{"id":120,"date":"2018-06-02T09:21:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T15:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/?p=120"},"modified":"2018-06-02T09:21:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T15:21:06","slug":"servant-leader-characteristics-in-action-in-group-project-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/2018\/06\/02\/servant-leader-characteristics-in-action-in-group-project-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Servant Leader Characteristics in Action in Group Project Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any serious study of servant leadership will lead the student to the work of Larry C. Spears.\u00a0 Spears\u2019 work, based on the seminal work of Robert K. Greenleaf, has been focused on understanding the nature and character of servant leaders, and his publications include the following ten characteristics that he posited were \u201c\u2026of critical importance \u2013 central to the development of servant leaders.\u201d (Spears, 2010, p. 27)<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Listening<\/em> \u2013 listening receptively with the purpose of identifying what others want, but also listening and reflecting on one\u2019s inner voice<\/li>\n
  2. Empathy<\/em> \u2013 learning to understand, accept and recognize the uniqueness of others<\/li>\n
  3. Healing<\/em> \u2013 the intentional healing of oneself, relationships with others and making them whole<\/li>\n
  4. Awareness<\/em> \u2013 includes general awareness and self-awareness with the purpose of understanding situations and context<\/li>\n
  5. Persuasion<\/em> \u2013 seeking to convince others rather than coercing, building consensus<\/li>\n
  6. Conceptualization<\/em> \u2013 requires the discipline and practice to have vision for the future and articulate it<\/li>\n
  7. Foresight<\/em> \u2013 utilizing experience from the past within the situations of the present to predict the outcome of the future<\/li>\n
  8. Stewardship \u2013 <\/em>viewing the organization in trust for the greater good of society<\/li>\n
  9. Commitment to the Growth of other people<\/em> \u2013 every person has value and deserves to be invested in personally and professionally<\/li>\n
  10. Building community<\/em> \u2013 lead the way to building a community in the organization<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There are many different actions that leaders can take to effectively coordinate a group project to a successful outcome.\u00a0 I have selected two actions that I think are critically important and that I believe highlight how the ten servant leadership characteristics proposed by Spears can be incorporated into and enacted in servant leadership.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Listen to the people who do the work, and act on their recommendations where possible<\/u>. Dreams and a vision for the future are imperative for an organization to grow, and leaders must practice but leaders must marry conceptualization<\/u> with listening to those who are fighting the good fight on the front lines.\u00a0 The employees understand the work.\u00a0 The front line staff will know what steps in the project can be implemented right away, and what steps will need to wait.\u00a0 The employees will have done some problem solving that leadership is not even aware of and will have solutions and ideas based on objective experience rather than just conceptualization.\u00a0 When employees are listened<\/u> to, and heard, leaders are able to use persuasion<\/u> rather than coercion because the team members become invested in implementing their own ideas and solutions.\u00a0 When leaders listen there is an awareness<\/u> of the skill sets and knowledge that others bring to the project and leaders can encourage and optimize the use of these skills and knowledge, thereby committing to the growth<\/u> of members of the team.\u00a0 An equal exchange of information and ideas between leaders and employees builds community<\/u> within the team and once achieved the majority of the team members become invested in the success of the project.<\/li>\n
    2. Seek to know and understand what has been tried in the past and how<\/u>. This action may be specific to environments like health care where there is often a mix of long term staff and new staff, and a lot of turnover in leadership.\u00a0 Leaders need to listen and understand what has been expected of the staff in the past. \u00a0Leaders need to be awareness of the environment \u2013 if there have been a lot of projects in the past the employees may be experiencing change fatigue.\u00a0 If staff were expected to participate in projects in the past with no ability to provide input into the work, a new project may present the opportunity for a leader to show empathy<\/u> and facilitate healing<\/u> in others and the team.\u00a0 It also may be an opportunity for a leader to further develop self-awareness<\/u>, being intentional about how they are coordinating the project and reflecting on why they are coordinating the project and if this meets the criteria of stewardship<\/u>.\u00a0 Seeking to understand what has, and has not, worked in the past, and the reasons why will assist a leader in developing foresight<\/u> to know what the outcomes of this project and future projects will be.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      There are many actions that could, and should be taken by leaders when coordinating a project in their context.\u00a0 What actions do you think are most important?<\/p>\n

      Reference<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Spears, L.C.\u00a0 (2010).\u00a0 Character and Servant Leadership:\u00a0 Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders. \u00a0The Journal of Virtues and Leadership 1<\/em>(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 25-30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Any serious study of servant leadership will lead the student to the work of Larry C. Spears.\u00a0 Spears\u2019 work, based on the seminal work of Robert K. Greenleaf, has been focused on understanding the nature and character of servant leaders, and his publications include the following ten characteristics that he posited were \u201c\u2026of critical importance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-ldrs500-unit-5","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}