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Leadership 101: Enter, Servant Leadership

Phil

New member
Even though most of the world of business within US uses standard leadership doctrine consistent with the long study available at ExploringYourMind.com, I want to talk about servant leadership (2018). I apologize in advance for all of the weird adds they have, that in my opinion, are more of a nuisance. Either way, the site does identify five types of leadership:

1. Laissez-faire: Upper management assigns tasks (delegation). This style is ideal for when the team or group under the leader consists of experienced members. The disadvantage is that even though the team may not always need a leader to guide them, odds are the leader would not be there when the team does need him or her.

2. Autocratic: This style is better known as micro-management. This style would be effective if the team members were all new or inexperienced. However, on the down side, team members who are self-motivated or independent would resent the over-the-shoulder presence of the leader.

3. Democratic: The democratic leader would actually listen to feedback, which is suitable if everyone on the team has a A-type (active) personality. Again, similar to autocratic, everyone on the team having a similar personality is extremely unlikely (closer to impossible). While the members with a-type of mebers would not mind voicing their opinions, those with B-type (passive) personalities would likely just stay mum.

4. Transactional: Involves implementing a balance of reward and punishment* based on the team member's effectiveness but not necessarily the job itself *(a.k.a., carrot and stick). The disadvantage here is that if the leader does not keep an eye out for it, the spirit of competitiveness may disable the team members' relationship with each other as well as with the leader.

5. Transformational: Similar to transactional, except that the focus for reward verses reprimand would focus on the work the team members have competed.

6. (1-5): (ExploringYourMind.com, 2018).

Strange... The most important, successful and inspiring leadership style was not listed. For that style, one would need to jump over to Greenleaf.org (n.d.). Servant leadership is a style that focuses on the phases of team building (form, storm, norm, perform, leave a legacy). The style focuses on bettering the members, the team, the community and future generations. Servant leadership includes the most effective form of member development, which is known as the EDGE concept (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable). Here, leaders use the spirit of competitiveness in an encouraging manner so that all members have an opportunity to do better while helping others do better. The term 'selfless service' is, indeed, an important characteristic. Servant leadership is most common in nonprofit organizations, like the Boy Scouts of America.

One might ask, "If servant leadership sounds so good, makes sense, is so successful and is already in existence, why have so many organizations not tried it yet?"
Well, I can try to answer that, You see, the common aspect among all of the leadership styles is setting the example. Meanwhile, upper management like results, especially good results. So, until leaders start setting the example by using servant leadership (for a small group or team), the desire for change across the rest of the organization remains pending. Furthermore, organizations usually do not like change because they fail to manage it appropriately. "Find a good leadership team that can encourage change and you will find a good team under them" (Phil, 2018).

So, here are my questions to the audience...
What type of leadership style is present where you work?
What type of leadership style do you think the US Military uses?
What leadership style seems most effective and why?
Challenge: Is there another leadership style that I have not listed here? If so, what is it and how would you describe it?
If you wanted to practice servant leadership in your place of work, would your organization permit you to do so?

#Be the positive change that you want to see in your world

Respectfully yours,

Phil

Resources:
ExploringYourMind.com (201). Retrieved from: https://exploringyourmind.com/5-types-leaders/
Greenleaf.org (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/

Editing notes; Corrected a few typos.
 
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chl0206

New member
Hi Phil, thanks for the thought-provoking post. I've worked under a number of leadership styles, although I the trend seems to be some confusing combination of laissez-faire and autocratic--they don't care until they do, and you don't really know when that might be. Leaders expect results without having to do any of the actual work of team-building or management. In my experience, most managers have very little clue about how to actually manage people and foster a sense of teamwork or community. In my opinion, this causes a real lack of morale just about everywhere I've worked.

I don't know if you've seen any variations of this viral post going around social media or not (and I'm also not sure whether it accurately reflects the make-up of a typical pack of wolves) but I do think it speaks a lot about the concept of servant leaders:

wolf-pack.jpg
 

Phil

New member
Hi Phil, thanks for the thought-provoking post. I've worked under a number of leadership styles, although I the trend seems to be some confusing combination of laissez-faire and autocratic--they don't care until they do, and you don't really know when that might be. Leaders expect results without having to do any of the actual work of team-building or management. In my experience, most managers have very little clue about how to actually manage people and foster a sense of teamwork or community. In my opinion, this causes a real lack of morale just about everywhere I've worked.

I don't know if you've seen any variations of this viral post going around social media or not (and I'm also not sure whether it accurately reflects the make-up of a typical pack of wolves) but I do think it speaks a lot about the concept of servant leaders:

View attachment 37
Ch10206,

Thank you for the interesting reference to wolves. I must admit nature has a way of humbling me when I think about how animals can demonstrate leadership, parenting and other skills in better ways than what us humans can. The pack of wolves does accurately represent servant leaders, aside from the points you mentioned, and also because the leadership role is a cycle, that no matter who is leading, everyone respects the leader while respecting the cycle of the pack. This is especially common with Scouting Packs, Troops and annual training campaigns, like Wood Badge (Scouting.org, 2018).

Your post also reminded me that I had failed to mention one of the most important features of servant leadership. That is positive reinforcement. For example, there are two teams competing against each other in sports. The coach of team A has been practicing servant leadership. The coach of team B has been practicing a variety of the other leaderships (because leadership styles almost always involve a given situation). Coach A has been using the appropriate model of constructive criticism (what is good, what needs improvement and what is excellent). Coach A has taught that even if they lose, if the team does their absolute best, they will not regret a lose. Meanwhile, Coach B has been using an unbalanced form of constructive criticism (what is good & what is bad). Technically, the good dissolves with the bad, just like integers, say 1 minus -1. Coach B has failed to offer compliments, encouragement nor team building (i.e., lack of positive reinforcement). Further more, Coach B's primary focus is more about winning and less about the members of the team.

Which team do you think is going to win? Which team do you think is going to keep trying harder even if the lose?

I have studied servant leadership over the last few years. I have learned that a team member is about 80% more likely to successfully complete a task verses a member who was instructed to do something without receiving respect from the leader who gave the assignment. But do not take my word for it. I challenge those interested to research & practice this. If you have children, ask them to clean their room. But try to follow this model:

Explain: Let them know what you expect and that you want to provide them with a reward if they do well
Demonstrate: Show them how if they do not know how to do certain cleaning tasks. Make sure your room is clean first (of course)
Guide: Provide when or how often you expect them to do clean their room. Give them a list of tasks or a checklist so that they can easily track their progress.
Enable: Keep your word by rewarding them with monetary or other incentives. Evaluate them using the good/needs improvement/bad if they made a mistake. Use only positive reinforcement if they did good.

Resource:
Scouting.org (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.scouting.org/training/adult/woodbadge/

Administrative note: The word 'you' was not intended toward anyone directly. I tried to use the word in a passive manner. Please pardon me if that word what was incorrectly translated to the reader. Editing notes: #typos
 
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