Skilled Communicator

A servant leader needs to be a skilled communicator, one who is able to inspire followership through mutual respect and persuasive power. The servant leader practices skilful communication in a number of different ways, such as active listening to the needs of stakeholders and actively soliciting feedback and input (Davis, 2016). Skilled communication therefore involves three main tenets: actively listening, seeking feedback, and using multiple rhetorical strategies to persuade and inspire.
Communication is one of the pillars of servant leadership because no leader can succeed without sharing the vision and motivating others to buy in and perform to their highest potential. Without communication skills, an otherwise intelligent individual with foresight, passion, and knowledge cannot effectively mobilize a team and take decisive action that helps an organization reach its goals. Leadership is communication: conveying ideas and getting other people to take action.
However, a servant leader does not simply communicate through lectures, giving orders, or pontificating but by creating dialogue and discourse. The servant leader seizes the opportunity to engage others, to assess values and beliefs, and hear complaints and criticism. A leader cannot just expect communication to flow, either. The effective servant leader creates the opportunities for bilateral communication by holding regular meetings and offering other opportunities for stakeholders to participate (Selladurai, 2014). A servant leader also provides feedback to other members of the organization, offering subordinates advice on how to improve but also having the courage to tell superiors the same with tact, grace, and good timing. Skilled communication also helps the servant leader to improve the outcomes of the other pillars of servant leadership, such as collaboration (Laub, 2018). With skilled communication, the servant leader creates consensus out of conflict and resolves problems proactively.
Skilled communication may be a learned skill for some, but an innate talent for others. As Davis (2016) points out, skilled communication involves empathy, warmth, authenticity, clarity, directness, initiative, and the willingness to confront. One of the greatest challenges in human communication is conveying difficult emotions, or confronting a person who is sensitive or reactive. Another is fielding criticism with grace rather than with defensive actions. A poor communicator is passive-aggressive, avoiding conflict out of fear. Avoidance or angry confrontations rarely yield constructive results. A servant leader works hard to cultivate the social and emotional intelligence required to navigate challenging conversations and conflicts with compassion.
I am still building my communication skills. My strengths include the ability to see issues from multiple points of view and offer mediation or arbitration. Yet the same strength is often my biggest weakness because of my unwillingness to take sides during a conflict. In my desire to appease all parties and reach a harmonious solution, I sometimes find myself aiming to please and the result is too often a lose-lose rather than a win-win. I believe I would do better as a servant leader by practicing my conflict resolution skills, and especially my courage in speaking my mind. Empathy is valuable but useless when it is not combined with decisive action that aims to solve problems constructively.
Therefore, persuasion remains the cornerstone of effective communication. When a servant leader needs to be direct and forthright in conversation, confronting difficult issues or people, the goal is to change minds, attitudes, beliefs, and even feelings. The skilful communicator knows how to reach out to each person individually as well as to a large group, based on situational variables, or an identification of shared values and principles. From empathy comes the ability to see things from other points of view, helping the leader to steer followers in a more constructive direction.




References
Davis, C. (2016). Servant leadership and skilled communication (Pillar 3). https://research.phoenix.edu/center-workplace-diversity-and-inclusion-research/blog/servant-leadership-and-skilled-communication
Laub, J. (2018). Leveraging the Power of Servant Leadership. Springer.
Selladurai, R. (2014). Servant Leadership. ICI Global.