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For the past several weeks, we’ve been
exploring servant leadership, a style of leadership that turns many aspects of traditional, “command
and control” leadership on their heads. Any time you discover a new leadership style
or model, you probably want to know more about what the model looks like in
action, so for the next three weeks, I’ll be taking servant leadership closer to
ground level. I’ll be summarizing the
essential practices of servant leaders, as described by Kent M. Keith, in The Case for Servant Leadership.
The first two key leadership practices
Keith describes are self-awareness
and listening. It’s not a coincidence that self-awareness is
the first practice because, in the “physician, heal thyself” tradition, change
begins with us. Self-awareness is the “mother
skill” because it allows the development of the other skills. If you aren’t aware of your strengths and
growth opportunities, how can you turn the latter into the former? How can you make your strengths even better? You can’t.
Further, self-awareness is important because
robust teams – the outcome of good leadership – can’t be formed by a leader who
doesn’t understand her impact. Leaders
in a group have enormous influence.
Keith and others describe the many studies that demonstrate that people’s
behavior changes around a leader. They literally
look to the leader, either consciously or unconsciously, for his reaction and
often mirror it. Leaders set the tone.
A friend’s father understood this and
had a nice way of teaching it. He managed
a plant for many years and he was well known for his positive style. When speaking about the importance of
self-awareness, he put it succinctly: “Leaders don’t have the luxury of bad
moods.” He recognized that those in
leadership positions have many perks – such as the power to set the tone as just
described – but there were many corollary responsibilities as well and one of
those is refraining from taking out a bad mood on a team or infecting them with
one. In other words, a leader’s enthusiastic,
motivated mood catches on, as does a negative, uncooperative mood. Yes, we all have our Debbie
Downer days, but leaders must find a way to deal with theirs privately lest
they infect their teams with their bad moods.
The second essential practice of servant
leadership is listening. Many leadership experts extol
the power of listening as a leadership skill and
there are numerous ways to improve your
listening skills. Entire books have
been written about this topic, so we’ll dive deeper into this skill at a later
time. But for now, it’s important to
know that Robert Greenleaf, the father of servant leadership, said, “Only a
natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first” (2008, p. 18). Stephen Covey
understood the necessity of listening to the extent that he made it one of his
seven habits: Seek first to
understand, then to be understood.
Keith (2008, p. 38) sums it up well:
“The main point is this: Servant-leaders don’t begin with the answer, the
program, the product, the procedure, the facility. They don’t begin with their own knowledge or
expertise. They begin with questions
that will help identify the needs of others.”
(Those “others” also include the needs of the organization.)
Self-awareness and listening are
foundational practices of effective leadership.
The good news is that you can start immediately. What can you do this
week to notice your effect on others and listen better?
Cited:
Keith,
K. M. (2008). The case for
servant leadership. Westfield, IN: The
Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
Greenleaf,
R. K. (2008). The servant as leader. Westfield,
IN: The Greenleaf Center
for Servant Leadership.
