How can servant leadership create a positive impact on the world?

Some years ago in a busy traffic in Bangalore, India, an auto hit a luxury car. When the owner came out to inspect the damage the auto driver began a verbal assault using bad words and angry gestures. To add to the insult, he slapped the owner of the car. Stunned. Silence. What would you have done? When we first heard this narrative from the car owner, most of us offered varied courses of action but none of us could imagine his answer. He simply chose not to react despite every fiber in his body edging him to hit back. He said, "I remembered what Jesus did for me and that was enough for me to empathize with the auto driver, forgive him, and demonstrate to all the power of love." That is servant leadership in action!

I define Servant Leadership like this. "A Servant Leader is someone who invests in the life of another person to the extent that the other person becomes better, bigger, wiser, richer, healthier, happier, wealthier, more famous than the leader himself/herself." My doctoral research clearly established (qualitatively and quantitatively) that when leaders exhibit Servant Leadership behaviours, it enhances Employee performance directly and indirectly through enhancing their Organisational Commitment. Interestingly, my study also established a significant positive impact on the Community Citizenship behaviour of the employees. There you have it. A win-win. Great employees. Great Citizens. This is how Servant Leaders create a better world!!

Simple Truth#1... Servant Leadership is the best way to achieve both great RESULTS and great RELATIONSHIPS. It integrates both aspects by focusing on serving the needs of others while also committed to achieving results. It is not an "either/or" approach but rather a "both/and" approach to leadership

Servant leadership is the sole purpose of a leader . A leader role is to inspire people by his/her/.. act and create an environment for people to give their best and inturn they become leader of their own act and decision. This is a chain that continues and builds a strong foundation fo success.

Servant leadership serves the inner souls of those whom we touch. Through inspiration, servant leadership allows people to tap into their mana to serve a cause that resonates with them using their own way. It's a leadership that raises questions about our existence and our relationship to ourselves, the team, the organization, and to the surroundings. With questions, come answers from internally. It's not a downloaded set of instructions. Instead, it's our own derived instructions that surfaces from our hearts and minds to pilot our actions in resonance with others. In short, servant leadership offers tremendous depth and breadth for practitioners. It's only with our inspired personal self, can we truly deliver the best for others.

Serving is not natural. Period. Look at the little kids with their focus on 'mine, mine, mine' . Good parents teach them to share and serve. But not all do that. And even if they say but fail to live it, children see it and do only that. The result is a selfish attitude which seeks for instant gratification, fuelled by ego. Hence it becomes our nature! Now to rise up from this natural state, we need to consciously choose to change. When we start to consider others, refuse instant gratification and drop aside the ego, we start to create a safe & enabling environment. Great leaders who have positively impacted the world, have chosen to serve by being a blessing and adding value to others, so we can all grow together.

Unfortunately it’s not uncommon in many cultures to associate servitude with inferiority, or even weakness. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It takes a great deal of strength to put the needs of others before one’s own. It said to be the change you want to see in the world. We sometimes take for granted how much of an impact our actions have on those around us especially in leadership. We should never underestimate how we enrich others experiences, and that, even if we helped one person, have a better experience in an interaction, their career, their life, for them, we’ve changed the world.

How people feel about their work impacts other areas of their lives. “Work also has spillover effects. Multiple studies have found when people are happy and satisfied at work, they report less stress and greater joy in their time away from work. They even report they are better parents and partners.”—Should Managers Matter That Much To Mental Health? 3 Critical Considerations, Tracy Brower in Forbes When many leaders on creating a good work experience for their teams, it might contribute in small ways to a better society.

It's human nature to want to connect with each other. It's deeply engraned in us to want to perpetuate human existence (survival). So it is important to servant leaders that we serve a purpose that is not counter to our perpetuation of human exhistence. Servant leaders amplify the good in those they choose to serve. They point out resonance, positive alignment, and celebrate growth. This all positivly bonds us together therefore contributing to survival which is a greater cause.

