Examples of Servant Leaders, Essay Example

For some time, I observed servant leadership in practice without fully understanding the model itself. The pastor of the church I attended was, as I came to realize, inherently a servant leader without having had any specific agenda of becoming one. That is to say, I believe this individual came by the Greenleaf method intuitively, as his practice was developed organically through his interaction with the community and the church.

The pastor’s values and beliefs, not unexpectedly, reflect those of the church. What I found most compelling, however, is that he does not typically relate these as such, except when sermons call for a particular emphasis of them. He embraces the traditional values of the church in terms of theology and morality, yet he communicates his personal beliefs through his actions away from the pulpit. His style of leadership is demonstrated most effectively in his discourse with his parishioners, which I frequently observed, and it is consistently “passive” in nature.  First and foremost, he listens. He does not intrude any opinions or suggestions unless, in fact, they are asked of him; instead, he makes it evident by his presence and his demeanor that he is available if assistance is wanted. The pastor has come to be perceived as a community leader precisely because he never asserts any desire to lead, but only help, and this is in keeping with Greenleaf’s model. The absence of desire to exercise control encourages trust, and consequently a more dedicated following (Greenleaf, Spears, 2002,  p. 12), and I believe the church attendance is consistently high as a result of this open, non-authoritative manner.

Even the pastor’s more active efforts are marked by the same passivity, or receptivity, that he exhibits in the church setting.   At one point, there was concern over outbreaks of vandalism in the community, and he announced he would be holding neighborhood meetings to address the issue. Nothing else was required to generate a strong attendance at these meetings, as the pastor’s reputation for being eager to both listen and be of assistance is well-known.   He served as a focal point for these gatherings, lending a calming, rational core to what might easily have been argumentative affairs.   I was at several of these meetings and I was aware that his quiet authority and presence actually encouraged increased civility from all those present. The results were highly effective, and translated to little more than an extension of neighborhood watches. I believe that the servant leadership prompting these actions was carried through in them, by a community eager to live up to the “servant” aspect of its own leader.

Both in the church and the community, this pastor has exercised a leadership that is simultaneously calming and very effective. It has been noted that servant leadership brings about a spiritually generative culture, rather than the dynamic one usually motivated by transformational leadership models  (Lussier, Achua, 2009, p. 356), and this has certainly been the case in this community. There was and is none of the aggression or overt display of traditional leadership in the pastor’s work and behavior, and I believe he has built up substantial levels of trust through the absence of such. “A charismatic leader’s behaviors can be viewed as attempts on the part of the leader to influence his or her’s followers’ values, attitudes, and behaviors” (Conger, Kanungo, 1998, p. 57), and this renders such leaders inherently suspect. The pastor relies solely on a non-intrusive, completely receptive approach. In an odd way, it is a kind of leadership by default; by never directly asserting leadership, it is freely offered to him.

As noted, the impact of this pastor’s leadership style has been an unusually high level of church attendance, consistent over many years. Moreover, he has actually been able to save the community money, in that volunteers for church-related work and projects are never in short supply. He has orchestrated local clean-up and landscaping projects, as well as originating a program for attending to the elderly of the community, in setting up a monitoring system to ensure the welfare of those living alone. All of these projects have been smoothly and successfully implemented because the people, both within and outside of his church, are moved to reflect the pastor’s passive desire to be of help. It is likely that many people do not actually think of this pastor as a “leader” because, true to the Greenleaf model, he exhibits none of the typical, traditional traits of dominant leadership. It is, however, his presence and the ethics guiding his behavior that define him as a true leader within the community.

References

Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1998.) Charismatic Leadership in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Greenleaf, R. K., & Spears, L. C. (2002.)  Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of  Legitimate Power and Greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2009.) Leadership: Theory, Application, and Skill  Development. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.