Servant Leadership is a Better Model of Leadership - A Discussion

This article discusses the concept of servant leadership and its advantages over other leadership models. It explores the different types of servant leadership models and their applications in modern-day business establishments. The article also compares servant leadership with other leadership styles such as transformational, authentic, situational, and autocratic leadership.

Servant Leadership is a better model of
leadership – A discussion.

Servant Leadership is a better model of leadership – A discussion.
The aspect of leadership is defined to be the process of perceived social influence that is
exerted by an individual within an organisation or in a group and through which that
individual is able to enlist other individuals and support them to accomplish certain common
goals and objectives that have been envisioned by the leader. Leadership has been
characterised as an attribute of personality that helps an individual to take the initiative in
guiding and leading others to realise a common shared goal or purpose (Kantharia, 2012).
Followers are the persons who voluntarily and proactively engage with the leaders and
respond to their call for identifying a shared purpose and vision which would eventually help
them to pursue a shared action towards realising the main goal and objective. According to
Banutu-Gomez, (2004) for ensuring success, it is important for the leaders to teach their
followers the aspect of followership and this would enable them to become good followers.
The term servant leadership had been coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as
Leader, an essay which was published in the year 1970. As the name suggests, the servant
leader is a servant first and he/she has a natural innate tendency to serve and help out
others in need. This inherent tendency to serve others in need is what aspires an individual
to lead others. This aspect invariably distinguishes that person form the other people who
consider themselves to be the leaders of their group (Rachmawati & Lantu, 2014). The
leader-first and the servant-first leaderships are considered to be two ends of the spectrum
and within these two models there are different types of leadership that inherently exposes
the diverse aspects of human behaviour and nature.
The main characteristic component of the servant leadership is that the servant leaders
always provides the highest amount of importance and priority towards ensuring that others
people’s need are constantly satisfied. This plays a vital role in empowering the people who
are working under the servant leader. The aspect of empowerment has been considered to
be the main characteristic of servant leadership. Empowerment means entrusting others with
greater power and authority, which invariably make them feel more significant at their
workplace (Olesia
et al., 2013). This is usually achieved by emphasising on the aspect of
teamwork, love and mutual respect for each other at the workplace. This is what provides
greater dimension and completeness to the servant leadership. It involves the aspect of both
“serving” (might be for monetary gains or otherwise) and “leading” (which involves guiding
and leading others) which are considered to be the most important determinants of
employee satisfaction and motivation (Van Dierendonck, 2011).
According to Robert Greenleaf, the main problem associated with the servant leadership is
the negative connotations that are associated with it. Both serve and lead are overused

words which are mainly utilised in a negative effect and this inherently provides a bad name
to the servant leadership. However, when both the words are combined to form the phrase
Servant-Leader, the aspects of personal egoistic or monetary gains inherently become silent
(Kantharia, 2012).
There are various models of servant leadership which could be followed by the modern day
business establishments to serve their business needs and requirements and they include
the Patterson’s Model, Modified Wong and Page’s Expanding Ring Model, Spear’s Model,
Winston’s Extension of Patterson Model and Leader-Exemplary Follower Exchanges (LEFX)
(Manala, 2014).
In the present times, when change is the only constant aspect in our lives, the servant
leadership has become an imperative leadership style. The developed countries have nearly
exhausted their resources or they have costlier internal resources and their internal markets
have also reached a point of saturation. Under such a situation the developed nations are
increasingly looking towards the emerging and lesser developed nations for minimising their
product and services costs which would eventually enable them to ensure steady economic
growth while sustaining their influence on the global economy (Van Dierendonck, 2011). The
world economy has moved on from being an agrarian economy to one that is based on
technological innovation. Nowadays, there are multiple sources and mediums of knowledge
acquisition such as internet, television, mobile communications and interactive computer
systems; and all of them has played a vital role in reducing our focus and concentration. We
are living in an age where collaboration and coordination are the main ingredients for
inclusive growth and development and this is where the servant leadership comes to the
forefront (Moll & Kretzschmar, 2017). Servant leadership is the only way forward as it helps
in fostering greater understanding and teamwork among the employees in the modern day
workplace. It fosters greater motivation and inspiration among the staffs by providing the
employees with a sense of empowerment and as a result the employees are able to work in
a more independent manner. This invariably provides a sense of job satisfaction among the
employees and as a result business establishments are able to retain their employees for
the long haul (Mahembe & Engelbrecht, 2013).
There is a close similarity between the transformational leadership and the servant
leadership however there are also many differences by identifying which we would be able to
better understand and differentiate both these styles of leadership. Graham, (1995) have
concluded that both the charismatic and the transformational leadership are inspirational and
moralistic in nature however the main aspect that distinguishes them from each other is the
fact that servant leadership helps in encouraging a “spiritual generative culture” whereas the

