Leadership means to show the path to others and moving towards a goal which could benefit a large number of people. Servant Leadership is a model and practice of leadership promulgated by Robert K Greenleaf in decade of seventies, though the idea of servant leadership is very old and ancient thinkers like Chanakya and Lao Tzu mentioned about it in their creations in 4th BC. It is a kind of philosophy rather than being a principle and is contrary to command model of leadership.
Servant leaders believe in serving the people, community and organizations. They encourage others also for serving others and instead of giving a command they believe in a participative way for a positive cause. Servant leaders believe that the employees should be considered partners and should not be treated like slaves. This model of leadership is a very significant model for society, politics, communities and associations where people who are elected by the members are under duty to serve the people of the society or community. A servant leader always believes in saying “let’s go” instead of “Go” and in the building of society and community takes the lead always.
Some essential features of a servant leader are: convincing capacity, awareness, always ready to serve people, committed towards growth of the people and society, visionary, ready to listen others, articulating concepts. By adopting these requirements a leader gets the power and becomes popular in society and community. This model of leadership is so powerful that many religious, social and political organizations also have started following it for betterment .
Reference
Waddell, J. T. (2006, August). School of Leadership Studies. Retrieved October 11, 2011, from www.regent.edu: http://regent.edu/acad/global/publications/sl_proceedings/2006/waddell.pdf
