Steve Jobs demonstrated servant leadership model. Some of the characteristics that the leader exhibited included humility and self-awareness which are important characteristics held by people who serve others (Fiedler and House 2011). This was shown by the way his ideas were mindful and authentic. He was always aware of the situations around him. The third characteristic I observed in this leader was that he had integrity since his leadership was based on ethics and morals. He was also influential since he was capable of pointing the right direction to all his employees (Chu, & Lai 2011).A Servant leader seems a contradicting term when it comes to leadership. However, it is one of the most important leadership models that most project leaders cannot ignore. The major goal of Steve Jobs was to assist his employees to succeed in the tasks assigned to them. He believed that leaders should concentrate more on serving their employees because they play a major role in helping the company grow. Servant leaders should provide employees with what they need ranging from cakes for breakfast, Tool, and even motivation (Laub 2018).
According to Robert green leaf, a servant leader serves his employees even though he holds a leadership role. In recent years this leadership model is thought to be one of the best types of leadership model. Servant leaders are said to value their employees (Chu & Lai 2011). The only difference between them and the employees is that they normally view themselves as the first among equals. They teach as well as learn new things. They can easily step aside for other people to lead the team. Through humility a servant leader is usually in a position to listen to his employees effectively (Jovan Dieredonck ,2011) . Thus coming up with the best strategies for all the stakeholders.
Effectiveness of servant leadership model.
Servant leadership is mainly attributed to decentralized working structures and aims at making stakeholders better (Hartog, & Koopman ,2011 ). This type of leadership model ensures that stakeholders are served effectively starting with the employees to top executives. This kind of leadership model promotes good relationships in a business rather than returns. This means that the five characteristics of a servant leader are applied in employee-manager relationships and customer- employee’s relationships. Employees are also more concerned about the happening in the industry together with their customers. This means that employees should serve their customers by listening to their interest. When servant leadership is applied in all aspects of the projects, the project runs effectively and efficiently (Spears, 2010). states that organizations need to take their time and build employees who are ready to serve their customers. They should understand that everything good for the customer is also good for the organization. This was the reason why the servant leader in this project used a lot of his time to motivate team members in coming up with one of the best projects which will benefit the customer
The reasons why servant leadership is considered the best when managing a project isbecause the model promotes confidence between people. By using this leadership model, the leader is able to boost confidence in a team thus developing support for the team. From various studies, it has been discovered that organizations that use servant leadership have high performing team (Westerman, Bergman, Bergman, & Daly, 2012). Employees in these teams are usually considered when it comes to making decisions. They also take equal responsibility of failures or success of the company. Through this model, it is possible for team members to come up with creative ideas (DeRue & Ashford, 2010) .Employees led by a servant leader must be creative because this model promotes inventions and innovation. On the other hand, servant leadership brings a culture of creativity among all managers. Employees must ensure that the business succeeds because they have to take the business as their own (Rayner, Fuller, McEwen, & Roberts, 2010) .States that Servant leadership brings forth job satisfaction. Servant leadership model promotes peaceful and good relationships between leaders and their employees. This will always make each one of them happy and satisfied when carrying out tasks in the organization. Moreover, this type of leadership model promotes efficiency and effectiveness in workplaces. It will always bring forth perfect teams and collaborations
The impact of servant leadership on the project across the lifecycle
Through servant leadership model Steve Job was able to get the work done quickly and efficiently (Fiedler and House, 2011). This means that he was clear with each task which every person was supposed to execute and how to go about it. This method was able to promote confidence and clarity within team members. Thus the leader was able to create an environment in which team members could contribute to what is best for the project. This helped team member to build effective relationships. However as teams continued to work, some members started having a sense of personality. Those team members who were did not have confidence of themselves may have felt uncomfortable. Thus the Steve Jobs had to pick all the unwanted behavior from individuals and deal with it. This was very important because some people try to test servant leaders. Thus he had to demonstrate that he is confident and a team leader as well (Laub, 2018,). The other way in which the leaders can effectively serve their teams is ensuring that they are focused on the tasks they have been assigned
As the Steve Jobs solved social issues between the team members, teams became more active. Employees became more confident in their tasks. At this stage, the leader did not interfere with their affairs too much, and he also did not keep giving instructions. So Steve Job came up with processes and practices that supported the team members and employees in ensuring that they carry out their tasks effectively. He also helped in creating a good relationship within employees to ensure that jobs were carried out effectively (Hartog, & Koopman 2011).The primary role of a servant leader in this stage is to strengthen and create relationships between team members and ensuring good performance within team members.
