Introduction
Servant leadership is generally defined as a combination of practices and philosophy involved in making an effective leader . Leaders with this approach enable their followers to improve level of productivity and performance. They facilitate the process of learning and task accomplishment by playing a proactive role. They provide a comfortable zone for people to share their problems and leave no leaf unturned to resolve the issues .
Characteristics of servant leaders
Following are the most important characteristics that have been defined by scholars and are considered significant in determining a servant leader.
- Listening: This is the most indispensable characteristics which a leader should have to listen to its people and give keen attention to others .
- Empathy: An effective leader should be capable of understanding the stance of his people and put their perspective above all .
- Healing: Servant leader must have the ability to foster the process of betterment of his people and fulfill their emotions and sanity .
- Awareness: This is the most crucial characteristic as it entails the self-awareness of a leader about his strengths, weakness, feelings, emotions, goals, values and plans .
- Persuasiveness: Servant leader always motivate people through his own acts and persuade them to strive hard to achieve set objectives .
- Conceptualization: Servant leader should have impeccable power to visualize the future plans and objectives in a realistic way while keeping in view the available resources .
- Foresight: Servant leader is supposed to have an incredible sense to comprehend the future possibilities and opportunities and is perfectly able to connect the past incident with present simultaneously .
- Stewardship: Servant leader is the one who keeps the hold on all the available resources of any state, country or an organization and people place complete trust in him. He makes best possible use of these resources in order to get maximum output .
- Commitment: Servant leader is wholeheartedly devoted to upgrade the quality of his people’s life and will fulfill all their desires and needs .
- Building society: servant leader should develop healthy relation among people and form a society with great sense of cooperation and trust .
These above mentioned characteristics are not exhaustive but still help in achieving the aims .Leaders should reflects themselves as a role model and provide the platform for handling all the issues in an effective manner.
Based on the Servant Leadership Model, I evaluated my personality on following 10 characteristics based on the questions mentioned against each.
- Listening: How effectively I listen to others?
- Empathy: How good am I at understanding others’ perspective and feelings?
- Healing: At what scale, do I stand in terms of supporting others in their emotional and spiritual issues?
- Awareness: How much realization of my own strengths and weaknesses, feelings and values do I possess?
- Persuasion: How effective am I while persuading someone?
- Conceptualization: How effectively I organize my resources while achieving feasible plans?
- Foresight: How good my foresightedness is about the future happenings according to the circumstances?
- Stewardship: How much consideration do I put in avoiding waste of resources that are placed under my charge?
- Commitment to the growth of people: How much do I commit myself for helping and supporting others?
- Building community: How good am I at building sense of community within the people around me?
The answers of each question are taken on a scale from 1-10 in which the rating is as per following table:
Self-Assessment
Firstly, I evaluated my personality by answering all of the abovementioned questions to myself. The complete questionnaire along with answers are as following:
- How effectively I listen to others?
A: 9
- How good am I at understanding others’ perspective and feelings?
A: 8
- At what scale, do I stand in terms of supporting others in their emotional and spiritual issues?
A: 9
- How much realization of my own strengths and weaknesses, feelings and values do I possess?
A: 9
- How effective am I while persuading someone?
A: 8
- How effectively I organize my resources while achieving feasible plans?
A: 7
- How good my foresightedness is about the future happenings according to the circumstances?
A: 8
- How much consideration do I put in avoiding waste of resources that are placed under my charge?
A: 9
- How much do I commit myself for helping and supporting others?
A: 8
- How good am I at building sense of community within the people around me?
A: 7
Based on the abovementioned rating it can be deduced that I am exceptionally good at listening, healing, awareness and stewardship whereas very good at Empathy, persuasion, foresight, and commitment to the growth of people. Similarly I have rated myself as good at conceptualization and building community.
Coworker
- How effectively I listen to others?
A: 8
- How good am I at understanding others’ perspective and feelings?
A: 7
- At what scale, do I stand in terms of supporting others in their emotional and spiritual issues?
A: 7
- How much realization of my own strengths and weaknesses, feelings and values do I possess?
A: 7
- How effective am I while persuading someone?
A: 8
- How effectively I organize my resources while achieving feasible plans?
A: 6
- How good my foresightedness is about the future happenings according to the circumstances?
A: 6
- How much consideration do I put in avoiding waste of resources that are placed under my charge?
A: 8
- How much do I commit myself for helping and supporting others?
A: 7
- How good am I at building sense of community within the people around me?
A: 5
Based on the abovementioned rating it can be deduced that in the eyes of my coworkers I am very good at listening, persuasion and stewardship whereas good at Empathy, healing, awareness and commitment to the growth of people. On the other hand my coworker has rated me above average in conceptualization and foresight. Another interesting revelation from the assessment of my coworker indicated that my coworkers think of me as just an average person in terms of building community.
Personal Associate
- : How effectively I listen to others?
A: 9
- : How good am I at understanding others’ perspective and feelings?
A: 7
- : At what scale, do I stand in terms of supporting others in their emotional and spiritual issues?
A: 8
- : How much realization of my own strengths and weaknesses, feelings and values do I possess?
