Introduction
Even as it is commonly perceived that Servant Leadership style (Greenleaf, 1977) is a mere derivative of Transformational Leadership style (Burns 1978; Bass 1985), the differences in them can highly impact the organizational outcomes. For example, the transformational leaders principally focus on the sustenance and development of the organization, and in the process, they rely upon their charismatic abilities (Bass, 1960) to align the followers’ individual goals with organizational goals (Yukl, 1998). This leadership defends its perspective with the argument that organization is above anything, since without the existence of organization, followers would not have existed or got any scope to develop and prosper.
On the other hand, servant leaders principally focus on follower development and obtain followers’ confidence through selfless service (Patterson, 2003; Russell and Stone, 2002), as they are driven by the belief that organization goals can be achieved on a long-term basis only through facilitation of growth, development and well-being of the followers (Patterson, Redmer and Stone, 2003). This leadership defends its perspective with the argument that high quality of followers is everything to sustain and develop the organization, since without high quality followers it is impossible to achieve the desired organizational outcome.
In the light of the above two perspectives, this study argues that servant leadership style has an edge over transformational leadership style, and accordingly it compares and discusses two instances of the above leadership styles from personal experience, before developing a critical analysis of servant leadership and substantiating its position.
Two Instances of Leadership Practice
Example of Transformational Leadership
The first leader, Mr. Tom (name changed) was leading the XYZ watch manufacturing company when this author joined there. Most of the employees liked Tom for his commitment to the organization, besides his other qualities. Well-dressed, well-mannered, and punctual, Tom knew every detail of the watch industry. He was also very sociable and always eager to know employees’ views regarding organization-related issues. Resultantly, a large section of the employees considered him as their role model.
There were other reasons to like him as well. For example, he always encouraged the employees to put up their best efforts and emphasized on developing better team communication. To match his words with actions, he would often arrange for training to develop employee potential, besides frequently holding interactive sessions on various topics to boost the creativity in employees. And the best part of his approach was that he would keep track of individual performances of the employees and happily act as a mentor to any employee, besides providing them technical support to do better.
However, Tom’s over-enthusiasm to increase the production rate gradually brought in unreasonable deadlines and long hours for the employees, which most of them did not like and their resentment was eventually reflected in the resignations of some of the highly skilled employees, who blamed “unpaid extra hours as one of the main reasons for leaving” in their exit survey.
The above instance of leadership clearly identifies Tom as a transformational leader, who projected all of the four “I”s, such as Idealized Influence (through his behavior, self-carriage, sociability, and approach to work), Inspirational Motivation (through his encouraging words), Intellectual Stimulation (by arranging training and other programs to boost creativity), and Individualized Consideration (through mentoring and concern for employee well-being). Altogether Tom was doing well before his excessive company-centric approach caused sudden resignation of those highly skilled employees.
The proponents of transformational leadership style may argue that the employees who resigned were not ‘fit’ to cope with extended schedules; however, that can be countered with the fact that long hours of extra work did not allow those employees to maintain their fitness with adequate rest, timely diet and regular recreation. Tom was supposed to care for the above, which he did not, as he had only one emotional attachment, i.e. the XYZ Company.
Tom’s possessiveness regarding company also created a gap in leader-follower communication, otherwise Tom could have learnt about the resentment among those employees who left and could have taken steps to retain them.
Apart from the above, a close observation of Tom’s leadership practice suggests that he always made the final decisions regarding all organizational issues, although he collected inputs from the employees. That way he utilized only one man’s idea in the end and missed using multiple ideas that could have been obtained from the employees, had they been part of the decision making processes.
Example of Servant leadership
On the very first day at office, Mr. Han (name changed) addressed a general meeting with all employees, and he opened his speech by saying, “I’ve finally arrived at my second home, and I thank all the members of this wonderful family, for being here to receive me. And I take this privilege to make a promise before you that I will be at your service from this day one”
It touched all employees who became habituated only in serving the company and Tom’s instructions. And there was more. After briefing about him, Han said, “Well, I would like to start from here,” and then suddenly pulled out a bunch of papers and waved before them while saying, “I wish to start by knowing all of you to some extent and I would appreciate if each one of you kindly write about yourself in these.”
The employees found a template on each sheet handed to them, which contained myriad topics such as personal food preferences, favorite actors, future dreams, ideas to improve the production, and view about reward systems, and so on.
“This template is just a suggestion, I’m not prescribing it,” Han said, “you are always welcome to use your own ideas, and I’m sure that many of you can create much better template.”
