Leadership is everyday practice, yet also complicated array of disciplines like mngt, socio, psy, political science, spirituality, etc . Servanthhood leadership is a very noble approach, also backed by action framework now, but it demands very strong virtues and character display. I persoanlly beleieve ShL can be more vividly demonstrated by already high-power / senior people, becasue people can see the contrasting effect. VUCA world would be a big challene to ShL. Hope these ideas help.

In the team if strong individuals, servant leadership is the most appropriate. If we have experts of their field in the team, leader should obtain good conditions for assignment realization and just coordinate activities. Leader in such group should not be directive, because his leadership style can produce bad effect on task fulfilment.

With such examplars as Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, the (14th) Dalai Lama, and of course Jesus and Chanakya before them, it cannot be said that servant leadership does not "translate" globally. And yet, most of us would be hard put to cite other names. Why? Is it because, in rather exhaustively defining the characteristics of servant leaders, proponents such as Spears (2010) have—rather counterproductively in my opinion—set the bar so high than only someone who is imbued with a dozen cardinal virtues can ever be deemed worthy of the title? Besides, who is to say that such qualities as integrity, humility, flexibility, resilience, stewardship, empathy, emotional healing, commitment to the growth of people, etc. must be the exclusive preserve of servant leaders anyway? My experience is that toned-down versions of servant leadership are practiced by many, for example in schools; that it works here and there; but that more prevalence is hampered in certain sectors and industries by organizational models that are (sometimes maniacally) focused on short-term results, none of which are suited to move servants to the top of hierarchies.

Reference

Spears, L. (2010). Character and servant leadership: The ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1), 25–30.

Presentation The Servant Leadership of Gandhi

Article Informal Authority and the Enduring Appeal of Servant Leaders

Article Exercising Servant Leadership

Good day,

Servant leadership is often defined as a leadership philosophy built on the belief that the most effective leaders strive to serve others, rather than accrue power or take control. But, in essence it doesn’t truly reflect the underpinning of leadership styles that encourage employee independence through leadership guidance and support. Serving is vastly different from support and support builds trust. Trust is the key to productive, motivated, and content employees. Leaders build trust which builds referent power which reduces the need for authoritative power. Being a servant seldom builds trust.

Caterina Valentino

I have been dealing with the topic of servant leadership for two years. You can find a presentation by me in ResearchGate. When studying the different leadership models, it is easy to see that there are countless types of leadership. Marques & Diham (Leadership Today, Springer, 2017) provide a broad overview of the different “types”. Servant leadership is particularly important in the USA and Asia, mainly in NGOs, churches and schools. Servant leadership is also occasionally found in economically oriented companies. In Germany, there are increasing reports on the importance and benefits of servant leadership in the fundamental change of organizations towards agile organizations, e.g. in the case of SCRUM methods or OKR. Regardless of all of the above, I believe that servant leadership has many useful qualities that everyone should consider for themselves. In fact, I think I can certainly use some elements situationally. Especially when it comes to dealing or work with employees, customers and suppliers in a particularly human-centric manner. For a practitioner who has to manage an industrial company, for example, "servant leadership" sounds a bit strange. Nevertheless, there are also areas in these companies, such as product management, development or marketing, in which many elements of servant leadership can or should be used. There is no harm in treating people with care and support!

Servant leadership goes directly to the Latin root meaning of the word "administration" -- "to minister to ... , to serve ... ".

Not a new concept or a new title. People have been writing about it for some years now. It certainly has its place and its role in organizational leadership and humanistic management. There are quite a few overlaps with numerous other leadership styles, as it shares attributes with several others. There’s definitely still plenty of room for research on the topic. Sometimes I hear a discussion, presentation, or read something about it and its apparent the authors dont know much about it, which leads me to believe that the leadership style has become a buzz word and is. Eing misused and mis-defined. That said, with all of the leadership writing and theory out there (one of the most written about topics altogether), the servant leadership style has a solid position in the list of fundamental leadership styles.

Thank you for your opinion and references dear :

Clement Wang,

Ivica Matejic,

Olivier Serrat,

Caterina Lucia Valentino,

Hartmut Kainer,

Karen Tichy,

Anton Shufutinsky.

The Servant Leadership

• encourages diversity of thought.
• creates a culture of trust between her/him and subordinates.
• has an unselfish mindset.
• fosters leadership in others.