Servant Leaders Focus on Followers

Synthesis

Summary

The main point of the article by Stone et al. (2004) is that the primary difference between servant and transformational leadership is the focus of each: the servant leader focuses on the follower and making sure the follower is reaching his potential as a person and professional; the transformational leader’s focus is on the organization and making sure workers are committed to the organization’s goals. Aside from this difference, both styles of leadership are depicted as dynamic and as impacting the character of the worker for the better. The secondary point of the article is that servant leadership faces challenges in scholarship and in the workplace because it is difficult to measure and to empirically investigate; however, the researchers do note that new thoughts on servant leadership and its benefits are arising in academia. Overall, the article focuses on how transformational and servant leadership have a lot in common—such as both using vision, trust, communication, empowerment, and motivation to inspire followers. Whereas transformational leaders motivate and communicate a vision in order to obtain buy-in from workers, servant leaders motivate and communicate a vision in order to promote self-leadership.

Stone et al. (2004) also point out that the two leadership styles are complementary to one another, in spite of being distinct from one another. Transformational leaders do tend to be more charismatic and tend to motivate by way of their own personal charisma, while servant leaders tend to influence followers simply by putting themselves at the service of their followers. There are risks involved with both, particularly if each type of leader has self-serving interests at heart.

Analysis and Evaluation

Overall, the authors present their information well, using headings and subheadings to keep the reader focused on the point. The thesis of the article was effectively communicated because the researchers did exactly as they stated they would do in their introduction: show the similarities and differences of transformational and servant leadership. They even included helpful charts and graphs that provided a visual representation of these similarities and differences. The presentation was organized, logically put together, and easy to read. It did not veer off into any tangents or digressions that had nothing to do with the thesis. It stayed on topic, and touched on all the points mentioned in the Abstract.

Moreover, the main point was convincingly articulated. It was easy to see how the two styles of leadership were similar but distinct from one another by the end of the article, and it was also easy to understand the challenges that face servant leadership in modern scholarship. The issue with servant leadership is that measuring it depends more on qualitative methods than quantitative methods, whereas with transformational leadership, one can see how effective it is based on whether goals are being met. In reality, though, this same approach to measuring the effectiveness of the style could be applied to servant leadership, even though its focus is on the person and not on the organizational goals. In the end, the purpose is to help the organization.