The organizational behavior is the way people interact within the groups. The servant leadership is the part of the organizational behavior. A servant leadership style is the best tactic for managing people in the organization. It is the extension or variation of people-oriented leadership. The servant leaders asks employees the way they wanted to get them supported than expecting employees to serve them. Persons who personify servant leadership are termed as selfless, democratic, humble, fostering, sympathetic and ethical coaches. This report defines the servant leadership along with its pros and cons. The recommendations are also given at the end of the report.
The servant leadership style describes leadership as aiding others in ways that supports their need fulfillment, personal development and growth. The main aim of the servant leadership is to upkeep other stakeholders in their need fulfillments and potentials. It even help stakeholders in becoming better, sensible, freer and more independent. They are more likely themselves to become servants. The way leaders serve followers helps them in fulfilling their needs. These leaders are trainers, agents and initiators of the employee development (Chen, Zhu and Zhou, 2015).
The servant leaders have a natural desire of serving others. They have deep commitment towards growth of others. The leaders even goes beyond the obligation to help others and are not merely committed to the company’s objectives. The servant leaders sustain leadership with others which is modest, democratic and patient. These leaders do not sight leadership as a locus of power. But they assist without drawing devotion to themselves, inducing higher status and being hypercritical about others. These leaders broadcast their decisions and actions in ethical principles and practices. They represent their sympathy and moral values and are not persuaded by social pressures. The servant leaders relies mainly on the idea of authentic leadership (Chiniara and Bentein, 2016). It is the main function of leadership is to encourage an employee organization fit by assisting individual goals with the organizational goals. The servant leadership offers prime prominence to the individual needs and objectives. It enables employees to accomplish organizational needs through motivation. The decisions made by the servant leaders are in the interest of the organization and not constrained to one or two people. When the organization is served best then the customers are actually being served well. It helps staff to grow and succeed them to grow as a leader (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn and Wu, 2018).
The servant leadership has enjoyed a steady following among the practitioners and religious leaders. It follows group first and then the principles of leadership. The servant leader can become administrator for the team. The pros of the servant leadership are explained below:
Diversity: The servant leadership is usually effective inn a diverse workplace. It is a style of autocratic leadership and causes hostility among the employees. The servant leadership style is a democratic form of leadership and causes contrasting point of views to be misleading to fit the need of the team. This leadership style serve all the employees of the organization (Connolly, Lang and Tygar, 2015). It even allows for personalized management for each team members and maintains cohesiveness.
Loyalty: In the rest of the practices of the management styles, the essentials and visions of the organization are placed in advance of the requirements of the staff. On the other side, the need of the staff becomes of prime significance in the servant leadership. The administrative staff develops an ethical standing in the decision making process which favors the employees (Van Dierendonck and Patterson, 2015). The advantages of the servant leadership style considers the desires of the employees and can have important role in the profession development. It also maintains work life equilibrium and advances a strong sense of trustworthiness from the employees in the company.
Involvement: An organization which works under a servant leadership style operates the individual needs. It also operate as a collective where the group is capable of making decisions. The servant leadership style is different than the democratic management style as majority rules in the democratic leadership style whereas opinions and inputs matter in the servant leadership style (Liden, Wayne, Liao and Meuser, 2014). An organization can acquire a selection of solutions and advance the feeling of the employees by expending servant leadership style in the decision making.
Productivity: The leaders in the organization practicing servant leadership gains a great agreement of admiration and trust from the members. The servant leadership style encourages a great sense of morale strong positive feelings between the management and employees. It leads to more satisfaction between the employees and it results in more productivity at workplaces (Van Dierendonck, et. al. 2014).
Change: Managing changes effectively includes establishing vision for the future. The servant leadership style in the organization helps in shaping mission and goals from the employee’s point of view. The employees can even tackle their careers effectively and can establish appropriate work. It helps in determining their own future (Panaccio, et. al. 2015). The employees who play an important role in determining a company’s evolution to the updated style are tend to be more loyal, dynamic and satisfied. Having servant leadership style is a convinced advantage to the company’s bottom line.
Choosing an effective leadership style is one of the crucial aspect of running a business. The cons of the servant leadership style are given below:
Works against the traditional authority: The leaders in the organization implementing servant leadership are required to give up the absolute authority. The leaders go against the traditional workplace structure and communicate such decisions to the employees. The servant leadership is all about giving credit to the employees in succeeding but it is difficult for the leaders to act selflessly in the pursuit of success. It serves disadvantage to the servant leadership (Perreira and Berta, 2016).
