In 2021, We Need Servant Leadership More Than Ever
Written by Kevan McBeth, Co-Founder - Servant Leadership Academy
2020. Good riddance.
I have to say, I am one of those people that can usually find the positive in almost anything – a lesson in a failure, an appreciation in a loss, and the growth in discomfort. There aren’t many things that I look back and don’t see some kind of value in going through it.
But this past year has challenged all of that in a way that I could have never imagined. This last year has made us all take a step back and re-evaluate what’s important, what we value, and where we need to go as people. It uncovered some ugly truths about the work that still needs to be done to address issues of inequality, exposed deficiencies in critical areas of our infrastructure, and made us all question the importance of what we do on a day to day basis.
In our organizations, and as leaders, 2020 exposed something that we’ve long known as an issue but have neglected to address in a meaningful way – the way we work isn’t working anymore. Most of us in organizations around the world have fiddled with the dials and kicked the tires on different leadership philosophies and practices, but few have taken the lead to recognize that what we need from our people in order to maneuver as a business in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous market requires not only a transformation of our operational methodology but a transformation of our leadership philosophy as well.
As leaders, 2020 didn’t re-shape the landscape of our roles and responsibilities to our people, it literally forced us to take a long hard look in the mirror, and realize that many of the things that we have been scared to explore further when it comes to leading in the 21st Century are no longer back-burner, gets to them when I can, kinds of issues. It’s time to make the leap and change the way we think about our role as leaders, the impact we have on our people, and how we measure our success.
It’s time for the mainstream emergence of servant leadership.
Servant Leadership is the best-kept secret in leadership philosophy.
For those of you who are just learning about the concept of servant leadership for the first time, The phrase 'servant leadership' was coined by Robert K Greenleaf in his 1970 essay The Servant as a Leader. In this essay, Greenleaf sets out a number of ideals, values, and philosophies about putting people first. These have been adopted into a number of different leadership models over the years, many of which are used by top organizations the world over.
As Greenleaf himself states, servant leaders are servants first- the ultimate team players whose actions and purpose extend beyond the needs and desires of their own and extend to their colleagues and partners. They understand that if the team is ultimately successful, they too are successful.
The leap from being a servant to being a servant leader is a difficult one for many people but comes from a desire to continue to serve at an elevated level of responsibility. Servant leaders don't lead for power, glory, or a plush corner office- they lead to make a bigger impact on their people and their organization. They lead with heart, empathy, and authenticity.
It’s our belief that now, more than ever, servant leadership is the path forward for our organizations and leaders as we start to navigate a more collaborative and connected way of working with others as individuals and teams. 2020 has been a wake-up call for us all, and forced us to look in the mirror, questioning the way that we’ve always done things, and whether or not we can continue to make an impact following the same pattern of behavior and practice before the world changed for us all in early March of last year.
We believe that there are 5 key servant-based practices that could help us re-shape our roles as leaders, and build a greater sense of purpose and people-centredness within our organizations that will move us all forward, through the uncertainty of today and into a better way of working together for the future.
1. We need to let go of command-and-control measures.
Let’s be totally honest here, command and control weren’t working so well before we were hit with a global pandemic, but for many organizations, it was still the go-to move for leadership philosophy. The crazy thing is, we’ve completely transformed every other facet of our organizational strategy- we want business transformation, we expect employees to be agile and act autonomously, and we demand flexibility and their ability to change gears when we need them to, or as the market dictates. Yet, we continue to hold them accountable, direct them and control them in the same, archaic way of leadership that we have since employees had one, singular role in a simple process or production chain.
We’re better than that, and we can be more to our people than the people at the top of the food chain that twists levers of un-comfortability in an attempt to squeeze an extra production from our people.
2. We need a renewed sense of what we do, how we do it, and, most importantly, WHY we do it.
We haven’t only been forced to think about the way we work, and the way we lead, but also why we work where we work and what kind of actual impact we have on our communities and our place in the world. Our teams have lived through one of the darkest times in modern history, and suddenly the things that we thought were the most important, well……aren’t.
Organizations that embrace their purpose and communicate not from a profit and loss perspective, but rather the positive impact that they have on the communities that they live and work in, helps tether employees to the understanding that their roles within your organization have importance, and have an impact. Now, more than ever, as we sit at our kitchen tables, attend zoom meetings from our bedrooms, and grapple with our own sense of meaning in a disrupted way of work that none of us were ready for, a sense of purpose in our work and careers can be a light in the darkness.
3. We need to do a better job of listening to others.
As leaders, one thing that we are all guilty of is listening to respond rather than listening to understand. We have gotten into the habit of thinking that our people come to us to gain our perspective, our direction, our sage advice as those from high atop the mountain who know and see all.
While at times, that may be true in times of extreme crisis, but one of our biggest goals for leaders in 2021 is to listen to our people to understand what they are communicating, to use our empathy to see an issue from their perspective (not ours), and to use our ability to guide them and gently nudge them towards choosing a path that, in most cases, they already know is the path to choose anyway.
2020 has truly challenged the personal confidence of many, and anxiety and stress is at their peak for most of our people. As servant leaders, we understand that our role of leadership and our impact on others is infinite – it extends far beyond the 9-5, Monday to Friday roles that our people work. We have an opportunity to instill within our people the confidence and belief in self that allows them to be better parents, friends, and community members. But in order for that to happen, we need to actively listen to our people, be present and attentive to their needs and their issues, and help them find solutions with our support.
4. We need to create communities in organizations, not cultures.
Organizational values and vision statements are being replaced with basic human needs at the moment, and leaders need to recognize that the greatest gift that they can give their teams and individuals is a sense of safety, belonging, value, and yes…love. This isn’t going to look the same for each individual employee, and we can’t expect that a one-size-fits all solution can be created that will give everyone a sense that they are cared for, simply because we are all extremely different people with different needs. Some may like working from home, while others crave the human connection that they get from being at work. Some have underlying health issues that make it impossible to feel safe anywhere else but in their homes. And many of us don’t want to go back to working from the office 5 days a week and want flexible work arrangements that give us the best of both worlds.
Co-creation is the name of the game moving forward. How we work and what kinds of environments we work in are all going to change, and the more opportunity that you give your people to help shape that “new world” the better. This shift in allowing the creation of a new set of expectations is what building a community is all about, and helps build buy-in and accountability that is driven by peer engagement rather than cultural norms. It also embraces and empowers diversity, allowing your people to bring their whole selves to work in a way that traditional organizational cultures simply can’t because most cultural norms are built from the top-down, with little to no input by those who are expected to practices the behaviors established within them.
5. We need to help our people heal.
Out of all of the practices that we as leaders need to adopt this year, the practice of healing may be the most important one for us to exercise in a consistent and repeatable way in 2021. We are not out of the woods yet by any means when it comes to dealing with the pandemic itself, and the impacts that our organizations, teams, and individuals will feel on a personal, as well as professional level, may reverberate for many more years to come.
As leaders who put the needs of our people first, we need to understand the role that we can have in helping our people put the pieces back together. We can’t change what has happened, and we know that, but we can certainly help our people establish practices, behaviors, and habits that will help them build a better future.
We have all been through a lot this past year, let’s let that into the conversation and are more human and realistic about what that really means to our people and our organizations. Taking a stewardship role towards our responsibilities for the lives of those in our charge, as well as the greater community by helping remove roadblocks and barriers that are keeping others from moving forward is so critically important at the moment.
As leaders, we have the ability, and I believe the responsibility to help improve the lives of the people around us.
Don’t let it slip by.
