Leadership manifests itself in different ways. The underlying philosophy of my leadership career is humility. Humility is the key to keeping our minds open to new ideas and concepts. Through it, we can also make new acquaintances not possible through pride or rudeness. Wisdom even requires humility. Therefore, using humility in leadership is vital to our success.
Successful servant leaders possess listening skills. “Servant leaders communicate by listening first. They recognize that listening is a learned discipline that involves hearing and being receptive to what others have to say. Through listening, servant leaders acknowledge the viewpoint of followers and validate these perspectives.” (Northouse 305). This allows servant leaders the advantage of multiple viewpoints and ideas that wouldn’t otherwise be present. These alternative viewpoints and ideas may give rise to better ideas than his own and allow him to make better choices for the group.
Through humility in servant leadership, servant leaders make new acquaintances and foster new relationships. “Servant leadership fosters the development of community.” (Northouse 307). By building a community with and within the group a leader is more likely to have loyal followers that will stick around during difficult times. This is crucial to groups as it allows them to survive and overcome more difficult tasks than less cohesive, dysfunctional groups.
I like servant leadership and leading by example. Servant leadership goes as far back as in Biblical times, so why did it take so long to develop a theory about it compared to other forms of leadership? The Bible, along with other historical documents, give us many examples of successful servant leadership. With this, we could have developed a theory much sooner than we did.