Servant Leadership and Lifespan Development Explained

Introduction

Often, leaders and people may feel inclined to place blame or responsibility outside of themselves. Taking responsibility for one's own actions and thinking presents as a major challenge, leading to additional problems in the long run. People have witnessed this when a boss or manager shifts blame to employees rather than owning up to their own failures, which leads to instability within the organization. Servant leaders are a different kind of leader. Stemming from a fairly new philosophy and leadership style, they self-reflect and own up to their mistakes — as any good leader should — because they understand the need to work together and accomplish shared goals.

Servant leadership offers an alternative to traditional forms of leadership — transactional and transformational — and steps away from the often fatalistic mentality of stereotypical leadership roles. Although such leadership styles have their place in society, servant leadership may become the best way to develop effective and efficient leaders. This essay aims to provide a basis from which to understand what servant leadership is through case studies, comparison to traditional and transactional leadership styles, and how it applies to lifespan studies and lifespan development.

By understanding the philosophy behind servant leadership, one can connect it to the lifespan framework and understand how various experiences can not only make an effective servant leader, but also provide the foundation for leadership to rise within an individual. People need great leaders because most cannot — or are unwilling — to perform the actions necessary to complete major and complicated tasks. By implementing the philosophy of servant leadership, society may grow and expand in ways never before seen.

What Is Servant Leadership?

Servant leadership exists as a leadership philosophy in which the main objective of the leader is service. Different from other, more traditional leadership styles, servant leaders do not focus primarily on an organization's or company's success; rather, they put the needs of followers or employees first, helping them develop and perform to the best of their ability (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). By inverting the norm, servant leaders make followers and employees the main priority. This can be seen clearly in a retail store setting. Ordinarily, a manager would aim to achieve the highest sales goals regardless of the skills and abilities of the sales associates, often adopting a transactional leadership style. By focusing only on store goals, the manager misses opportunities to promote a better work environment and overall store performance — opportunities lost by refusing to communicate effectively with subordinates or to encourage their development.

Communication is an important part of the servant leadership philosophy. Returning to the store example, if the manager communicates with each employee, he or she can discover each person's strengths and weaknesses and assign tasks accordingly. For instance, Employee A is a people person and an excellent communicator but has a poor understanding of the cash register. Employee B performs well when ringing customers up but is shy and does not enjoy talking to customers. They can work together, splitting sales duties so that both perform to their strengths while also generating better sales for the store. This is the kind of effectiveness servant leadership promotes through its extensive philosophy.

The founder of the servant leadership philosophy is Robert K. Greenleaf. According to Greenleaf, servant leaders must ask: "Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" (Spears & Lawrence, 2002, p. 24). By shifting the mindset from serving the company or organization to serving the needs of employees and followers, both parties benefit. Because employees improve and develop, it leads to higher work performance and productivity, and the company gains profits and a better reputation from such improvements. In fact, because servant leadership leads to better results, various top-ranking organizations have adopted the style with continued success (Flint, 2011). Companies like Google understand the need to address employee concerns and make working at the company enjoyable. "Google seems to have a fundamental understanding of many servant leadership characteristics. Google employees are nurtured with free meals, haircuts, transportation, and gym memberships. In addition to material perks, Google encourages open communication and listening" (PennState, 2016).

The main aspects of servant leadership consist of self-reflection and awareness. "Servant leadership focuses on the leader's development through awareness and self-knowledge. Self-reflection and awareness enable a leader to understand his or her purpose, beliefs, and individual characteristics" (Trastek, Hamilton, & Niles, 2014, p. 379). Servant leaders must understand what motivates and inspires themselves so they can apply such knowledge to others after assessing what obstacles affect their followers. Servant leaders often possess a number of characteristics that make them receptive to this process. "Spears identified the qualities and characteristics of servant leadership: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. These characteristics drive servant leaders to help people meet their goals and overcome challenges" (Trastek, Hamilton, & Niles, 2014, p. 379). These characteristics help servant leaders shape their identity and how they handle situations.

One of the most significant principles of servant leadership lies in its focus on teamwork, because servant leadership theorists believe leaders must not lead alone. "This principle makes room for servant leaders to master the art of delegation of power, authority, and responsibility to make decisions" (Enyia, 2018, p. 120). So many problems confront modern-day business — from political pressures to safety concerns to a stagnant economy. Servant leaders understand the importance of collaboration and use it to solve complex, multi-faceted problems (Enyia, 2018). In doing so, they are able to provide better results than transactional leaders, who often approach problems from an overly simplified perspective.

Lifespan Development and Leadership

Lifespan development and lifespan studies allow people to understand the process of growth and development in a person. Through real-world observations, people can understand how humans transform through each life stage. "Human development and lifespan studies often lend themselves to investigation within real-world settings. These naturalistic observations can be conducted in child care centers, classrooms, work settings, shopping malls, sporting arenas" (Wong, Hall, Justice, & Hernandez, 2015, p. 37). Case studies offer an in-depth look at a single person. Heavy in qualitative data, case studies provide individual perspectives on key issues that affect everyday people. These individual perspectives and experiences lend to a better understanding of certain phenomena like leadership and adaptability (Wong, Hall, Justice, & Hernandez, 2015).

When looking to understand how servant leadership principles and characteristics develop in an individual, it is important to examine how that person's life created an environment for personal growth. The various obstacles overcome and the various influences encountered all make up the personality and drive of a person. Therefore, to better understand servant leadership and how it cultivates in others, one must look at the individual.

Conclusion

Effective servant leaders take what they have learned in the past, especially mistakes made in the past, and use that knowledge to fuel solutions in the present. Whatever obstacles exist, servant leadership is one of the few leadership styles that can lead to genuine problem-solving and real solutions (Dierendonck & Patterson, 2018). This is why servant leadership has grown in popularity as a leadership style. Other leadership styles — such as transactional and transformational leadership — may appear to be the most common options and have been for centuries (Bertocci, 2009). Nonetheless, servant leadership will continue to see wider adoption in society as complex problems demand complex solutions and ever more capable leaders.

References

Bertocci, D. I. (2009). Leadership in Organizations: There is a Difference Between Leaders and Managers. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Blanchard, K., & Broadwell, R. (2018). Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Dierendonck, D. V., & Patterson, K. (2018). Practicing Servant Leadership: Developments in Implementation. Basingstoke, England: Springer.

Enyia, S. O. (2018). Servant Leadership. Page Publishing.

Flint, B. B. (2011). The Journey to Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership: Building the Company Every Person Dreams of Working for and Every President Has a Vision of Leading. Nashville, TN: WestBow Press.

Meacham, W. (2012, May 14). Definition and Explanation of Lifespan Development Psychology. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/What-is-Lifespan-Development-Psychology-Exploring-Development-Through-Lifespan

PennState. (2016, June 26). What Google is Getting Right with Servant Leadership. Retrieved from https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2016/06/26/what-google-is-getting-right-with-servant-leadership/

Spears, L. C., & Lawrence, M. (2002). Focus on Leadership: Servant-Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Trastek, V. F., Hamilton, N. W., & Niles, E. E. (2014). Leadership models in health care — A case for servant leadership. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 89(3), 374–381. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.10.012

Wong, D. W., Hall, K. R., Justice, C. A., & Hernandez, L. W. (2015). Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.