Tweet

The Essence of Servant Leadership

Guest post by: Paul Brooks

Article Overview: Servant leadership is becoming more and prevalent with truly great leaders recently. It is very effective and rewarding. The old way of leadership by manipulation, self absorption and deceit is following the path of the dinosaur. You will be totally enlightened about this awesome phenomenon once you have read this article.

The Essence of Servant Leadership

What is servant leadership? How can you benefit from it? Serving at its core meaning is setting aside your own needs and desires, in order to aid or assist others with their needs. Notice I did not mention "wants", it is all about helping others achieve their legitimate needs. The benefits to you are endless. Here are a few examples. It builds trust and enhances your good reputation with others. It creates loyalty and strength in your relationships with your family, friends, and business associates. It exponentially adds purpose and personal growth to your life. Let's review some characteristics of this phenomenon.

Humility is first and foremost in servitude. Humility is not thinking of you less, it is thinking ABOUT you less. It should be performed with authentic sincerity, without ulterior motives, and manipulation. Pride, arrogance, and a large inflated ego have no place in humbleness.

Be respectful to others. Treat others like they are important, and they really are. Most people want to feel appreciated, valued, and want to be treated with dignity. Treat others with the amount of respect you expect to receive from them. Being respectful to other exhibits you have respect for yourself.

Being kind is also a prerequisite. It is all about following the Golden Rule "treat others the way you want to be treated. A kind word and a warm smile can work wonders. Look for the good in others in lieu of being cynical.

"Honesty is the best policy". Trust is the cornerstone of honesty. You must betruthful and transparent. Your truthfulness should begin within you. "To thine own self be true" as stated by William Shakespeare. If you are truthful with yourself it is not difficult to be truthful with others. Being honest is stating the complete truth and not stating a part of it.

Being committed requires one hundredpercent effort and follow-up. It is futile to begin a worthwhile task or project and not continue to work on until its completion. It is a waste of your time and extremely unfair to others depending on you. It is a waste of your precious time as well as others. If you "talk the talk, then you must walk the walk".

In summary a part of being a truly great leader within your sphere of influence, is serving others needs. Being committed, honest, kind, respectful, and humble are the main ingredients in your "servitude soup". It is paramount that you always remember, it is not thinking of you less, is about thinking ABOUT you less. You have just been given the essence of servant leadership; it would behoove you to join this awesome phenomenon.

Related Articles
  Are your people better off when they leave than when they got there?
  The Zen of Leadership
  What is True Leadership?
  Most Companies Get Leadership Wrong
  Integral Leadership - A Useful Model for Leadership Development
  Is your leadership effective?
  Lead People, Manage Money
  Keys to Leadership that Breed Success - Every Time
  INVENTORIES CAN BE MANAGE BUT PEOPLE SHOULD BE LEAD.
  The Essence of True Leadership
  Why Companies Die Young
  Leadership Myth #5 - Great Leaders Have Large Egos
  Leadership Tip - The Diamond Essence of Leaders
  Effective Personal Leadership
  THE “SECRET RECIPES” OF LEADERSHIP
  Leader-Follower Theory and the Transformational Organization
  The Idea Harvester
  Leadership Qualities that Promote Positive Racial Teacher-Student Relationships
  The Top
  Leadership = Accepting Failures

Article Tags: servant leadership
Referred by: http://jaykubassek.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Business Women Peer Mentoring Spotlight - Hi Everyone, Gosh, I REALLY appreciate your concrete feedback. This was far more than I expected and I'm glad you said what you thought straight out. Each of you have shared something of value and I want to take some more time to think and really go over what each of you have said. However, I can see there are some things I need to change right away. What an interesting point about a NEW program perhaps making people think they are guinea pigs! This is NOT what I want to convey! It's funny how we can see some things so clearly in others while not always seeing it for ourselves! I must admit there are a few things I've been meaning to change (like my bio which is very outdated). Obviously, these things need to be higher on my priority list. You caught me like the plumber who puts his clients first and doesn't get around to fixing his own tap! As far as my target market, I do feel quite strongly about working with Women Leaders and doing Leadership Coaching with them. It's non-negotiable in my books. In my Executive Coaching training, the terms "Leaders" and "Executives" are interchangable. To me, an Executive is a Leader and so is the Business Woman or Entrepreneur who is CEO of her own business. I love working with decision makers! What I did learn is that I need to avoid opening up the Leadership term beyond what I described above. I'm also wondering if there is a misunderstanding with the general public as to what Leadership Coaching really is. Leadership Coaching is all about developing your leadership skills, both as a people manager and in more effectively running and growing the business. There is ALWAYS room for growth in some way. As well, sometimes, we just need a sounding board to clarify what our next BEST step is. In fact, if a woman thinks she has nothing to work on, then we aren't a good Client/Coach fit anyway. How can she grow if she doesn't see the value of expressing ALL of the great ability within her? How can her company grow if she doesn't see the value of strategic planning for the next best level? Thanks again to you all! I will go back to my website and really question whether I am conveying the right message. I got more than I bargained for in this Spotlight... you generously offered way more than I was asking. I think we could be on to something great for the Forum. Now it's time to let someone else have the spotlight. It would be great if everyone took a turn! In gratitude, Tami
Re: 3 Ways I Used Twitter To Grow My Business This Week - Hi Olivia, It seems you are working in the area of leadership area. Is Leadership = Learning? I am looking for some good books on strategy? Which one do you recommend? Thanks, Robert
Re: LEADERS - Nice post, i like the Doers and the listeners comments from my handbook 8.5 HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LEADERSHIP? Planning Problem Solving Vision Innovation Leadership Emotional Intelligence Delegation Communication Self-Development Relationship Building Commercial Financial skills Personal Energy Ethics Transparency Even there I see that we are missing "PASSION"
Different Hats - CEO Sales & Marketing & Leadership Development Company Strategic Vision 10 Alliances & Growth Strategies 10 Hiring & Managing People 8 Mentoring 8-9 Strategic Planning for Clients 10 Execution of Marketing Campaigns 9-10 (i have great people who do the nitty gritty) Financial Management 9 Bookkeeping 3 (outsourced as I really hate the fine details like GST0 Administrative Follow Up 6-7 (again have great staff) Writing & Publishing 9 (getting better all the time!) Speaking 10 (so I have been told) Self Promotion 9-10 Web development & Promotion 6-7 (learning more and have brought on players who are 10+) Babysitting Employees (1 - wont do it, that's why I work so hard to hire and motivate the people I have) Great topic Kevin!! Jude
Why A Project Fails? - Hello Everyone As the size and complexity of ones business grows, so does their need to effectively manage projects. I have been thinking about the major reasons why a project can go wrong and my limited experience comes up with the following. 1 Leadership: A project manager with leadership skills and not just management skills. 2 Failure to (Foresee and) Plan 3 Failure to Manage: Ineffective change management control methods. Unclear decision making guidelines. 4 Talent: Finding, allocating and developing people 5 Scope: Setting an overly ambitious or amibigious project scope 6 Alignment: When projects are not prioritized in alignment with the business strategy, or project members personal objectives are not in tandem with that of the project / company 7 Lack of Candor: Communication Breakdowns I would be interested in knowing everyone's thoughts on this, especially on ways to overcome the above mentioned obstacles. Cheers!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Ten Ways to Make Blogging Work for Your Business

Why Use an Advertising Agency

SEO and the Entrepreneur

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.