Servant leadership: principles and applications

¶ … strong leader. To be a leader in any field requires a ton of empathy, and a desire to want to do right by those working or learning underneath one's supervision and authority (Spears, 2005, p 2). In a 2005 article, Larry Spears describes a new image of leadership -- the servant leader. This is the idea that the leader aims to serve the ones working under them in order to better facilitate those individuals' own personal and educational development. The argument presented does co-align with the principles of the Carter & Moyers Standards at Lincoln Memorial University.

The primary assumptions of the concept of servant leadership follow the idea that one feels the need to serve others. Servant-leadership is essentially a stance where leadership actually empowers the individual being led. Leadership is not expressing one's authority to other's dismay, but rather the ability to understand where others are and work with them, serving their better interests, in order to improve their own capabilities and understanding of the environment. The article itself then goes on to provide a number of ways in which leaders can utilize certain elements as a way to work with their desire to help others to make their leadership have a stronger foundation. It helps provide a way that leaders can use the idea to better the experience of the workplace through a more collaborative effort.

The perspective presented here is that the leader needs to take the role of the servant in many ways to help those under them to rise to the occasion. According to this perspective, "the great leader is first experienced as a servant to others, and that this is central to his or her greatness" and as such, "true leadership emerges from those whose primary motivation is a deep desire to help others" (Spears, 2005, p 2). In many ways, this article focuses on a type of leadership that would work well within an educational setting. The second standard in the Carter & Moyers School of Education standards states that the candidate must embody a sense of appreciation for the use of education as a way to increase the overall quality of an individual's life (Lincoln Memorial University, 2012). Under this assumption, education becomes a way to lead those in need through serving their needs.

Additionally, this has implications in regards to the fourth standard presented by Carter & Moyers. The fourth standard focuses on applying major concepts to the process of learning in order to better create strong foundation for knowledge and learning beyond the context of the lesson (Lincoln Memorial University, 2012). Essentially, generating this foundation for learners is a leader working as a servant in order to provide for a better learning experience for those under their care. Spears illustrates that servant-leadership depends on the "commitment to the growth of people," which helps satisfy this requirement (Spears, 2005, p 4).