Practicality of Servant Leadership

Some time ago, I encountered the dilemma of servant leadership. We were conducting a leadership bootcamp for our incoming managers and servant leadership was one of the principles we want them to follow. To our surprise, we encountered heavy resistance from them. They told us that applying it in a corporate setup is quite unrealistic. Fast forward to today, I still see this dilemma.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the term Servant Leadership? I asked this question several times and I usually get these answers,

"Leaders should put the needs of others ahead of theirs."

"Not bossing people around, telling them what to do."

"A servant leader is not a micro manager."

"Servant leaders eat last."

"Jesus washing His disciples’ feet."

The last one tops the chart. It seems that we have this mental picture of a meek and humble person just serving others. It is, but it is much more than that. Let's take Jesus again as an example, he washed the feet of his disciples (which we widely use to illustrate servant leadership) only once. Apart from that action, He also drove out the vendors in the temple, He commanded the demons and the storm, He directed Zacchaeus to come down the tree so He can dine with him, He even allowed a woman to wash His feet with her tears and wipe them off with her hair.

I pray this would help settle some of those questions.

1. What is servant leadership?

Servant leadership is not a skill set, nor is it just a knowledge-set. Servant leadership is a mindset and heartset.

• On a practical sense, it is a way of living and a style of working by serving others as you serve your own interest.
• On a Biblical perspective, servant leadership just means that we are not God. We are all servants to one Master. And therefore, everything we do, is out of service to our Lord.??

2. Why practice servant leadership?

It works, it was modeled and it was commanded.

• On the practical side, anything that works, should be applied and improved. Servant leadership, works. Both leaders and individual contributors who have this mindset produce and achieve, more. They are more effective than those who only do things to serve their own interest. Who would you rather follow or work with, someone who does things for his own interest or someone who thinks and does what is best for others?

“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”--John Maxwell

• On a Biblical perspective, we do it because Jesus modeled and commanded it. He said, we are to serve and love one another. We follow and obey, period.

3. How to be a servant leader?

Accept you can't do it alone and security in your identity is key.

• On a practical side, we can't do it on our own. Self-made people don't exist. We need others to help us achieve our goals and aspirations. In simple terms, if you want to achieve more, you need to serve more. Zig Ziglar said it better,

"You Can Have Everything In Life You Want, If You Will Just Help Enough Other People Get What They Want.”

• On a Biblical perspective, our identity determines our purpose. Our single biggest problem today is not climate change, it’s not warfare, and it’s not the economy. The biggest crisis we are facing is that of IDENTITY. Often times, we try to determine our identity by what we do. And that is why we can't apply servant leadership, because we use our accomplishments to let other people know who we are. When our identity is secured, we can openly serve others. It's that simple; but I confess, it's never that easy. I leave you with what Scriptures tell us,

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”--Ephesians 2:10 NASB1995

For more thoughts and tips, follow the hashtags: #Leadingwhereyouare, #Leadingwithapurpose,

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