Most aspiring leaders want to ensure that they can make a positive impact, are recognized by their leadership skills, and can come across as transformative individuals. Ever since the global pandemic happened, the way of working has changed people, and many have started accepting new norms and challenges. Similarly, servant leadership is a leadership style that focuses on helping individual employees put their needs first and working on developing their skills.
What is Servant Leadership All About?
Known as a type of leadership philosophy, servant leadership is different from traditional and old-school leadership styles. It is a concept that has always been around but has become popular in the past few years.
According to Robert K. Greenleaf, servant leadership is all about focusing on the well-being of employees and the team instead of having a focus on the thriving and growth of the company. Moreover, in this leadership style, leaders do not take control of things, but they concentrate on developing the skills of individuals who will be motivated to perform better.
In simple words, servant leadership is all about encouraging your employees and guiding them to do better instead of ordering them to be efficient at their work.
Why is Servant Leadership Important?
As employees are known to be the backbone of any organization, servant leadership can serve as a wake-up call for leaders to focus more on the development of their employees. Here are a few reasons why servant leadership is important.
1. It Helps You Lead by Example
If you want to ensure long-term productivity for your business and want efficient employees, then the key is to lead by example and not to think of yourself as a boss. When you follow the servant leadership style you will be able to guide your team on how they should work instead of directly giving them orders.
This will make them happy to be a part of the organization as their work will be valued. The more you lead the employees by example, the higher the chances are that they will invest their time in the growth and expansion of your company.
2. It Empowers the Team
When you lead the team with a concept of working together instead of bossing them around, they will consider the organization as their own and will take out enough time to achieve the goals and objectives. As a leader, you will have the job of making sure that all the employees are looked after, and the performance also improves accordingly.
Moreover, the team will feel empowered and responsible for the work they do and will know how to take responsibility for the tasks that they have done.
3. It Encourages Everyone to Collaborate
Servant leadership leads and encourages everyone towards a collaborative environment where all employees work together as a team. Unlike the ‘command’ style employees work within different teams, and deal with issues together with complete honesty and transparency.
Employees also get a chance to communicate across different departments and make sure that their communication is effective. Collaboration between employees leads to a culture of team building, getting ready to take up challenges, and creating long-term solutions.
4. It Increases Awareness and Exposure
As a servant leader, you will continuously work on improving yourself and encourage your employees and team to learn from their mistakes. Instead of asking others to bring a change in themselves, you will show how you have stepped out of your comfort zone and made changes.
This will encourage them to take a step ahead as you will make them feel that they are not alone in this, but everyone is working together as a team. When the entire team is focused on the exposure, they have a look at their performance along with how it could affect the present and the future.
5. It Improves Accountability
According to the old-school methods, many leaders believe that they are not accountable or answerable to anyone except their superiors or at times, no one at all. Following the servant leadership style will help change this approach towards a humbler one and the servant leaders will accept feedback from everyone.
This will give the leaders a chance to improve themselves and to also learn from new experiences and ideas from the team around them. When everyone will be accountable for what they do, all the people in the organization will be conscious of the choices that they are making.
6. It Builds Trust Faster
If you want to gain the trust of your employees or leader, then the tip is to form a relationship of trust and honesty with them. A leader won’t start trusting his or her employees overnight which is why you should put in all your effort to assist your employees so they can improve their performance and slowly build trust with them as time passes by.
If you want to gain the trust of the people who are working at your organization, then you will have to become genuinely interested in what the employees have to say and what are their views about a certain topic.
7. It Revives Communication
When you start following the servant leadership style you will discover certain communication barriers that your employees might be facing. Help them fix the communication issues that might arise when dealing with different departments or teams. Remind them how important it is for them to respect, listen, and look up to the project manager as they will keep everyone together as a team.
Furthermore, as a leader, you can help build a community for them where they can improve their communication skills together, be honest in their communication, and have emotional intelligence when dealing with others.
What you need to understand is that as a servant leader your primary focus will always be on the growth and well-being of people around you and the rest of the things will automatically fall into place.