Lack of motivation to employees: Another problem associated with the servant leadership style is that it makes employees less motivated and produces poor results. The servant leaders are persuaded to step in and fix problems whenever it occurs. It comprises finishing a task which a member failed to complete. But the servant leaders motivates rarely to the employees for working hard (Liden, et. al. 2015). The employees exert less efforts in the tasks when they feel that the managers will take care of the needs. Lack of motivation and productivity are the main cons of practicing servant leadership.
Decreases managerial authority: The servant leadership leads to the minimization of the authority in the overall management function of the business. The managers cater to the needs in the extreme manner and the employees view them as more of authoritative. The managers are required to be more dominant for pushing low and middle level employees to attain better performance.
Does not fit in every business: The servant leadership does not fit in every business. Every business cannot be benefitted by the servant leadership style. It takes time to establish servant leadership style as it requires commitment to develop staff, promote personal and professional growth. The businesses undergoing changes cannot respond well to the servant leadership because of the lack of stability. It makes managers to implement this leadership (Sipe and Frick, 2015). This leadership style tend to make difficult decisions for the job performance. The managers should take hard look at the servant leadership to check whether the cons are more than the benefits of the approach.
Lack of willingness: The cons of the servant leadership style is the willingness to adapt it. It requires a whole institution approach. The parts involved in the leadership style change and the willingness also increases. The organizations undermine their authority by engaging in the exercises like servant leadership.
Excessive amount of work required: The main issue faced in the servant leadership is the excessive amount of the work required. The time is required for creating lessons. The individual as well as organizational goals are required to serve individual needs. This method does not always work and not necessarily resolves issues (Spears and Lawrence, 2016).
Conclusion and recommendations
The servant leadership need not each time to work and resolve issues associated to individual organization fit. It works well only when every member in the organization is dedicated to the concept and has definite core skills and behaviors. The benefits of the servant leadership is not a quick fix and real assistances of it are deceptive only in the long run. It helps staff to grow as a leader and sets the tone for the organization. The servant leadership style is recommended when the employees meet personal goals, involved in the decisions and build a sense of community within the team.
The traditional authority should not be ignored and the servant leaders should not go beyond the obligation to help others. The leaders are recommended to commit the company’s objectives. There should be stability in the servant leadership for the undergoing changes in the business. The servant leaders are required to listen more, be aware and more persuading. Such leaders are also recommended towards commitment towards growth of the people.
References
Chen, Z., Zhu, J. and Zhou, M., 2015. How does a servant leader fuel the service fire? A multilevel model of servant leadership, individual self identity, group competition climate, and customer service performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(2), p.511.
Chiniara, M. and Bentein, K., 2016. Linking servant leadership to individual performance: Differentiating the mediating role of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), pp.124-141.
Connolly, L., Lang, M. and Tygar, J.D., 2015, May. Investigation of employee security behaviour: A grounded theory approach. In IFIP International Information Security Conference (pp. 283-296). Springer, Cham.
Hoch, J.E., Bommer, W.H., Dulebohn, J.H. and Wu, D., 2018. Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2), pp.501-529.
Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Liao, C. and Meuser, J.D., 2014. Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), pp.1434-1452.
Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Meuser, J.D., Hu, J., Wu, J. and Liao, C., 2015. Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.254-269.
Panaccio, A., Henderson, D.J., Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J. and Cao, X., 2015. Toward an understanding of when and why servant leadership accounts for employee extra-role behaviors. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(4), pp.657-675.
Perreira, T.A. and Berta, W., 2016. The object of your affection: how commitment, leadership and justice influence workplace behaviours in health care. Journal of nursing management, 24(2), pp.E146-E154.
Sipe, J.W. and Frick, D.M., 2015. Seven pillars of servant leadership: Practicing the wisdom of leading by serving. Paulist Press.
Spears, L.C. and Lawrence, M. eds., 2016. Practicing servant-leadership: Succeeding through trust, bravery, and forgiveness. John Wiley & Sons.
Van Dierendonck, D. and Patterson, K., 2015. Compassionate love as a cornerstone of servant leadership: An integration of previous theorizing and research. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(1), pp.119-131.
Van Dierendonck, D., Stam, D., Boersma, P., De Windt, N. and Alkema, J., 2014. Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(3), pp.544-562.
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