Thus right from day one, Han started building rapport with the employees and soon earned their confidence through several actions such as aligning the canteen food with employee preferences, implementing rotation of work, installing a “Shout Board” and an “Idea Box,” lunching with the employees at canteen and chitchatting with them, and so on. To their amazement, the employees found Han remembering each one’s name and individual preferences.
Within a month, absenteeism or any other negative approaches to work in the company was gone, and the workplace started buzzing with more activities, as all employees felt a new wave of enthusiasm engulfing them. There was not a single day when the employees would not put up ideas on the idea box or do not write anything funny on the shout box, as they would find Han as the most intent reader of the same.
At that time Han would encourage each employee by repeatedly saying, “Come out of shell and show the world who you are,” besides reminding them that “pretention of honesty is the worst policy.” Alongside, he was extremely vigilant regarding the well-being of the employees; there are several instances when he personally monitored the caring of employees who fell sick at times. However, the most significant part of Han’s leadership was that he never took decisions alone and instead involved maximum number of employees in any decision making process, before accepting what is being adjudged as the best possible decision within the context by most of the participants. For example, he would sit with the employees on Friday to check the contents of Shout Box and Idea Box, before discussing them and arriving at decisions powered by collectivity.
Soon the company launched a new series of watches, which caught the fancy of the market and resulted in 100% increase in production and sales rates. In the annual event of that year, the company announced additional bonuses for all employees, while Han presented them a little book that he wrote in the interim, where he described by names, how each employee helped the company to reach this position.
The above instance of leadership clearly identifies Han as a servant leader. He cleared his intention right from the first day in office that he wants to serve the followers over and above anything. His care and concern about employee well-being and his knack of empowering the employees to the level of decision making also endorse the above finding.
One may raise an argument from the relational context at this point, that such an unconditional concern for the well-being of the employees over and above the organizational objective does not prove that Han was an able leader. However, the above argument can be countered with the points raised by Harvey (2001), who states, "chasing profits is peripheral; the real point of business is to serve as one of the institutions through which society develops and exercises the capacity for constructive action" (p. 38-39). Alongside, the observation of Greenleaf (1977) that “The great leader is seen as servant first” (in Smith, 2005, p. 4) or the definition of this leadership that it “emphasizes increased service to others; a holistic approach to work; promoting a sense of community; and the sharing of power in decision-making” (Spears, 1996, p. 33) can be used to defend the above argument. Above all, the record performance of the XYZ Company during Han’s tenure settles the issue for once and all.
This study chooses to review Han’s leadership practice within Greenleaf’s 11 principles for servant leaders to ascertain whether this leadership style has an edge over transformational leadership style.
1. Calling: Han tried to intrinsically motivate all employees, e.g., describing workplace as a second home, reminding that “pretention of honesty is the worst policy, and so on.
2. Listening: His actions such as installing the “Shout Board” or the “Idea Box” provide ample hint that he was an intent listener and genuinely interested in their affairs.
3. Empathy: Installation of the Shout Board could not take place unless he was driven by empathy towards the followers.
4. Healing: Again the above Shout Board and the Idea Box prove the point that Han was keen to provide vents to his followers to clear their pent-up feelings.
5. Awareness: Han’s penchant to collect every details of the followers and subsequently remembering each follower’s names clearly prove that he was keen to remain aware about his surroundings.
6. Persuasion: His quip, “The template is just a suggestion, I’m not prescribing it,” amply highlights his ability to pursue a cause.
7. Conceptualization: Han’s actions, such as changing canteen menu, encouraging the followers by reminding them about their potential, etc. provide ample proof that he was able to see the wood while standing beneath a tree.
8. Foresight: He realized that watch industry thrives on constant supply of innovative design and accordingly he installed the Idea Box, which became an invaluable instrument of regularly collecting innovative concepts from all followers.
9. Stewardship: His encouraging words to the followers such as “Come out of shell and show the world who you are,” or his act of including employees in the decision making process easily proves his high degree of stewardship.
10. Growth: The high growth of the XYZ Company within his tenure speaks it all.
11. Community Building: The fact that the workplace of the XYZ Company was transformed into the second home of the employees easily prove his ability of building a community with the followers.
Conclusion
The success of servant leadership style over transformational leadership within the same setting of the XYZ company prompts this study to infer that if leadership style remains leader-centric and followers have the role of only following the leader, then that could be detrimental for the sustenance and development of any organization, since modern day organizations cannot do without exploiting all of its available intellectual capitals. The instances such as employee turnover within the tenure of Tom and record growth in organizational performance during Han’s tenure amply prove the above inference, which in turn substantiates the position of this paper that servant leadership style has an edge over transformational leadership style.
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