Is The Servant Leadership Style The Answer on Being a More Effective Leader
Before understanding the servant leadership style, it's important to take a closer look at your leadership mindset. You see, as a leader your intent and actions are more inspiring than your skills.
You can have the worst skills but if your people genuinely feel like you want to help them and you're working on improving yourself, then you can feel secure in your leadership role!
Granted having good leadership skills is helpful too! Let's take a look at this servant leadership style. It is made up of:
- Serving your cause
- Serving your people
- Setting yourself up as the servant
Let's take a closer look!
Step 1 - Serve Your Cause
Before working on servant leadership you want to remind yourself who or what it is you're serving! Ideally your cause such a powerful vision that it moves you just thinking about it!
Genuine selflessness is one of the best mindsets to have when you engage in servant leadership! It makes you genuinely want to leave the cause better than when you found it.
I also recommend being humble enough to want your people to look better than you. Let them make the most progress and allow them to take most of the credit.
Remember as a leader your primary objective is getting the job done. If it means that someone else is more suited to lead the group then delegate leadership to that person (and oversee the operation.) If you serve the cause (or objective) well, it will serve you well in return.
Step 2 - Serve Your People
I've personally built 3 groups of volunteers (2 of which I was able to automate - 1 failed) and working as an educator for more than 4 years has taught me that being a leader is about being the servant of the people.
Yes this sounds corny but the fact of the matter is that good leadership skills involves being a good servant and a good listener. If you're humble enough to accept feedback and are willing enough to listen to your troops then you're on your way towards developing good leadership skills.
Listen to what they're telling you. Put your ego down and really pay attention to their feedback! They'll tell you all you need to know to make the operation a success!
On the other hand, if you're not in a position to accept their feedback because you're in a crisis situation - tell your team that you'll put their opinions on hold but that you will repay them (and then some) at some future point when things have calmed down.
Serve your people well, and they will serve you. Note: being a servant is not the same as being sub-servient. If ever you feel like your self-respect or values are threatened, stand your ground! Nobody wants to follow a weak leader!
Step 3 - Set Yourself as The Servant
Develop your servant leadership style by understanding that one of the most confused leadership traits is 'domination'. We confuse 'being dominant' with 'being domineering' - the same way we confuse leading with ruling.
Give your people some official power. This will make them more effective and keep the communication between you and your people open and genuine.
Remember that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" no matter what your original intentions. Expect it and set up a system so that you aren't in complete power.
For example, in the groups (notice I didn't say MY groups) I lead (and thus serve) I would delegate leadership as much as possible. I also had a voting system that was only overrun in an emergency situation (I only ever had to use it once but quickly re-instated voting before the power corrupted me.)
This setup allowed me to lead the group smoothly and confidently. Understand that under the servant leadership style, you don't want to be the person who runs everything. You don't want to be the leader. Let the people lead themselves and you oversee the operation.
Summary
All in all, having good leadership skills involves more than just 'the skills'. It takes a certain mindset as well. Being humble, a good listener and delegating power are three key components that any successful leader must have.
