According to Northouse (2016), leadership can be defined as ‘a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal’ (p. 6).
Sometimes the process of leadership can be lost in pursuit of the goal, but there is growth in the process that would not occur through any other way. In the process of influencing followers, not only do the followers change and grow, but so does the leader. This process of growing together in pursuit of a common goal can not only help achieve the goal at hand, but can also equip both the leader and the followers to better achieve goals in the future.
This growth that occurs could not occur outside of a group context. The group is what creates an “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17, English Standard Version) environment. This growth best occurs when leaders practice servant leadership. When leaders influence followers through the model of servant leadership they “…should make every attempt to share their power and enable others to grow and become autonomous” (Northouse, 2016, p. 239). By sharing their power with followers, leaders take a humble position that allows them to grow alongside followers. Sharing their power is also a way for leaders to influence followers. Influence is not something that is aggressive; rather it is something that is earned through mutual respect and dialogue. Taking a position of servant leadership fosters an environment for this kind of respect and dialogue to be formed with followers, making the leaders influence more genuine.
Are there other, or better, ways for a leader to gain genuine influence than servant leadership?
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
October 3, 2018 at 11:48 am
Excellent work with your APA citations!
You briefly touch on the concept of “sharing power” as an important leadership action. What does “sharing power” look like in your professional context? In what ways have you “shared power” as a leader?
— Leadership Prof
October 4, 2018 at 9:29 pm
In my professional context sharing power looks like equipping followers to make final decisions on certain matters, allowing them to lead projects – even when they complete them very differently than I would, and giving them an equal say in decision making processes.
The organization I work with has a big focus on discipleship. Somewhere in my career I picked up this concept that a good model of discipleship is: 1. The leader does it first and the disciple watches. 2. The leader initiates and the disciple participates. 3. The disciple initiates and the leader participates. 4. The disciple does it and the leader watches. In this sense, I have often said that I will be a successful leader – in my context – if I can work myself out of a job. The reason I say that is because that means I will have successfully lead a follower through this discipleship process to a point where they are able to do my job on their own.
I know that this model would not work in every context, or necessarily even make sense for ever context, however, I think that sharing power could work in many contexts. I think that at its heart, the idea of sharing power has to do with how followers are treated. Are they given a voice? Are they able to contribute in a way that makes them feel valuable? Is the leader humble enough to admit that they can learn from followers? Do followers have authority to make certain decisions? Do they know that when they make decisions that are in their authority to do so that they will be supported by the leader? These are all questions I would ask that would indicate to me if power was being shared.
I will admit that I have not studied this idea of sharing power and so these ideas are rooted in my own experience and ideas about what this would look like. I would love to hear some other thoughts from people in different contexts and what their experience has been.