Other Leadership Perspectives

This text will show you the multiple ways that leadership has been studied. Most of these perspectives are more contemporary viewpoints. We have previously looked at how the workforce is changing and considered the constantly changing business environment. We also want to consider leadership in different contexts. This text will briefly review emotional, interactive, moral, servant, shared, and e-leadership.

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.