Servant Leadership Is A Term Defined By Robert L. Greenleaf

Prior to his appointment as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (SECVA) Robert (Bob) McDonald was already well-known for his advocacy and promotion of the concept of “Servant Leadership” a term first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. The author first wrote about the concept of Servant Leadership in an essay titled “The Servant as Leader.” In his essay, Greenleaf recounted his reason for writing the essay, stemmed from the belief that the country was in a leadership crisis and he had a responsibility to attempt to address the problem. When Mr. McDonald came to the VA, he like Greenleaf intuitively recognized the need for and his responsibility to institute and nurture this style of leadership within the department’s leadership ranks. The MyVA Integrated Plan (MIP) dated July 2015, illustrates McDonald’s commitment to this theory by recognizing the need to cultivate leadership excellence in the department by developing “Engaged Servant Leaders responsible for establishing an organizational culture rooted in VA core values that inspires and empowers all employees.” In order to restore the trust and confidence of the Veterans and the American Public, leadership at all levels must understand what servant leadership is, embrace the concept, and inculcates the concept throughout the leadership ranks within the department.

The field of nursing is one of the quintessential servant roles in our society today. We serve by taking care of our patient’s physical and mental (and sometimes spiritual) health. As a nursing student, there are three main characteristics that I have seen modeled in leaders that I think are most important to a servant-leader’s success. In my own practice, I hope to focus on all servant-leader characteristics, but these in particular as I strive for a lengthy and fulfilling career.

Burch, M. J., Swails, P., & Mills, R. (2015). PERCEPTIONS OF ADMINISTRATORS' SERVANT LEADERSHIP QUALITIES AT A CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY. Education, 135(4), 399-404. doi:10.1057/9781137492456.0005

Listen as a leader taps into a range of understanding, ideas, and cooperative sentiments that failing to listen to leads to poor understanding or interpretation of orders and incorrect evaluations what you may hear; addressing these issues now allows for recognition and adapting personal attitudes to be more

Servant leadership has been in existence long before the concept was formalized by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970’s. It has been used in industries, faith-based communities, and some educational institutions as a foundation for effective leadership. The history of servant leadership is rooted in biblical times as Christ is seen by many as the first true servant leader (Blanchard & Hodges, 2003). The concept has been brought through ancient times to the modern era by noted leaders who have promoted this form of leadership.

Robert K. Greenleaf first coined the term “servant leadership” in his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader, later published in 1991. The leader who follows the model of service has a natural and conscious drive to serve others before leading them. This is in contrast to those who seek to lead first to increase power or personal wealth. While many have analyzed Greenleaf’s work over the years and identified qualities of a servant leader, there are ten qualities that represent a concise and accurate list of behaviors and personality traits needed by any servant leader to be successful. These qualities are listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment

As a leader in Nursing, I understand that my leaderships rely on services based on the context of traditional science education. This writher experience as a clinical nurse evolution as a follower leader serving at the bed site care. However, the Servant leadership establish an increased service to others, a holistic approach and decision-making. (Greenleaf, 1970). According, to Greenleaf’s ten characteristics was establish for the servant leader and it was considered a critical concern. The following components are central to the development of servant leaders, as listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community (Greenleaf, 1970).

How Servant Leaders Motivate People Servant leadership his become very important in the world today. According to Chan and Mak, servant leadership defines as the “the person who is leader first and who later serves out of the promoting of conscience or in conformity with normative expectations”. According to Boyum (2012), the term servant is defined as “one who is under obligation to work for the benefit of a superior and to obey his or her commands” (p. 33). The ultimate focus of a servant leader is the well-being & continuous development of his team or followers. Although traditional leadership involves the exercise of authority by the individual at the top management level, the situation for the servant leader is difficult. Setting the priorities

Leadership is defined as the ability to direct others and inspire them to perform well. Effective leadership challenges to achieve goals and motivate each other to contribute to meeting goals. Effective leadership performance exceeds above and beyond to make things happen. “The most important achievements of humankind are associated with people who influenced others to achieve more than they thought was possible (p.311).” The famous quote “Leaders are born, not made” is used to describe effective leadership. Leadership effectiveness is almost exclusively related to leader behaviors and those learnable behaviors. Great leaders are born with assurance, charisma, and intelligence which make them natural born leaders.

The Servant-leadership characteristics are ‘Listening’, ‘Empathy, ‘Healing’, ‘Awareness’, ‘Persuasion’, ‘Conceptualization’, ‘Foresight’, ‘Stewardship’, ‘Commitment to the growth and development of people’, and ‘Building community’. Over the last one week, as a team leader, I started applying some of the Servant-leadership characteristics across the team. Evaluated the results against our previous accomplishments. The outcome of this approach seems promising with better results and upbringing new team players.

The concept of servant leadership emphasizes on the behavior of the leader who focuses on serving the led (Simmons, 2010). The servant leaders existed since the biblical time. But, the people could not understand the way it actually functions or experience it personally, most of the time. The concept about the followers that mentions, followers exists to support the leader (The Pennsylvania State University, 2013) has been deep rooted in the community since a long time. Therefore, the connotations of the term servant in the concept of servant leadership do not match with the glorious meaning of leadership. For example, if an employee happened to see the manager cleaning up a mess at the workplace, that employee may not comprehend the fact

This learner believes that servant leadership is one that balances humanity in the workplace and the bottom line (Wong & Davey, 2007). This is because one might argue that the focus is on people and the future rather than on solely outcomes and processes. It is telling that in today’s business world, the challenges for an organizational leader are considered threefold (Wong & Davey, 2007). Firstly, one needs to be able to build a positive workplace that attracts and retains talented knowledge workers. Secondly, one needs to be able to develop an employee and untaps that person’s creative potential. Thirdly, one needs to be able to support innovation and risk-taking to adjust to an unpredictable future (Wong & Davey, 2007).

Servant Leadership is a specific leadership style that focuses on the servant, rather than the leader. In this paper, I will discuss how Servant Leadership can be applied to the nursing practice. This will be explored through definitions, history, and major concepts. I will also integrate Servant Leadership’s function into the nursing practice. Lastly, I will examine my own personal growth on the application of leadership in nursing.

The concept of servant leadership practices in nursing outlines that serving the suffering humanity is more important than the self-centered leadership. The theory of servant leadership was first introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. He said:

Servant leadership is a unique style of management that ensures the needs of employees are met even if it means the leader has to make personal sacrifices. The idea is that by serving others they will in turn not only do the bare minimum required for their occupation but rather put forth the extra effort because they respect the authority of their manager. This method of management is absolutely applicable in the field of nursing for anyone because it makes everyone accountable for their own actions, not just the charge nurses or managers of a unit. A nurse can exemplify the role of servant leader by setting the needs of their patients as priority. The following paper will look into a few of the