Defining Servant Leadership

I’ve heard the term servant leadership thrown around for years; I’m guessing you have too… That said, the entire time I’ve been operating under my own idea of what it meant. Truth be told, I certainly didn’t come up with the picture in my head of what servant leadership looks like all by myself. Like anyone else, I’ve pieced that picture together over time based on different ideas I heard or read from various sources as well as from the examples I’ve seen modeled by some of the most influential leaders I’ve had a chance to be around and study.

With all that in mind, let’s take a step back and really dig into what the “experts” suggest servant leadership looks like. An Investopedia article I read recently defined it this way, “Servant leadership is a leadership style and philosophy whereby an individual interacts with others—either in a management or fellow employee capacity—to achieve authority rather than power.” As I worked through some additional articles, I found one in Forbes that suggested a fellow named Robert Greenleaf coined the term in an essay he published in 1970. While he may have caught the business community’s attention with those specific words with that essay, the first example of servant leadership I ever remember hearing about nearly 2,000 years prior. I’m not a biblical scholar but I can remember something along the lines of “the greatest among you shall be your servant…”

I remember having a conversation about the topic several years ago. He had held various management roles over the 15 or so years leading up to that point and we just weren’t seeing eye to eye on what approach we should be taking with the team of folks we held mutual responsibility for. His view of servant leadership was coddling the employees who reported to him, and he wanted nothing to do with that. It wasn’t until we were both in a session with Dave Ramsey that we had a clear picture we could agree on.

Whether you’ve had a discussion with a peer that was just like the one he and I were engaged in, or even one that wasn’t quite as loud, I’m guessing you’ve developed your own definition for what servant leadership should look like - or if it’s even something worth bothering with. But rather than going on an assumption that we all have the same idea in our heads, wouldn't it be great to have a foundation for what servant leadership really is and how we can build it into what we do so we get the best possible results with the teams we lead? Moving forward here, that’s just what I’ll be working to provide for you! We’ll take a look at some of the varying definitions and theories that are out there, as well as some characteristics of effective servant leaders, then we’ll wrap up by working through some different ways servant leadership might actually be perceived depending on someone’s primary communication style.

Stay tuned! I believe this process is gonna be fun and powerful!