Learning Activity 5 : Blog Post 3

 

Servant leadership principles

Northouse (2016) proposed a total of seven servant leader behaviours. From these behaviours, I have chosen; conceptualization, persuasion and commitment to the growth of people (pp. 233 – 236). The following is a brief description of each one, as asserted by Northouse (2016);

Conceptualization: entails being visionary; seeing the big picture and providing direction towards attaining it without being out of touch with solving current challenges.

Persuasion: entails convincing others to change without resorting to the use of positional authority. Persuasion could be achieved using through clear and consistent communication methods.

Commitment to the growth of people: this entails helping people or followers grow professionally and personally.

Of these three principles listed above, the one I could find more challenging to consistently actualize in my professional practice is persuasion. This is because of the three, based on my experiences, persuading others requires the deepest level of my personal involvement as a leader. Further, where there are apparently conflicting interests, in spite of one’s best efforts as a leader, persuading others could be extremely difficult where the other party or parties choose to remain adamant.

 

Question

If servant leaders are not expected to exert the positional authority in enforcing compliance, how else are they expected to manage situations where subordinates bluntly refuse the more persuasive approach, especially where their refusal to adjust could be detrimental to the organization?