Professional Development Blog

“Servant Leadership” is a term often heard in Agile project management. But what is it really? What sets it apart from other leadership styles? How do you know if you’re a servant leader?

Where Servant Leadership Started

Servant leader was coined by Robert Greenleaf in an essay published in 1970. Greenleaf credited Herman Hesse’s novel The Journey to the East as his inspiration. In the story, a group of characters works well together until their servant (Leo) disappears. The group realizes that things are falling apart without Leo and later the narrator discovers that Leo was far more than a servant — he was actually their leader.

According to Greenleaf.org, a servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the top of the pyramid, servant leadership is different.

The servant-leader:

• shares power
• puts the needs of others first
• helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

This inverted pyramid is often the model used to describe servant leadership.

7 Characteristics

A synopsis I like best gives seven characteristics of a servant leader. Here’s how you can apply them to your leadership:

1. Be a good steward

A term not often used in everyday speech, a steward is the custodian of other people’s assets. A good steward must know what’s going on in the organization. Don’t hole yourself up in your office — get out, mingle, observe.

2. Put others first

Putting others first is at the heart of servant leadership. Understand that everyone is working to achieve a healthy work-life balance and be flexible in your demands.

3. Seek the growth of followers

Top-down oriented leadership stunts the growth of followers by making most decisions for them. Servant leaders are generous and ensure that followers have the information, training and knowledge that they need to achieve the project goal.

4. Empower others

Allowing others to take the lead (as appropriate) has a huge impact on their motivation and effectiveness. Treat it as a learning opportunity. Don’t blame them if they try something new and it doesn’t work and always stand by in case someone gets in over their head.

5. Build strong relationships

To be a good servant leader you should be familiar with the individual strengths and motivations of followers. Open yourself up and demonstrate that you can be trusted with their concerns. When possible, spend one-on-one time with each team member so you understand the challenges they experience in their job.

6. Be a good citizen

How does your organization make the community/region/world a better place? If you can’t answer that, neither can your followers. Everyone wants to work for something larger than ourselves.

7. Act ethically and lead by example

Behaving ethically doesn’t just mean following the rules and standard procedures: it means caring about the impact of decisions on all stakeholders.

Where Servant Leadership is Going

According to a study done by Sen Sendjaya and James C. Sarros, servant leadership is being practiced in some of the top-ranking companies today, and these companies are highly ranked because of their leadership style and following.

Put yourself at the bottom of the pyramid and see the results in your team.