Without this type of leadership companies become stagnate and fail to deliver value to their customers, because employees are not happy. People rarely leave bad companies they leave bad managers. We also need to stop promoting bad leaders and start promoting leaders who want to lead by serving the people they manage and solving the problems they face. Mentorship programs seem to have gone extinct these days and companies don't invest in growing great leaders through training and mentoring with other servant leaders. If we focus on creating leaders who serve they will work to create happy employees, because they are focused on making employees successful and give them purpose and recognition, which in turn leads to happy customers.

The culture, upbringing, beliefs, values, and worldview influence servant leadership. If you have grown up seeing power dynamics, the leader being above all, the owner getting the most benefits, and the proud becoming powerful, then servant leadership is impossible to grasp. Not just grasp but even be mistaken for weakness. At a company retreat in a culture of dominance, the leaders strutted around with power and position, dressed in luxury brands while the servers served them. When an old ambassador car came to that retreat, it was not even given a parking spot. The old gentleman who walked out in the rain with an umbrella was invisible to them. Until they called for the company's founder and he took the stage...

Servant leadership is all about supporting the team, handholding them. However, there's always a chance that it gets construed as weakness since the boss is usually expected to be 'Bossy' (read controlling)

Cultures of Fear and a society of me, me, me instead of We are some of the biggest challenges servant leaders face. They can combat this somewhat with how they lead their people and constantly driving a culture of inclusivity and recognition. Simple things like, everyone goes on camera for meetings, enabling human connection we once had working in offices. Spending the first 5min of a meeting doing 2 word check ins on how people are doing today. At team demo's spend the first 5-10min going around the team asking people to say two things they appreciate about a teammate they work with. Start off meetings with someone telling a bad dad joke. It is the little things that I think go a long way in driving connection and inclusion.

Our own ego is the first challenge as we have to put others before self. Servant leadership is also counter-cultural where culture views it as a sign of weakness versus strength.

What I consider the main challenge is to focus that a leader is not a boss in the traditional meaning of the word but someone that inspires and motivates people.

I have developed a 3-7-10 framework to develop Servant Leadership Skills. Three imperatives (Vision, Character and Relationships). Seven Behaviours (Demonstrating Conceptual Skills, Empowerment, Emotional Healing, Putting Others First, Behaving Ethically, Helping Ohers Grow and Succeed and Creating Value for Community) . These seven behaviours are mapped to the ten original attributes of Servant Leaders that Robert Greenleaf propounded (Conceptualisation, Foresight, Empathy, Healing, Persuasion, Listening, Commitment to the growth of others, and Building Community). While Servant Leaders create a positive impact on society through all the behaviours, the last one (Creating Value for Community) ties it up all together for a better world.

Start small; Start with your heart; Start with your family; And don't ever stop! To be a servant leader, you first need a heart to love & serve and that means there is no place for ego. You can't mask serving, for the truth will eventually spill out. So, in your heart - honestly love that person, empathize with them, and feel the desire to help them. Second, start with some small actions with your family, the favorite and most difficult hot spot for change. Use the HALT framework When you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, halt the emotional rollercoaster of reaction and consciously choose to respond with love towards others and yourself. And keep at it. You are on the right way. Congratulations!

My way to transform leaders into servant leaders is by using acronym of Raj Sisodia: SELFLESS, where S stands for strength, E - enthusiasm, L - love, F- flexible L - love, E - emotional intelligence S - systems intelligence and S for spiritual intelligence. Making them aware of all these give them the opening to chose their way. You can translate one by one into their professional life and think how far they are from being enthusiastic about what they are doing. Or flexible. This can be hard and long way. And not all of managers or leaders are ready to start that journey. However if they try thay cannot regret.