Once employees developed good relationships and they had all the tools to work effectively, there was little for the servant leader to do. Thus his main responsibility was to ensure that team members acted as leaders in their assigned tasks. Thus at this point, the major role of Steve Job was to offer direction to the team members. The leader ensured that employees get the rations that are due to them. He also ensured that team members have a productive work environment, information, assets, and the right resources. At this point, the leader was providing the team members with what they need. At this stage, the leader also acted as an umbrella by ensuring that the team was not distracted from carrying out their tasks in the organization, at this stage the leader also did the difficult administrative job while ensuring that the team deliver good results
The procedures used by project managers in their leadership role determine whether a project will be able to achieve its objectives or not. This means that to meet the stakeholder’s expectation depends on project leaders. Research has further shown that many projects fail because of poor management (DeRue & Ashford 2010). Poor leadership usually brings about poor communication, conflicts, and limited teamwork. Projects usually fail because of three factors which are the technological framework, organizational framework, and external environment (Ferch& Speras, 2011). Failure of a project brought by organization context is usually associated with leadership, top-level support or corporate culture. However, leadership is usually singled out as one major cause of project failure (Ferch& Speras, 2011). Leadership usually affect the projects strategy, culture, and team commitment (Jovan Dieredonck, 2011) .Without an appropriate leadership model there is a high chance that your project will fail. This is because project managers are meant to point the direction to other members of the organization. Normally project management is not usually a one-person task but a team effort. Thus project managers should be in a position to combine both technological and human capital in a temporary environment (Rayner et al., 2010). Leadership in a project will always require that a leader brings all aspects of the project together. There are various leadership models that can be applied by project managers. Adopting servant leadership style ensures success in most projects (Spears, 2010.). In Servant leadership, the major role of a leader is to offer support services to all the stakeholders. The leader is known to build employees, encourage innovation, remove obstacles and solve problems. The different characteristics associated with a servant leader include humility, empathy, persuasion, and listening. it is said that servant leadership promotes human resources skills necessary to ensure that the objectives of a project are achieved.
Conclusion
Leadership is critical when it comes to the success or failure of a project (Westerman et al., 2012). Thus stakeholders need to make sure that a project manager is an experienced person. On the other hand, the project managers should adopt the best leadership strategy that will ensure the success of the project.
References
Chu, L., & Lai, C. (2011). Research on the influence of leadership style and job characteristics on job performance among accountants of county and city government in Taiwan. Journal of Public Personnel Management, 40(2), Pp 101-118. Retrieved From:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283770800_The_effect_of_leadership_on_organizational_performance..
DeRue, D. S., & Ashford, S. J. (2010). Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 627–647. Retrieved from:https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fbac/4f0b87d63854040b33a749dded3cc0d1e525.pdf.
Jovan Dieredonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), Pp 1228-1261. Retrieved Fromhttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206310380462?frame=sidebarc37%2F4%2F1228p37%2F4%2F1228%3D
Spears, L. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. Journal of Virtues and Leadership, 1(1), Pp 25-30. Retrieved from: https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/jvl/vol1_iss1/Spears_Final.pdf
Rayner, S., Fuller, M., McEwen, L., & Roberts, H. (2010). Managing leadership interuniversity: a case for researching the missing professoriate? Studies In Higher Education, 35(6), 617–631. Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075070903243100
Westerman, J. W., Bergman, J. Z., Bergman, S. M., & Daly, J. P. (2012). Are universities creating millennial narcissistic employees? An empirical examination of narcissism in business students and its implications. Journal of Management Education, 36(1), Pp 5–32. Retrieved From: https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Bergman_Shawn_2012_Are_Universities.pdf
Fiedler, F.E. and House, R.J. (2011), “Leadership Theory and Research: A Report of Progress,” International Review of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 88, pp. 73- 91. Retrieved From: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2dc9/c1b1b36a7ac68a4b75b61d07a33860a28017.pdf.
Ferch, S. R., & Speras, L. C. (2011). The spirit of servant-leadership. New York, Paulist Press. Retrieved From: https://www.worldcat.org/title/spirit-of-servant-leadership/oclc/650505748
Hartog, D.N.D. and P.L. Koopman (2011) Leadership in Organizations. Handbook of Industrial, Work & Organizational Psychology Vol.2, No.12, Pp 166-187 SAGE Publications. Retrieved From: https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/leadership-in-organizations
Laub, J. (2018). Leveraging the power of servant leadership: building high performing organizations. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan retrieved From https://www.worldcat.org/title/leveraging-the-power-of-servant-leadership-building-high-performing-organizations/oclc/1022793975
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