Comment by onion2k
1 day ago
"Servant Leadership" is a term was coined by Robert Greenleaf in his 1977 book "Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness", which is very specifically about being a church leader. Many of the more generic ideas are applicable in any leadership scenario but if you read the book it's very clear that it was not designed with business leadership in mind. You shouldn't really expect it to apply to being a leader in a tech company.
Many terms and frameworks evolve beyond their original intent, so I'm not too worried that this has evolved, too.
I've always found it is easier to understand servant leadership as the opposite end of the spectrum from autocratic leadership: Is the leader primarily concerned about growing their own power/success, or growing the power/success of those who work for them?
There is a lot of middle ground between those two extremes, but without that contrast in mind, you can easily lose track of what the terms mean. The article does a decent job of trying to find a healthier middle ground, IMO.
The problem with servant leadership is twofold:
Firstly, in 'proper' servant leadership as taught by Greenleaf the leader is supposed to put the church before their own needs and wants. It is not about serving the people who report to you; it's about serving the organisation first. In a business context that's horribly toxic and a great way to spend years being exploited by a company that will grind you to burnout for very little money. Thankfully most people don't actually follow what Greenleaf teaches because they think it's about the people.
Secondly though, people don't bother to read much about it. They hear the term and a basic summary, and then fill in the blanks based on their own biases and assumptions. Consequently when someone says they practise servant leadership you can't know what they mean unless you know them well. People who practise their version of servant leadership assume other people mean the same thing by it, and automatically align themselves with that person based on (probably) false assumptions. It is not a helpful term because it's used for a huge range of leadership styles.
no, it has to be organisation first. it's no good to put people first if there's no job to go to. if you put the organisation first, you get a good working environment since it requires a leadership style that gets the best out of people. any leader or any employee should ideally be replaceable.
it's not "horribly toxic" as you say, because if that is the case your company is terrible in the first place.
Servant leadership is about the big lines, not only the company but being a positive force in society as well. If you truly understand it, it's probably the hardest kind of leadership to aspire to.
In fact, servant leadership is about turning the organizational chart upside down, where the leaders serve the other employees, making sure they have what they need so they get the best out if them
The problem is when things evolve we no longer know if someone refers to the evolved form or the original. Or more importantly if the evolved form retains the important parts of the original.
Exactly. And like evolution, what of the millions of species it evolved to are referring to.
IMHO either stick with the original, or say “like X with following changes/details” or just go with a new thing.
>I've always found it is easier to understand servant leadership as the opposite end of the spectrum from autocratic leadership: Is the leader primarily concerned about growing their own power/success, or growing the power/success of those who work for them?
Wouldn’t the opposite be rather cooperation of self-organising autonomous people, gathered around common goals?
Servant leadership works just fine in business (as in a competitive non-church environment) as long you’re aware you you’re serving and who you’re working peer to peer with/against/whatever.
Another term for it somewhat is being a “players coach.”
End state is you will build loyal as heck teams with it, and if you want to take a very cynical business mindset, it produces with the least pain and suffering three very impotent outcomes - your team will produce output, they won’t hate you along the way, and your team will write you (well earned) manager perf reviews. A manager who has a loyal as heck team up and down the stack builds unique odds of corporate survival.
All it takes is a little EQ.
For me the useful bit of servant leadership isn’t the religious origin, it’s the reversal of default: you’re not “above” your reports, you’re in service to them and the mission
I don't think they interpreted it correctly anyway.
All these trendy management things either go back to straight-up bullshit (this is the more common case) or some non-bullshit thing that's been ripped out of its original context such that it becomes bullshit.