Servant Leadership Essay

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Assignment: Module 6 Servant Leadership
Ed Moore
XXX XXX XXX Any University: MGT 420
October 19th, 2014

Introduction At first glance, many, if not most people today, might truly believe or assume that the Servant Leadership model or style is simply not compatible with any others cultures, religions or theories of philosophy. This paper addresses these beliefs and assumptions and, champions the notion that they not only can be compatible but, that Servant Leadership is becoming more and more essential for successful operations in today’s dynamic business environments and organizations throughout the world. In fact, Robert K. Greenleaf’s original essay on the leader as servant has been translated into several languages. This paper is written with the intent to illuminate Greenleaf’s vision and explain the reasons for it.

Comparing another Religion or Philosophy Dinesh D’Souza shares the following in his book, “Christianity enhanced the notion of political and social accountability by providing a new model: that of servant leadership” (D’Souza, 2007, p.61). Recognizing the need for a new leadership style or model indeed led to Greenleaf’s vision and his “coining of the term” servant leadership. In an attempt to compare and contrast one other philosophy leads this student to look at Atheism to leverage the benefits of Servant Leadership. While many believe the ultimate servant leader is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ there are those among us who do not believe in anything of the sort. Atheists, for example, hold a completely different worldview in that they do not believe in God or any deity. Under their aims and purposes page at www.atheists.org they offer that Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds. They further explain that they are focused on all human (and other) life. Given these aims and purposes, Atheism and Servant Leadership’s 10 characteristics appear quite compatible among those in leadership or management positions. Those ten characteristics of listening, healing, empathy, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community are all important leadership attributes (Spears, 2003, p.13-16).

Comparing another Leadership Style or Model “When organizations’ hire, develop, and promote leaders using a competency-based model, they’re unwittingly incubating failure (Myatt, 2013, ¶1).” Competency-based Leadership inherently rewards employees based potentially solely on their technical competency. Mike argues further that in many cases this style or practice loses sight of the entire employee and has the potential to do more harm than good in the organization. Today’s environment requires that organizations care about the whole person. Servant Leadership’s commitment to the growth of people recognizes this and their true potential. Competency-based models might have served some companies well in the past but, that was then.

Servant Leader Attribute Described Commitment to the growth of people means much more than leaders just looking after that next promotion or pay raise for workers. The servant-leader recognizes the tremendous responsibility to do everything possible to nurture the personal, professional, and spiritual growth of employees (Spears, 2003). This means taking these things to the next level regarding funding, education, professional development opportunities, etc…
A Leadership Example This student personally experienced this commitment to professional development while serving in the Army. A very high level extensive course was known as the Defense Sensor Interpretation and Applications Training Program or (DSIATP). Even though this course was very expensive and entailed my
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