Hello! I've been recently attending a session on Servant Leadership once a week for about a month. Although I've only been to two out of the four sessions, I thought what I learned there was interesting and wanted to share what I took from it and how I apply it to my life.
You probably don't notice that I'm a relatively quiet and shy person in real life on my blog but yeah, I have a hard time socializing. So taking this course has inspired to me to step out of my shell and take up more leadership roles. I hope this will inspire anyone who reads this too. :)
Disclaimer: My instructor used a book called
Habitudes as a sort-of basis for her "lessons" so if there is a similarity of what information I put here and in that book, I am in no way claiming to the information. Again, just putting what I've learned from the course into my own words....kind of.
First and foremost, what is
Servant Leadership?
Servant-Leadership is where the leaders share their power with the people they're guiding or leading, and puts emphasis on benefiting others, their needs, and making sure they perform to the best of their abilities. Basically the complete opposite of a tyrant or despot.
For example, volunteer groups is a perfect example of Servant Leadership. The person in charge, or the leader, usually goes around checking up on the volunteers, and is concerned of their well-being and also curious about their personal life. By having a connection and a sense of belonging provided by the leader/s, the volunteers will feel inclined to work harder and want to genuinely help.
Some characteristics that Servant Leadership
shares with general Leadership are:
- Clear Vision (Have a detailed picture in your mind of what you want to achieve; what is the final result or goal?)
- Manage (Managing the event (e.g. a business or something)
- Communicate (Spread and express your thoughts to others articulately. Communication is key in any leadership.)
Other important characteristics of Servant Leadership are but not limited to:
- Desire to serve
- Foresight
- Awareness
- Self-healing
- Rebuilding Community
But let's look at just leadership for a while.
Leadership, across cultures and different upbringings are viewed differently because of their values (honesty, loyalty, piety, order, etc.) This is why, throughout time, leadership theories have ranged from the
Great Man Theory in 1840s (leaders were born as leaders; as in royalty) to the
Relationship Theory in the 1970s (leaders depend on their relation with their peers; usually positively enforces them).
Before you start to lead others, you first have to
understand yourself; your strengths, your weaknesses, your values, etc.
Note that there is a difference between your talents and your strength
s. Your
strength is something you consistently work towards to become proficient at (basketball, computer programming, marathon runner, etc.)
Talents are inborn, something that you are naturally good at and not necessarily something you had to work hard at to be good at(flexibility, balance, music-sense, etc.) And trust me, everyone has a talent.
Leadership is 90% character and 10% skill.
What is
character made of? If you search for a dictionary definition, it defines this as the
mental and moral aspects unique to an individual (I tried putting this into my own words so please don't yell plagiarism). Below are sub-units of character:
- Self-discipline: Training and controlling yourself (aka resisting distractions in order to achieve your goal; personally I struggle with this one.)
- Moral standards: Your core values
- Identity: Realistic portrait of yourself in terms of talents
- Emotional comfort: Sense of security and stable-ness (no mood swings y'all!)
I recommend taking this Jung-and-Brigg-Myers-based test,
MBTI Type Test, if you haven't taken one of these already. Personally, I am an INFJ.
I think this test is a great way for understanding yourself better if you have a hard time grasping your personality (as weird as that sounds, but I am one of those people). And here's the link to a detailed analysis of each type combination:
Personality Type Portraits.
The next part that we studied that we studied was
Communication, which this is where I applied most of the stuff I learned to my routine life.
I don't know if my instructor made up the acronym or not, but what I think is a good
basis for any form of
communication is
S.A.L.T.:
Say Anything (Honestly, just say anything to just break the ice.)
Ask Questions (Be involved and genuinely curious!)
Listen Well (LISTENNNNNN, this is so so important.)
Turn Topic Positive (if you are talking about something sad, end the conversation/topic on a happy or positive note.)
Another important part of being a leader or honestly, just connecting with others in general is being
observant. Take note of the qualities in other people such as their
strengths,
weaknesses,
triggers (what motivates or what demotivates them),
personality, and the
way they learn things (hands-on, visual, etc).
Encouragement could be categorized under
motivation, but the essential need for this in every leader is because nobody wants to feel like they're not contributing or basically useless. So it is up to leader, and also peers to encourage one another to complete the task, whether it's presenting a project or playing a sport,
encouraging others makes them feel happy and motivates them. This also forms an inner layer of emotional connection, as people will see the encourager in a better light.
When to make an encouragement:
- Make them when they fail so they do not lose hope.
- When they succeed so they will want to succeed again.
- When least expected: So they know you're genuine.
- When you first meet them: They won't forget your connection & remember you for it.
How to make the encouragement:
- Sincere: Well, for obvious reasons. They will most likely feel more empowered if your encouragement is sincere.
- Specific: This will give them a focus. Just saying a general encouragement is less effective.
- Public: It has less impact when you encourage privately.
- Personal: I feel like I'm just repeating myself but if you cater to that person, it will have a bigger impact because it's...unique. I hope you get what I'm saying. (^_^;;)
Note that these are tips and not the
only way to make encouragements. Just a basic outline for people that are unsure (like me) when/how to make encouragements.
And last but not least, we dabbled a little bit into mentoring, which I will just give a few key points that I've learned:
Instruction: Verbally teach them
.
Demonstration: Be the model
.
Experience: Provide ways for them to learn first-hand.
Asessment: Feedback; know what was done correctly or incorrectly and measure progress.
To wrap this up, Servant Leadership is not so much different from leadership but just for the fact that it focuses more on the well-being of the followers. It's like a happy community! Haha, I don't really know anymore. There are many aspects to leadership and also ways to exude traits of a leader.
Anybody can become a leader! I'm sure of it! So, I'm encouraging everyone to gain a little more confidence in themselves and to step out of their shells to try assuming a position of leadership.
I hope any readers learned something from reading this haphazardly-made post on Servant Leadership/Leadership.
Thanks for reading!
