Question

You just completed the first topic in your PSC-410 class. You are excited about what you have learned so far. You try to share your excitement with your supervisor and tell him you are taking a servant leadership class. His response is, “Servant leadership is overrated. You can’t get any real work done that way, you know. Cuddling people and being a soft leader will not get you very far.” You brush of his remark, but decide to revisit the subject with him later because you believe he has the wrong view about servant leadership. How do you think you would approach your supervisor on the subject? What should you say??

Answer 1

I think I shall be rather very polite in approach while getting back to my supervisor on this because subtleness is something that servant leadership concept itself is based upon and yet practical. I would attempt to make him understand my side of this concept of ‘Servant leadership’, followed by an example that helps me make my point clearer to him. In this regard, I would say the following:

Servant leadership, to me, attempts to be more righteous in its approach by providing more concern to others by serving them in terms of their needs and aspirations. In case of the Servant leadership style, it is more superior to the Traditional leadership philosophy because it attempts to be more righteous in its approach by providing more concern to others by serving them in terms of their needs and aspirations as against the Traditional leadership where it attempts to be more harsh in approach by way of being impassive to the needs and aspirations of others.

I feel that we can really run organizations with altruistic leader. The advantages of Servant leadership are that this theory strives to the best to incorporate all the expectations of the teammates with the view to build an Organizational environment which is most conducive for the growth and benefits rendered to the employees. The main aspect that makes Servant leadership thus superior than other forms of leadership in contemporary times is that it believes in putting the teammates first before themselves unlike in case of the Traditional leadership styles where the subordinates are required to adjust or accommodate themselves as per the leaders’ approaches for achieving more feasible results. Owing to all this features, servant leadership can impact follower’s attitudes and behaviors in Organizations. However, the disadvantages are that, for managers, this leadership role may put them in dilemma since the profile of manager is primarily created to support the management and not always, take stand for the employees’ benefit only. Further, due to lack of authority, there is a potential threat of relaxation of discipline within the Organization or delay in decision-making owing to possible lack of authoritarian rule too. In addition, to the employees, the aspect of motivation considerably reduces owing to lack of mentoring capacity of the Managers which is further impeded by the foresightedness of the employees.

One of the “real-life” examples of someone that I can think demonstrates a servant leadership approach in his role as a leader is Tenzin Gyatso. He is a spiritual leader in Tibet and is popularly addressed in world over as ‘Dalai Lama’. He reaches out to his followers in an earnest possible way, by patiently listening to them and by attempting to provide solutions that could be practical in their lives. He believes in arriving at consensus than by ruling with authority. He allows the minds of the followers to speak and although he detests the solutions by means of violence, his approach has been known to be subtle yet strong.