Servant Leadership: 3 Steps to Shifting Your Leadership Approach
This year, U.S. business owners walked into a new decade among optimistic reports of economic growth, low inflation rates, and low unemployment. However, startling statistics paint a different picture. For example, I recently read that US employers will experience a 30 percent turnover in their workforce in 2020. That’s pretty grim!
Perhaps you’re leading an organization of people who are fully engaged in meaningful work, or—like many business owners—you may see this data and wonder how your employees are secretly feeling about their work.
Interestingly, the reasons people leave their jobs have not changed significantly in the last 40 years and are therefore predictable.
The most common reasons for high turnover include:
Lack of trust between management and employees
Feeling underappreciated by management
Feeling overworked and pressured to be “plugged in” 24/7
No opportunity for growth or advancement
Poor managers
The good news is that we know the reasons employees leave their jobs and therefore can do something about it.
Enter Servant Leadership
Whether you invest significant time into leadership development, or occasionally dabble in it, you’ve likely read about various leadership styles. The broad range of contradictory advice can leave us feeling confused, stuck in leadership theory mode, or trying new approaches so often that we create the very conditions that cause high turnover.
Servant leadership addresses most of the reasons employees leave their jobs, by creating trust between management and employees, consistently showing employees how much they are valued, and creating better lines of communication.
What is Servant Leadership?
One widely accepted definition of servant leadership is a philosophy in which the main goal of the leader is to serve. It is different than traditional business leadership that focuses a leader’s behavior on the prosperity of a company or organization.
The term “servant leadership” has been around for centuries, but Robert K. Greenleaf is given credit for its modern use. For Greenleaf, the foundational characteristic of a servant leader is to serve others and that the desire to lead intentionally springs from a servant core. John C. Maxwell offers a more practical view of servant leadership. According to Maxwell, servant leaders identify with and relate to people in such a way that it increases their ability to influence them.
Leadership is complex, and becoming an effective leader requires work, more than simply understanding a definition or reading a book. Yet, that’s what leadership development is for many of us. Can you imagine simply reviewing the definition of calculus and being able to develop problem-solving algorithms? If you’d like to give servant leadership a try, it’s important to practice. Here’s a model for getting started.
How to Get Started
Most of us use some sort tool to help plan and execute tasks: a planner outlining goals for each day, week and month in detail, perhaps a calendar, or maybe daily tasks written on a notepad. If you aren’t using a planning tool, that’s okay! Managers say they spend an average of 50+ hours working each week, lamenting to never have enough time, yet struggling to summarize their accomplishments and impact on the business or their employees.
Our problem is that when assessing our planned activities, we tend to focus on time management. The filter we use to score ourselves is quantity, celebrating as we check off tasks. This motivates us to be more productive by seeking to worship the false god of multi-tasking. For example, we determine that clearing our email inbox can be done during a morning sales meeting. In our quest for productivity, we focus on the things we’re doing and no longer see the people around us. If we are in a leadership role, this type of behavior does nothing more than lead our employees to seek employment elsewhere.
Step 1: Create a “Done List”
Before beginning any journey it’s a good idea to know where you are, so let’s start there. Continue to use your current daily planning tool, but for the next week create a separate “done list”. Upon completing a task, meeting, or activity, capture it in your “done” list. Business managers I speak with, spend about 40 percent of their day doing things that are not planned. That’s okay—these should also be a part of your done list. Include what you did, who else was present, and most importantly, what purpose it served.
Step 2: Review Your “Done List” Weekly
At the end of the week review your “done” list. Read through your log completely, without pause, to get an idea of what you did during the week. Read through it a second time and note who was present when you conducted the activities. Consider the purpose served by each of your activities.
How often did your actions support the following?
build trust with your employee
express appreciation for the value they bring to your organization
understand their workload and express empathy
learn their aspirations for growth or advancement
How did you do?
Step 3: Spotlight the Value in Others
Each time we perform tasks with others is an opportunity to be a servant leader and remind our employees, direct reports, and peers that we value them. Rather than focusing on productivity and multitasking, try focusing on achieving multiple outcomes.
Let’s reconsider that morning sales meeting. Leave your laptop at your desk or some other work space. Focus your attention on the personal exchanges in the meeting and look for opportunities to highlight the value of others. Avoid speaking to make yourself feel more in charge, smarter, or just simply heard.
As a new leader, or someone who is new to servant leadership, spotlighting value in others may not come naturally. However, when done with consistency and sincerity, the benefits of servant leadership to your organization, employees and you are great.
Your Next Steps in Becoming a Servant Leader
Want to dive deeper? In my next blog post on servant leadership, I will offer more specific advice on how to help your employees see the value in themselves, leading to a more fulfilled, engaged, and productive workforce.
At Mungadai, we believe in the exponential value of artfully employed servant leadership. We offer marketing strategies, business growth plans, and leadership consulting, all in the spirit of servant leadership. If you’d like to learn more, email me at perry@mungadaiconsulting.com.