Servant leadership management style was cited by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. This is a management style that includes some set of rules and philosophy that helps in enriching the lives of individuals. It also contributes in building a good organization and growth of the same. This leadership style starts with the feeling that an individual wants to serve. There is person who is totally different from the others and called as leader. There is a much decentralized structure in this style of management as it mainly focuses on the empowerment of employees and innovation in the organization. It clearly shows that all the major decision making power lies at top level management and they share it with the employees who are responsible to work directly with customers and clients. They have much information regarding major concerns in the organization if compare to other employees. They know the needs of the organization to face competition in the market.it results in better decision making when companies know their customers well. It also helps in efficient and effective utilization of resources. Corporate culture requires the power in correct hands to continue growth (Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, 2002).
There are different advantages as well as disadvantages of this management model. We will discuss the first advantage of this servant leadership model. Service is the core part of servant leadership and it needs a leader who can set aside all personal wants and desires to listen the people that are under his leadership. This model basically helps in removing the attitude and ego of the people who are in the leadership position. According to Covey, every person has an ability to become a leader because of the moral authority. It is all about the ability to choose the position. Everyone has the authority to choose the ability and everyone choose it in a proper way and it is an advantage that helps in inspiring the leader so that he can lead in the way he wants to. In servant leadership, there is a requirement of a leader who can enable others to lead themselves. The second advantage is that there is no disciplinarian atmosphere. With here are no roles and policies made by them because they administer all the policies buy listening to everyone. With the help of a collaborative approach, a servant leader can become a facilitator. I this manner, everyone feel responsible for the result of the project. Spears (1998) feel the same about servant leadership because according to him, it helps in improving relationships between people who are collaborating with each other. This is totally opposite to the model that says that leader shows disciplinarian traits to achieve the targets (Phipps, 2010).
The third advantage is related to the second one. Servant leadership creates a sense of ownership in everyone. It shows the sharing of responsibility and sense of ownership for the work that basically increase the level of dedication and pride in everyone’s work. It also leads in increasing productivity and the outcomes of the approach will be visible by everyone. It also helps in building trust and respect between all the workers as well as members of the group. According to Flint, Servant leaders are the people who understand the process and ways to encourage, motivate, inspire and support all the group members so that they can work together for accomplishing the goals of the organization. In this way every person understands his roles and responsibility and completes the same without creating any issue (Wheeler, 2012).
Fourth advantage of Servant leadership is diversity. There are different type of people in a group who belong to different culture and different diversities. They have various talents, personalities and traits. According to Flint Extols, servant leadership is considered as a way of recognizing diversity in the whole group. He explains that servant leaders know that diverse workforce is vital for the success of the organization. Servant relationship helps in adopting different approaches to leadership that other models would not do. It possesses the effects of flexibility in replying to varying situations. This model also encourages stronger relationship within the group because there is an increase in the sense of fulfilment (The Journey of Competitive Advantage through Servant Leadership, 2011).
The fifth advantage is related to involvement. Servant leadership helps in getting the involvement of everyone in decision making process. Decision of every person gets considered as it is not a democratic process that shows the major rule to the detriment of minority. Servant leadership values all the import and try to serve every person rather than a collective mindset. This model enables participation of every employee in decision making process that creates a sense of responsibility and ownership in them. When there is an involvement of all the employees then it also helps in increasing the productivity. When a project gets successful ten every employee also feels satisfied as it involved their contribution also. According to Wheeler, at the time of discussing humility that is required for servant leadership, then it states that ‘Servant leaders think that success lies within the community and determined by efforts, commitment and responsibility of the people involved in it (The Power of Servant Leadership, 1998).
There are some disadvantages of servant leadership as well. We will discuss he disadvantages now. The first disadvantage is related to the timescale for this kind of venture. There is a requirement of change in mentality as well as attitude to work in a successful manner in Servant leadership. Greenleaf (1998) admits almost everything when he states ‘it takes time’ (Hunitie, 2018). According to him, it is not a project that can have a starring date but rather must start from a different and change mind-set. It becomes difficult for the large groups as well as long established groups. It can be also difficult for the people who have adopted being led in an authoritarian way to adopt the responsibility given to them in this leadership style. This style is considered as a long project because it includes everyone in the idea (Sun, 2013).
