Servant Leadership (Why I Commit to It and Signs You Might Be Missing Out).

Would you rather be the leader who gets work done through fear and intimidation? Or, would you rather be the leader who leads with humility, placing your team's needs first?

The choice seems clear and obvious.

But sometimes overwhelming deadlines, juggling competing priorities, and scarcity mindset (stuff we all go through) can creep in to make the choice of servant leadership a little less appealing and a little less obvious.

Each leader has a choice on the type of leadership approach to take. Here's why I commit to servant leadership.

First things first: What is Servant Leadership?

Servant leadership is a style that focuses on your team members and their well-being. With this approach, leaders serve by building a culture of encouragement, trust, community, and fostering leadership in others.

The servant leadership style believes that employees will remain engaged and productive when they are happy and feeling supported.

Common sense right??

Benefits of Servant Leadership

Here are some reasons you should adopt a sense of service for any endeavor:

• Improved performance: When employees genuinely feel valued, they will go over and beyond to perform their best. Such employees will share new ideas and innovations that could benefit whatever endeavor or accomplishment you're trying to reach.
• Reduces turnover: High employee turnover is a nightmare for any business. The cost of hiring new employees and training them can drain a company. (Trust the person running a recruiting agency during the Great Resignation... but I digress.) The servant leadership style solves the problem of employee turnover because when workers are happy with the management and feel valued... wouldn't you be surprised they want to stick around!
• Increases trust with leaders: Would you like a team that trusts you enough to share their personal or professional issues? Then, adopt servant leadership. You'll know if your team has any issues outside of work that may be hindering their performance. After all we're humans, not robots. When faced with such a situation, all they need from you is a bit of empathy and understanding.
• Promotes an inclusive workplace: Diversity can be more than just gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality or political and religious beliefs. It’s about thinking different, too. Including diverse thought is crucial because it enhances collaboration and innovation. You can't always be right as a leader, and your team members could have better ideas. Servant leadership encourages and considers every perspective when tasked with moving the needle forward. The final decision is the byproduct of collective collaboration and exchange of ideas. Resulting in better outcomes and a more appreciated and valued team.

Signs That You're Missing Out on Servant Leadership:

• Low Retention: You have a high turnover rate with hires, people leave and often don't express clearly why they are leaving. Usually stemming from a lack of support, clarity in their role and expectations, or lack of feeling valued
• Groupthink: if your team is thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. You're noticing people are hiding their opinion or simply don't have one.
• Lack of trust: Your team doesn't share their challenges with you, excessive gossiping, lack of communication, a "me" vs. "we" attitude in your team culture.
• Lack of supportive/encouraging team members: You don't notice that your team members are encouraging or supporting each other by checking in on how they are doing. This is a simple lack of relationship and fostering connection on the team.

4 Simple Tips on How to Foster Servant Leadership

1. Be Clear and Express Gratitude. Be clear in your expectations of your team and express how much their contribution is valued.
2. Be Open. Encourage expression of opinion and be open to other people's perspective. You don't need to blindly adopt every perspective. The key here is asking questions and genuinely listening. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about your team by lending an ear.
3. Cultivate a "We" Attitude by using "unselfish" language.
4. Find opportunities to be supportive. Ask "Is there anything I can do to support you?" Pretty simple and pretty effective. If you're at loss on how to practice servant leadership, rest assured your team can lead the way if you just ask.

I would love to hear more ways you've learned to serve your team.

I'm here to learn with you.

Just saying,

Michael Chiang

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