Dec
2018
Chapter 10: Servant Leadership
Lauren Dodge
Dr. Wood
Leadership
18 October 2018
Chapter 10: Servant Leadership
- Be able to summarize the ideas of Robert Greenleaf and the historical basis of servant leadership. What are the unique, underlying values of his perspective?
Servant leadership puts a focus on behaviors and emphasizes that leaders should put their followers first in order to empower them and to nurture them. This kind of leadership revolves around ethics. Greenleaf values ethics, impact, and social justice.
- How can a person be a leader and a servant at the same time?
A leader can use less institutional power and control to, instead, value community giving opportunity for interdependence, respect, trust, and individual growth.
- In what ways is servant leadership like a trait?
Servan leadership requires a leader to have certain traits like listening, empathy, awareness, healing, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to people, and building community.
- How does a person become altruistic? Is this an inborn trait or a learned behavior?
Altruism requires a leader to be selfless and put the needs of others and the needs of followers before their own. It is a learned trait essential for servant leadership.
- Distinguish between the following terms: leadership principles, leadership philosophies, leadership approaches, leadership models, and leadership theories.
Leadership principles are like the keys to being a good, authentic leader. They’re like the rules that one should lead by.
Leadership philosophies are the developed ideas of which how one should lead.
Leadership approaches are not just the ideas but its literally how a leader leads and what the leader is doing as a leader; what rules are implemented, how he brings a team together, etc.
Leadership models can show up the cause and effect of different approaches to leadership.
Leadership theories are the speculations of what might work in productive leadership and what might not work.
- How are servant leaders different from other types of leaders?
Servant leaders are expected to be even more emotional than other types of leaders. In other chapters, there was a focus on connection with followers, but servant leadership goes deeper as to say that servant leaders should be putting themselves in other shoes and focusing on the successes of solely their followers.
- What are the three antecedent conditions for servant leadership in the Liden et al. (2008) model? What other conditions might you add to the list?
Servant leadership occurs in certain context and culture. Has to do with different norms.
Leader attributes has to do with the qualities and disposition of the leaders influence.
Follower receptivity has to do with the impact the leader has made on a follower.
I think conditions serve as an umbrella for most.
- What are the five servant leader behaviors in the Liden et al. (2008) model?
Conceptualizing and understanding, emotional healing, putting followers first, helping followers grow and succeed, behaving ethically, empowering, and creating value for the community.
- How might contingency theory (a leader-match theory) explain follower receptivity in the servant leadership model?
When you’re attempting to create a connection and have a relationship between leaders and followers then your leader is more likely to be productive and grow.
- According to the most recent research, what specific leader traits are important to servant leadership?
Being able to put followers and the needs of others first as well as being emotionally healing. This type of leadership puts a strong emphasis on community.
- How does servant leadership affect workers’ performance on the job?
Servant leadership could have an impact on the ethical behavior of the leaders followers. The follower could grow in the aspect of community building and care for community.
- Explain how servant leader behaviors can create a ripple effect in followers.
If the leader has a impact on the ethics and morals of their followers then their followers could grow to become a leader and be somewhat contagious in their ethics and morals.
- How is awareness in the servant leadership approach different from emotional intelligence, or self-awareness in the psychodynamic approach? Can you identify a person who exemplifies this component of the model?
I think awareness in the sense of servant leadership is more empathetic and has to do more with the leader putting themselves in others’ shoes. For example: Ghandi campaigned for Indian independence, but knew it was important for him to know what it felt like and what it was truly like to live as one of the poorest people in the country.
- How does servant leadership fit with the influence component of leadership?
Servant leadership contains a great deal of influence on followers. Here, it is emotional influence and it can be based on ethics and morals.
- What are the strengths and criticisms of the servant leadership approach?
Strengths:
Altruism central component
Provides productive approach to influence and power
Can be measured
Weaknesses:
Title diminishes the value of the approach
Unclear dimensions of the process
Conflicts with individual autonomy
It is unclear why conceptualizing is included