Servant leadership is a timeless concept and many world leaders have practices and promoted it in past.
About four decades ago, Robert Greenleaf voiced the concept
in his published essay on servant leadership; highlighted the need of change of
leadership style. He promoted servant leadership, researched and educated
servant leadership in institutions and organizations.
In servant leadership, a leader is servant first. Servant
leader is a person with natural instinct to server others, have feeling to
help, improve others first; that leads to aspire to lead.
In recent times, newly elected prime minister of
mighty democracy called himself as a chief servant of the nation; setting up an
example in this century.
Quotes from history:
"the
king shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his
subjects" - Chanakya
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” - Rabindranath Tagore
“The
noblest question in the world is, What Good may I do in it?” - Benjamin Franklin
Traits of Servant Leaders:
to serve first: Servant first and leader first are two extreme types. Feeling to serve first then aspire to lead is servant leader style. That is sharply different from leader first.
put others first: Make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. Focusing and measuring on, Do those served grow as persons? do they become healthier, wiser, freer, able to make decisions and improved to be servant? And is the least privileged from the society benefited?
put others first: Make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. Focusing and measuring on, Do those served grow as persons? do they become healthier, wiser, freer, able to make decisions and improved to be servant? And is the least privileged from the society benefited?
first
among equals: A servant leader does not consider him above those he
leads. Rather, he is primus inter pares from Latin, meaning "first in
among equals." That is, he sees those he leads as peers to teach and to
learn from. He is willing to lead others in order to reach a goal, but he
doesn't believe that being the leader makes him better than others.
team
builder: The servant leader is a excellent team builder. Servant leader
will be able to get maximum from the strengths of followers; and will not
hesitate to follow as and when needed. Such a leader doesn't lead by decree.
Instead, he or she leads by allowing everyone to do what they do well.
There are various leadership styles being practiced and it is subject of
argument to declare any as best.
But servant leadership certainly provides a descent approach that can be practiced in social and corporate world.
With excessive dominance and fierce competition in present world, can true practitioners of servant leadership survive?
But servant leadership certainly provides a descent approach that can be practiced in social and corporate world.
With excessive dominance and fierce competition in present world, can true practitioners of servant leadership survive?
References -:
No comments:
Post a Comment