The 6 main principles of servant leadership
- Empathy. Give trusted co-workers the benefit of the doubt by assuming the good in them. It goes a long way toward instilling loyalty and trust in you from your team.
- Awareness. Care deeply about the welfare of the team members. Don't view them only as cogs in a machine.
- Building community. Build community where both employees and customers can thrive.
- Persuasion. Rely on persuasion rather than coercion to create internal motivation required to complete the task effectively.
- Conceptualization. Servant-leading entrepreneurs focus on the big picture and don't get overly distracted by daily operations and short-term goals.
- Growth. Care passionately about the personal and professional growth of each member of the team.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
The actual term for a leader who upends the power pyramid to put others' needs first was introduced by Robert Greenleaf in his influential 1970 essay "The Servant As Leader" in 1970.
RELATED IDEAS
The authoritarian leadership style:
- The authoritarian style of leadership requires leaders to have total decision-making power and absolute control over their subordinates. Servant leadership upends the top-down power structure.
Similar leadership styles:
- Ethical leadership urges leaders to show respect for the values and dignity of their subordinates. Servant leadership's emphasis on taking responsibility for the needs and desires of others.
- Participative leadership style requires leaders to involve subordinates in setting goals, building teams and solving problems but keep the final decision-making in their own hands. Servant leadership includes some of these elements.
A servant leader is someone who serves others first, before anything else.
Traditional leadership tends to be about systems and structures that make repetitive work and authority a foundation.Servant leadership, on the other hand, tends to be about people.
He inspired team members first so that they were driven to live up to his exacting standards when the situation called for it.
Get this equation backwards and you will wonder why your employees disengage or drop out when you present tough challenges.