Second disadvantage of servant leadership is that there is a lack of willingness to accept this leadership style. This style needs a whole institution approach instead of individuals engaging in it themselves. When all the parts of the institution get involved then this style change and automatically willingness to engage increase as well. Greenleaf (1998) states that there are many organizations that resists any chance to undermine their authority by engaging in a thing like servant leadership. According to him, servant leadership becomes very difficult when ‘administrator is very much involved in the common mores of the institutional life’ (‘Why servant leadership is a bad idea’, 2018).
The third disadvantage is all about the lack of authority that can result from this leadership style (Zentner, 2015). Sometimes, leader diminishes all his sense of authority because he needs to divest a share of responsibility to all the members of the group. It becomes difficult to choose a different leadership approach for changing the situation. Employee starts looking at the leader in a different way, because the person has a little authority. McCrimmon states a critique and according to hum no servant can fire their master. It actually happens when there is a strong relationship between the servant and the leader or when servant leadership inverts the relationship. It is considered as a big hypocrisy when the leader must fire the led whom they are responsible to serve (Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, 1979).
The fourth disadvantage is related to the confusion in terms of the goals of leadership. There is a question that can be asked if the manager is responsible to fulfill the needs of the employees or contribute in meeting the goals of the organization to which they are employed. In this aspect also, McCrimmon states a critique when he states ‘It is not the manager’s job to fulfill the needs of the employees’. According to him, servant leadership may have a similar impact of generating a parent- child relationship that can be result in demotivation on the employee’s part. This may sometimes leads in disengagement from the process (‘The problem with Servant Leadership’,2018). The fifth disadvantage is the limited vision. There are different leaders and they are different or distinct from each other on some or the other way. When the leaders focused on serving the needs of the people who are being led then they will surely fail to fulfill the requirement or needs of the institution that they have to fulfill for sure. Denning has an issue with the idea of humility that is considered as very intrinsic to servant leadership. According to him, ‘The 21st century leader is neither arrogant nor humble’. Humility leads to risks getting nothing done and on the other and arrogance can be counterproductive (Davenport, 2014).
Conclusion
The conclusion is that the style has so many advantages as well as disadvantages but this style is actually applied to many organization and they found it effective in managing people. As it was discussed that employees are given importance as they are included in decision making process. It creates a sense of ownership and responsibility that ultimately leads in high productivity.
Basically Servant Leadership style has its pros as well as cons. It has to be followed in a proper way. This model helps a lot in people management because it can satisfy the employees mentally as well as emotionally. It gives a sense of ownership and motivation to the employees and this is the best way of getting higher productivity.
References
Bill F. (2011) The Journey of Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership (Bloomington: WestBow
Press, 2011), p. 3.
Davenport, B. (2014). Compassion, suffering and servant-leadership: Combining compassion and
servant-leadership to respond to suffering. Leadership, 11(3), pp.300-315.
Flint, B. (2012). The Journey To Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership. Beijing: O’Reilly
Associates.
Hunitie, M. (2018). Impact of strategic leadership on strategic competitive advantage through strategic
thinking and strategic planning: a bi-meditational research. Business: Theory and Practice, 19, pp.322-330.
Mitch Mc C. (2015) ‘Why servant leadership is a bad idea’,
Management issues <https://www.managementissues.com/opinion/6015/why-servant-leadership-is-a-bad-idea/>
[Accesed on 11 December 2018]
Phipps, K. (2010). Servant Leadership and Constructive Development Theory. Journal of Leadership
Education, 9(2), pp.151-170.
Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2002).
Robert G., The Power of Servant Leadership, ed. By Larry Spears (San Francisco: Berrett- Koehler
Publishers, 1998).
Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. (1979). Business
Horizons, 22(3), pp.91-92.
Steve Denning,”The problem with Servant Leadership”,
(2010),https://stevedenning.typepas.com/steve_denning/2010/04/o-lord-its-hard-to-be-a-humble
leader.html> [Accessed on 11 December 2018]
Sun, P. (2013). The servant identity: Influences on the cognition and behavior of servant leaders. The
Leadership Quarterly, 24(4), pp.544-557.
Wheeler, D. (2012). Servant leadership for higher education. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
Zentner, A. (2015). Servant Leadership and Religious Values: Drawing Speculation to Commonalities
between Servant Leadership Characteristics and Faith-Based Values. SSRN Electronic Journal.
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