Servant leadership is first originated by Greenleaf in his essay in 1970.
“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.” -Robert K. Greenleaf (Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 2016)
In traditional leadership, leaders use his “power” to influence their followers, whereas in servant leadership, leaders share his power and put the followers first, empower them, and help their full personal capacities as high as possible (Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 2016; Northouse, 2019, p. 225) For that, servant leadership is more focus on leader’s behaviors rather than their traits.
Many scholars tried to conceptualized servant leadership in many ways. Spears(2002) identified 10 special behaviors which are the essential components of servant leadership from Greenleaf writings.
1. Listening
2. Empathy
3. Healing
4. Awareness
5. Persuasion
6. Conceptualization
7. Foresight
8. Stewardship
9. Commitment to the growth of people
10. Building community
Awareness in servant leadership is different from emotional intelligence or self-awareness concept because it is more followers- oriented. With awareness in servant leadership, leaders are able to step aside and reflect themselves and their situations in the big picture.
The model of servant leadership created by Liden, Panaccio, et al. consists of three components: antecedent conditions, servant leadership behaviors and out come. As same as Spear’s definition, the 7 behaviors of leaders are the center of this model : conceptualizing, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community. These behaviors are influenced by antecedent conditions such as context and culture, leader attribute and follower receptivity. Also The result of servant leader’s behaviors is shown as outcome such as create healthy organizations that nature individual growth, strengthen organizational performance, and finally it produce a positive impact on society.
Servant leadership improve an organization over the long term, however its weakness is it takes time to show outcomes.
Reference
Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. (2016). What is servant leadership? Retrieved from https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.