à partir de mon expérience et de ma propre sensibilité, je dirais qu'il faut avoir et/ou développer en priorité – en guise de terreau primaire – les qualités suivantes : - Aimer les gens, savoir les écouter et leur faire confiance ; - Faire preuve d’humour et d’autodérision ; - être humble et savoir se remettre en question ; - Développer sa confiance en soi, en son r?le et faire preuve de courage managérial. Ces dernières notions permettent au manager ? d’endosser son r?le ? et d’être capable de se positionner, de défendre, de recadrer ou de prendre des décisions difficiles quand cela est nécessaire ; ce qui implique la probabilité de ? décevoir les autres ?, situation qui peut para?tre paradoxale aux yeux d'un non initié à ce modèle.

Servant leaders are around us. They ask questions, they don't judge, they give room, they guide without us realising at times. They are best found in domains that serve to deliver good with their own personal story to tell when we get to know them better through their charismatic persona. They are often found serving in communities around us, and they can be right beside us, making us feel comfortable and inspired.

A story is told of Mother Teresa when she was beginning her ministry of serving the poor and needy. With no funds to take care of the orphans, lepers, and other people on the streets of Calcutta, she ventured to go around asking for funds. The word to actually use is 'begging' although not for herself, but for others. Just imagine that! Well, on one occasion, she put forth her hand to a shopkeeper for funds. The man, already angry at her for hosting all these 'beggars', spat into her hands. What would you do? Mother Teresa simply wiped the saliva on her dress and extended her hand back, "I will take that for me. Can you now give some to the needy?" Servant leaders have compassion and courage because their vision is helping others.

It’s vital that leaders “walk the talk” and live their values daily, not just talk about their values. Also, more important, servant leaders should not call themselves “servant leaders” because that is ego talking. One can only aim to be a servant leader by living their values. Only when a follower calls that individual a “servant leader” does it come true. Bottom line is that servant leaders exist because others have seen them live their values, not because they think they are.

The other day, I was listening to this prominent leader who was so full of pride and was showing off his accomplishments. His talk was all about himself and how he was better than the rest of us. Surprisingly many in the audience, actually celebrated him, because he was uh! a celebrity in that circle! Why? People loved that alpha male, that dominant, strong, high achiever because they thought a leader should be better than them. Surprisingly, the next speaker was another well-known name but with a servant's heart. His presence, his expressions, his stories, his attitude, his humility, and the way he made us all feel, told us in more than words the difference between a driven leader and a serving leader

Servant leadership has just given us a name for what all leaders could do to thrive in their position and make a positive impact. When I see great servant leaders, I notice they think from a place of possibilities, choice and contribution, and asking great questions like these... What possibilities are we not thinking of that could infinitely improve what we are doing? What better choices could we be making as a company or a team? What contribution can I be to the wider context of what we are trying to achieve? When we ask these kind of questions, we move beyond ways we have always done things into creation, options and inspiration. Functioning from the place of coaching is the most powerful way to make a positive impact, in my experience.

I propose we wholeheartedly embrace these two transformative steps as servant leaders on LinkedIn and in our global community,to cultivate a profound positive impact: 1. Immediate Action: As the ancient philosopher Horace wisely stated ages ago, "He who has begun has half done." The journey towards excellence commences with the first step. 2. Collective Empowerment: Let us heed the words of Benjamin Franklin, who encourages us to "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." By leveraging our collective knowledge, sharing our stories, and composing posts, articles, and messages that inspire action, we can fuel the movement of positive change that is reshaping our world using ChatGPT and Google Bard.

Pour décrire le servant leadership, on retrouve parfois le terme de ? leading from behind ?, où le leader adopte une posture humble, d’effacement et de retrait (à ne pas confondre avec une posture laxiste, de ? laisser faire ?, en référence à la grille de Blake et Mouton), tournée vers la valorisation des individus par une attitude de soutien, encourageante et responsabilisante. Linda Hill (2010) compare ce processus au r?le d'un berger. Celui-ci dirige le troupeau depuis l'arrière, là où il a une vue d’ensemble et où il s’assure que tout le monde reste groupé. Il peut alors intervenir en cas de difficulté ou se permettre de rappeler à l'ordre ceux qui s’éloignent trop les uns des autres.