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Other Leadership Perspectives

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership involves feeling responsible for the world and actively contributing to the well-being of people and communities.


LEARNING OBJECTIVE

  • Define servant leadership using the behaviors and characteristics described by Larry C. Spears

KEY POINTS

    • Servant leadership is apparent in leaders who feel a responsibility for the well-being of others and their communities.
    • A servant leader looks at what people need, helps them solve problems, and promotes the personal development of others.
    • Larry C. Spears identified ten characteristics central to servant leaders: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the personal growth of people, and building communities.

TERMS

  • Larry C. Spears

    Served as president and CEO of the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

  • Servant Leadership

    An approach to leading in which leaders take responsibility for contributing to the well-being of people and community.

Servant leadership involves taking responsibility for actively contributing to the well-being of people and communities. It begins with a feeling of wanting to work for the benefit of others. A servant leader regards people's needs and identifies ways to help them to solve problems and promote personal development. Servant leaders focus on the well-being of others and on helping them improve their circumstances.


Characteristics of Servant Leadership

Larry C. Spears identified ten characteristics that are central to servant leadership:

  1. Listening: A servant leader solicits information and engages in dialogue with followers to better understand their needs.
  2. Empathy: Servant leaders identify with and show concern for the needs of followers. In this way they model respect.
  3. Healing: A servant leader is sensitive to and supports the emotional health of others.
  4. Awareness: Servant leaders exhibit self-knowledge of their own values, emotions, strengths, and weaknesses.
  5. Persuasion: Servant leaders do not take advantage of their power and status by coercing compliance; they try to influence others through reason.
  6. Conceptualization: A servant leader thinks beyond day-to-day realities to identify future possibilities.
  7. Foresight: A servant leader understands intellectually as well as through intuition how the past, present, and future are connected and uses that knowledge to identify likely outcomes.
  8. Stewardship: Servant leaders are mindful that they hold an organization's resource in trust for the greater good.
  9. Commitment to the growth of people: A servant leader is responsible for nurturing others and for their learning and development.
  10. Building community: A servant leader builds a sense of unity and cohesion among individuals so they can work together for common goals.