Servant leadership prioritizes followers and their interests and development over that of the leader or the organization (Northouse, 2016). The term was first coined and written about by Robert K. Greenleaf (Northouse, 2016); he wrote, “it starts with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first” (as cited in Van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1230). Greenleaf did “not leave us an empirically validated definition of servant leadership” (Van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1229), which has resulted in many different definitions of servant leadership.

In an attempt to clarify the concept Spears identified ten characteristics of servant leaders from Greenleaf’s writings: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community (Spears, 2010). This was further developed by Barbuto and Wheeler who “through scale development and validation procedures, they identified five dimensions – altruistic calling, emotional healing, wisdom, persuasive mapping and organizational stewardship” (Searle and Barbuto, 2011, p. 109).

I would like to make particular note of awareness as it is different in servant leadership than in other theories of leadership such as the psychodynamic approach. In servant leadership awareness, like the other characteristics identified by Spears (2010), are for the purpose of serving followers. “It includes understanding oneself and the impact one has on others” (Northouse, 2016, p. 228). In contrast, the psychodynamic approach says, that “the essence of leadership is the ability to use motivational patterns to influence others” (Northouse, 2016, p. 306). Awareness within the psychodynamic approach is for the sake of getting followers to produce rather than serving and empowering them.

Even with the focus of servant leadership being on serving and empowering followers, “the outcomes of servant leadership are follower performance and growth, organizational performance and societal impact” (Northouse, 2016, p. 236) and there is a correlation between servant leadership and “extra effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness” (Searle and Barbuto, 2011). This demonstrates that in spite of its paradoxical nature (Northouse, 2016), servant leadership serves not only followers, but also has the potential to serve the organization.

This is modelled through Southwest Airlines. Colleen Barrett, who is the president of Southwest Airlines talks about the pyramid model that Southwest Airlines follows. She says that contrary to most companies who put their shareholders at the top of the pyramid, followed by customers and then employees, Southwest Airlines put employees at the top of the pyramid and shareholders at the bottom (KnowledgeAtWharton, 2008). This model has obviously worked for Southwest Airlines as they continue to operate as a business. I would further personally affirm that this model is working from a customer perspective as Southwest Airlines continues to be one of my favourite airlines to travel with.

References:

[KnowledgeAtWharton]. (2008, July 9). Southwest Airlines’ Colleen Barrett on ‘servant leadership’ [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TgR95vnM0c

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Searle, T. P., & Barbuto, J. E., Jr. (2011). Servant leadership, hope, and organizational virtuousness: A framework exploring positive micro and macro behaviors and performance impact. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 18(1), 107-117. doi: 10.1177/1548051810383863

Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.vizenllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CharacherAndServantLeadership.pdf

Van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228-1261. doi:10.1177/0149206310380462