A: 9
- : How effective am I while persuading someone?
A: 7
- : How effectively I organize my resources while achieving feasible plans?
A: 5
- : How good my foresightedness is about the future happenings according to the circumstances?
A: 5
- : How much consideration do I put in avoiding waste of resources that are placed under my charge?
A: 7
- : How much do I commit myself for helping and supporting others?
A: 6
- : How good am I at building sense of community within the people around me?
A: 7
Based on the abovementioned rating it can be deduced that my personal associates think of me as exceptionally good at listening and awareness whereas very good at healing only. My personal associates also think that I am good at empathy, persuasion, stewardship and building community whereas just above average at commitment to the growth of people. The astonishing thing in this assessment was that my personal associates think of me at average in conceptualization and foresight.
Analysis of the Assessments
In order to analyze all the three assessments from self, coworker and personal associate, a consolidated view of all the answers are required to be placed together. This consolidated view of the assessments are presented in tabular form as following for the comparison of assessments between self and coworker:-
Abovementioned table clearly show that my self-assessment rates either higher or equal to what my coworker’s rating do. In most of the cases my coworker rates me lower than my own rating. For instance in the assessment by my coworker I got 2 degrees lower in healing, awareness, foresight and building community. This shows that I think of myself as more helpful, supportive and intuitive than what my coworkers perceive. On the other hand there is slight difference of just one degree in other characteristics except persuasion in which my coworker rated me same as I rated myself.
Following table shows the comparison of my self-assessment and the assessment of my personal associate:-
The abovementioned table clearly indicates that my personal associate also rates my lower than my self-assessment rating. My personal associate rates me far lower than my self-assessment in foresight in which the difference is about 3 degrees. Similarly there is a difference of 2 degrees in conceptualization, stewardship and commitment to the growth of people. It seems like that this difference may be due to the fact that my personal associate is not very well aware of my professionalism. The important thing to note here is that my personal associate rated me equal to my self-assessment rating in listening awareness and building community which shows that I am quite a good personal associate to my personal associates.
Following table shows the comparison of coworker and the assessment of my personal associate:-
This assessment comparison is quite critical in nature since it is based on all the outside sources i.e. how people see myself in terms of the characteristics of servant leader. In this comparison it can be seen that my coworker has rated me higher on some characteristics whereas my personal associate has rated me higher on some other characteristics. There is only one characteristic in which both my coworker and my personal associate have rated me equally which is empathy. My coworker has rated be higher on persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship and commitment to the growth of people as compared to my personal associate’s rating. The simple reason for the such an assessment could be that my coworker knows me better in my professional life so his comparison in professional characteristics are closer to what I rated myself meaning higher in these characteristics than my personal associate’s rating.
Similarly my personal associate has rated me higher at listening, healing, awareness, and building community as compared to my coworker’s rating. This same reason applies in this case as well since my personal associate knows me more in personal life than my coworker does. This difference of assessment in the ratings of my coworker and my personal associate is logically acceptable; however, the only problematic thing is that both of these people have rated me lower in most of the characteristics as compared to my self-assessment. This situation clearly indicates that I need improvement in projecting what I consider about myself. This could be an indication of introvert personality in which a person do not interact or communicate with full zeal and zest with others.
Recommendations
The multi-dimensional assessment of my personality from self, coworker and personal associate is of critical importance in improving myself as a servant leader. The most important thing here is to put in efforts in making my personality more overt so that people other than me also know about myself as a good servant leader. I need to improve my conceptualization and building capabilities as well since all the three assessments rate me lower in these categories.
Another important recommendation to improve myself as servant leader is that I should emphasize on balancing the servant leader characteristics in my personal as well as professional life. This is due to the fact realized in the assessments from my coworker and personal associate in which my coworker knows me as a good servant leader in professional characteristics whereas my personal associate knows me as a good servant leader in personal characteristics only. This difference of opinion from both of these dimensions are required to be reduced for which I need to improve my personal skills in workplace side by side improving my professional skills in personal life.
Since a servant leader is the one who places more importance to others as compared to himself so I need to do the same which will improve my personality as a servant leader. In this context, I need to gradually improve myself in each of the characteristics simultaneously. This change may not be significant at the beginning but will surely reflect my personality as better servant leader in longer run.
Conclusion
Servant leadership is a critical and powerful leadership model which places focus on ten basic characteristics of a leader. This leadership model can be used to improve oneself through assessing on the characteristics presented in it. The three dimensional assessment in the servant leadership model consisting of self, coworker and personal associate were quite significant as these assessments showed clearly about how I consider myself as an effective servant leader and how my personal and professional associates do so. This paper helped me realize many weaknesses of my personality which need improvements as mentioned in the recommendations. The servant leadership model can be implemented by any one in any field even in personal life as well. Servant leadership model brings awareness in oneself about the weaknesses side by side encouragement about one’s strengths. The three dimensional assessment of my personality brought a good change in my thoughts about myself in terms of realizing the areas of my life in which I need improvement and especially the kind of balance my personal and professional life needs.
References
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