Chris’s Question:

“Have you experienced being a follower on a team where a leader clearly struggled with one of the ten characteristics of servant leadership from Spears? How did that impact you and the team you were a part of?” (Vacher, 2018)

Hi Chris,
This is a great question to prompt reflection and consolidate learning. In response, yes, I have been a follower on a team where the leader struggled with the servant characteristic of persuasion. As you referred to in your post, persuasion implies that the leader “seeks to convince others, rather than coerce” (Spears, 2010, p. 28). Team consensus is a priority as oppose to the “top down” approach to team management. In my case, it was the Clinical Nurse Specialist on our team leading changes to the front-line nursing staff’s practice, in order to prepare for meeting accreditation standards. Unfortunately, her efforts to make changes to how certain care practices are implemented was met with a lot resistance. As the nurse leader, it is my role to support staff through organizational change. With that in mind, in this situation I could appreciate the struggle of the nurses to ‘buy in’ to these changes in practice because from a practical standpoint they didn’t take into account the extra work being placed on the nurses. One of the biggest issues that I see in my organization, and I am sure is present in others, is the members with positional hierarchy enforcing change on the people that are directly affected by the change. These nurses aren’t consulted or included in the change process and this leads to problems. Even after advocating for the nursing staff and bringing the practical issues back to the Clinical Nurse Specialist, nothing was altered. The changes were still implemented and adherence remains a problem because group consensus is still far from being achieved. Leadership without persuasion causes a disconnect with team members and as I have witnessed, will prevent collaboration and effective team functioning.

Daneen

References

Spears, Larry C. (2010) Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1 (1), 25-30. Retrieved from https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/jvl/vol1_iss1/Spears_Final.

Vacher, C. (2018, October 23). Servant Leadership Characteristics in Team Leadership – Unit 5, Learning Activity 2. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/chrisvacher/2018/10/23/servant-leadership-characteristics-in-team-leadership-unit-5-learning-activity-2/