Enriching lives through servant leadership

The commonly practiced styles of leadership are: authoritarian, participative, delegative, transactional and transformational, with their advantages and disadvantages are preferred by a different leader.

Hyderabad: The concept of “servant leadership” may be new to some of us, but it has been around for centuries It is, a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world”.

Robert K. Greenleaf the founder of modern-day servant leadership attributes the idea of servant leadership to Herman Hesse’s, “The Journey to the East” However Sendjaya and Sarros claim that Jesus Christ, not Greenleaf, introduced the notion of servant leadership to everyday human endeavour.

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I related, reflected and truly realised that it is the instinct to Serve and the Conscious Choice that brings one to aspire to lead. Hence “A servant can only become a leader if a leader remains a servant”.

The commonly practiced styles of leadership are: authoritarian, participative, delegative, transactional and transformational, with their advantages and disadvantages are preferred by a different leader. The leaders who differentiate themselves from the rest aren’t necessarily the leaders who have all the power, but they are the leaders that can empower. They win people’s hearts by helping, developing, praising, encouraging, and motivating.

Some of the wildly successful companies which are regularly featured in Fortune magazine’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for having a high trust, high employee engagement, and low turnover–are guided by visionary leaders who walk the talk of servant leadership, who maintain a broader view of servant leadership and its impact on the greater good through humanitarian efforts.

If you are a servant leader ask these questions to yourself:

1.Do those I served grow as persons?

2.Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society?

3.Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?

Helen AR Luke
Member, Resource and Research, Pallavi Group of Schools

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