Servant Leaders Persuade

Servant Leaders Persuade Others

When I started this series on Servant Leadership, I had promised that we will continue to look at Servant Leadership in the context of day to day life. True to that promise, let us look at yet another aspect of how Servant Leaders Influence others in day to day life.

How do we convince others about something that we want done? How do we make some do something that we want done? How do we get some thing from others. There are multiple ways. Each of us adapt our own ways of doing this. I am sure all of us must have heard this at-least once in our lifetime. “do it because I am saying so”. When we are children, generally we hear it from our parents. When we grow up we hear this from our teachers probably. When we get spouses, it is said in a very different manner. “You don’t love me any more” is a common refrain which convinces husbands to do some things wanted by the wives.  When parents grow old, the convincing becomes a sort of “emotional black mail”. “I carried you for nine months and looked after you so well, and is this the way you treat me now?”

How about Leader follower relationship? The sad part is, we keep hearing this, from the so called leaders. The words might not be exactly the same, but the message is very clear. “Do it because I as a leader am telling you!!” This is not uncommon in leadership. In the traditional Power and Authority model of leadership, many people go with this definition of leadership “Leadership is the power or right to give commands, enforce obedience, and make final decisions.”

There are many leaders who “rule” by this law. By coercion and by the power that goes by their position.

On the contrary, Servant-leaders rely on persuasion, rather than positional authority in making decisions. Servant-leaders seek to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant-leadership. The servant-leader is effective at building consensus within groups.

But the real question is, Can servant leaders be persuasive? One of the myths about Servant leaderships is that Servant Leaders are expected to be quiet, not speaking up, and agreeing to every one. Is that your understanding of Servant Leadership also? How can one expect Servant Leaders to be Persuasive?

John C Maxwell, the well known Leadership Guru, says that there some characteristics which make people listen to you.  

1.           Our Relationships: People listen to us because of who we know.

2.           Sacrifice: People listen to us because of what we have suffered, and the sacrifices that we have made.

3.           Character: People listen to us because of our integrity

4.             Relevance: People listen to us because we identify with their needs. 

5.           Insight: People listen to us because of what we know.  

6.           Vulnerability: People listen to us because we are genuinely transparent. 

7.           Experience: People listen to us because we’ve succeeded in the past.  

8.           Humility: People listen to us when we demonstrate meekness.

9.           Competence: People listen to us because of our abilities and expertise.  

10.     Courage: People listen to us when we demonstrate conviction.

11.     Value: People listen to us because we make them feel that they are important to us. (see another blog on this specific topic here)

Which of them are you strong in? Which of them needs development in you? Do a self assessment, and let us talk.

We will examine some of these in detail in further Blogs. In the meantime, permit me to challenge you to develop persuasive skills, so that we can lead by Serving.

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