core element of enabling the people to meet the expectations of the society or the workplace. Greenleaf is credited with describing the concept of leadership. This however does not indicate that servant leadership gained its fame and acceptance with the description provided by Greenleaf (Panaccio et al., 2014).
Servant leadership has a historical context and it traverses to the early Church. In fact, servant leadership is the basis on which Jesus Christ related his role in the church and the world and encouraged his followers to practice. In Greenleaf’s perspective, servant leaders are driven by the value of the individuals who have a contribution to the organization. Servant leaders do not prioritize the affinity with the organization before that of the individuals. In essence, rather than a sense of emotional resistance to observing the importance of the organization and the individuals concurrently, servant leadership is concerned about the wellbeing of the individuals in the knowledge that their well being reflects the organization’s success.
The servant leader, in Greenleaf’s view and even from a Biblical perspective seeks to gain followers as opposed to commanding them. The servant leader through their action seeks to act as the role models who serve selflessly in the expectation that those they lead can take similar perspectives of what leadership entails (Liden, Wayne, Liao & Meuser, 2014). Servant leaders will emphasize on serving and developing relationships with the people who serve the organization. They are thus not driven by results and their review of success is based on how these relationships are built to serve rather than to achieve predefined objectives.
The Biblical context of service leadership can be related to the Story of the mother of Zebedee’s sons and Jesus. In this story of the Bible Jesus explains that leaders are expected to serve contrasting such kind of leadership with the Gentiles’ form of leadership that is authoritative. Jesus expounds that for one to be a leader they must be ready to suffer “and whoever wants to be first must be your slave” (Mathew 20:27 New International Version). Apparently, the context here has a contradiction with the description of a servant leader as defined by Greenleaf. For Greenleaf, servant leadership is based on the well being of the followers even as they serve selflessly. There is no expectation that one has to suffer or act as a slave to achieve the status of a servant leader.
The overall context across the Biblical description and Greenleaf’s context is that the servant leader has to entrust his followers with responsibility and power and their selfless attitude will be in the best interests of the organization (Panaccio et al., 2014). The power of the servant leader is thus defined by how well they integrate with their followers and how they all act selflessly for the wellbeing of each other and subsequently for the organization. The servant leader will not watch the followers suffer for the organization and on the other hand, the followers will do all they can to ensure that the leader does not suffer for the organization. The mutual relationship between the followers and the leader is the basis of servant leadership (Liden, Wayne, Liao & Meuser, 2014). The Biblical context expects the servant leader to prioritize the church as the organization and ensure that the church meets its core objectives. In this view, they have to encourage their followers to be ready to give their all for the church to prosper in the hope that the prosperity of the church is the prosperity of the followers.
References
Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance.Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), 1434-1452.
Matthew. The Holy Bible: New International Version. New York: HarperTorch, 1993. Print.
Panaccio, A., Donia, M., Saint-Michel, S., & Liden, R. C. (2015). 16. Servant leadership and wellbeing. Flourishing in Life, Work and Careers: Individual Wellbeing and Career Experiences, 334.
