As we settle in to 2024, Benchmarks’ CQi team remains steadfast in our focus on servant leadership, which continues to inform and guide our work. Our ongoing exploration of Serve to Lead: True Lessons About Lean Organizational Leadership by Samson Floyd & Dwayne Robson leads us to evaluate the importance of foresight, awareness, persuasion, and listening in our own roles as servant-leaders.
Effective leadership within organizations entails leaders who act as supportive coaches, capable of serving the needs of employees, the organization itself, and partner organizations alike. Robert K. Greenleaf introduced the concept of servant leadership in 1970, and his seminal work underpins Serve to Lead. Greenleaf emphasized in his original essay on servant leadership that a “servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. The servant-leader shares power, prioritizes the needs of others, and aids in their development and performance.” Greenleaf also explored in his essay, “The Institution as Servant,” how organizations could embody servant-leadership principles and how such organizations could affect meaningful change in the world.
Servant-leaders and servant organizations have the capacity to enact transformative change. As Benchmarks’ CQi nurtures staff in servant-leadership principles, they, in turn, coach institutions and fellow servant-leaders in their respective projects. A critical measure of servant leadership is assessing whether those being served experience personal growth. It is imperative for servant-leaders to possess a deep awareness of their own experiences and how these experiences shape their leadership styles. Servant-leaders must refine their active listening skills, especially when the temptation to provide immediate answers arises. Instead, servant-leaders should facilitate others in arriving at their own conclusions.
Servant-leaders can effectively persuade, influence, and inspire others to accomplish necessary tasks. They can articulate a vision of positive outcomes stemming from the work being done in real-time contexts. Additionally, they can link local efforts to overarching visions, demonstrating how localized efforts impact larger systems. For instance, as Benchmarks’ consultants implement projects to ensure timely, Trauma-intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessments (TiCCAs) for children in foster care, they draw upon data from original Partnering for Excellence (PFE) projects. This data, coupled with anecdotal evidence from PFE projects, persuades new partners to engage. Throughout the implementation process, consultants reassure agency participants that their local cultural and procedural changes are worthwhile, celebrating incremental successes and providing ongoing encouragement to social services servant-leaders at all levels. By exemplifying these practices, partner agency servant-leaders gain insight into imparting servant-leadership skills and tools to their own teams. We are eager to continue our journey of growth as servant-leaders in the year ahead!
References:
Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.
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