transformational leadership mainly encourages an “empowered dynamic culture”. According
to Bass, (1997) the transactional leadership mainly occurs when the leaders promise their
workers about rewards and incentives in exchange for the timely fulfilment of their individual
work goals and targets. There is often an aspect of transaction that is involved in the working
style of the transactional leaders and hence the name. The primary focus of the transactional
leaders is the organisational goals and objectives while ensuring the development and
empowerment of the employees become secondary (Jackson, 2008). However, the servant
leader continuously focuses on his/her followers and ensuring the empowerment and growth
of the followers are their primary concern. Servant leaders do not have any particular affinity
or loyalty towards their organisation and they mainly value the people and their contribution
towards the growth and success of an organisation. According to Gregory Stone
et al.,
(2004) the transformational leader’s focus is entirely directed towards the successful
realisation of the organisational goals and objectives while the servant leader’s focus in
entirely on improving and building up over the existing skills and competencies of his
followers. While servant leaders are motivated by the aspect of egalitarianism, the
transformational leaders are motivated by a sense of mission in helping their respective
organisation to successfully survive the challenging market environment and sustain the
market competition with their business rivals (Freeman, 2011).
On the other hand the authentic leadership emphasises on the aspect of authenticity and
genuine behaviour on the part of the leaders in order to realise the business goals and
objectives of an organisation. An authentic leader has certain principles that he/she strictly
adheres to under any situation. Their awareness towards their values and principles
invariably help them to act accordingly while leading and guiding their subordinates. This self
awareness is what enables them to earn the trust and credibility of both the management
and the employees/followers who are working under them (Lapina, 2018). There are four
distinct characteristics of Authentic Leadership which invariably helps in distinguishing it from
the other styles of leadership and these are self awareness, balanced processing, relational
transparency and internalized moral perspective. These characteristic traits allow an
authentic leader to understand their own strengths and weaknesses in an effective manner
and this enables them to become aware about how their behaviour and interaction process
is having an impact on other individuals (Freeman, 2011). The process of self awareness
essentially means that the leader gains knowledge about themselves through their
interaction with others. The aspect of relational transparency essentially means that the
leader intends to communicate openly about their feelings and thoughts to their followers.
The aspect of balanced processing signifies that the leaders make use of available data and
information to arrive at logical and informed decisions. Lastly, the aspect of internalized

moral perspective enables the authentic leaders to follow their own morale and values while
leading their followers. The aspect of internalized moral perspective is what helps the
authentic leaders to self-regulate the behaviour of their followers while resisting any kind of
societal and group pressures (Moll & Kretzschmar, 2017). While comparing the authentic
leadership with the servant leadership, the main drawback of the authentic leadership that is
witnessed is the fact that the personal interests of the employees are not considered. The
authentic leaders try to impose their own set of values and principles upon their followers
and this plays a vital role in inhibiting the professional growth and development of their staffs
(Lapina, 2018). The staffs feel like their activities are being controlled by the authentic
leaders and this limits the individual creativity and freedom of the employees at their
respective workplace. This could invariably hamper the job satisfaction levels of the
employees and bring down their commitment and motivation levels. Thus, it can be stated
that overall the servant leadership is better than the authentic leadership in a modern day
organisational setting (Rachmawati & Lantu, 2014).
The situational leadership is another leadership model that is widely popular and is being
increasingly used by the modern day business establishments. This situational leadership
style inherently emphasises on the aspect of adjustment to the extent of employee readiness
for achieving and realising certain organisational goals and objectives that inherently depnd
on the existing competency and dedication of the employees. This situational leadership
model is sub divided into three situational components which includes the level of task
assigned or directed by the leader, the existing relationship between the leaders and their
subordinate staffs and the existing skills, confidence and competency levels of the followers
(Lapina, 2018). The main advantage of the situational leadership is that it is ideally suited to
help business establishments to tackle tough and challenging market situations by
controlling the functioning and activities of the followers. Compared to the servant
leadership, the situational leadership is mainly aimed at addressing the business needs and
requirements of an organisation. The situational leadership also does not emphasise on the
personal growth and development of the employees (Jackson, 2008). The situation
leadership mainly helps organisation to tackle and manage emergency market situations by
helping the business establishments to adapt to the market changes and developments that
are taking place over time). While the servant leadership emphasised on the aspect of
personal growth and development of all the employees, the situational leadership takes a
more biased approach towards the employees and this is evident from the fact that only the
followers that enjoy better working terms with their leaders are able to get the support and
guidance from their leaders (Manala, 2014).

Lastly, the autocratic leadership is another style of leadership which have lost its essence in
the modern day business but was once utilised widely by the organisations. This style of
leadership is absolutely averse to the concept of employee well being and employee
satisfaction at the workplace. The autocratic leaders do not consider their employees to be
an important component of the organisation and they do not take their views and opinions
into consideration at the time of business decisions making (Mahembe & Engelbrecht,
2013). The decisions undertaken by the autocratic leaders are forcefully imposed upon the
employees and the employees do not have a choice but to follow them strictly. The
employees do not have the option of complaining or questioning the decisions of their
leaders. The autocratic leadership is completely opposite to that of the servant leadership in
the fact that the growth of the employees is never an issue for the leaders and what
eventually matters for them is the organisational growth and productivity (Freeman, 2011).
This is the main reason why over the years, the autocratic leadership has lost its significance
and has presently become obsolete for the modern day business establishments. The
autocratic leadership harbours employee dissatisfaction and discontentment which
eventually hamper the individual creativity and motivation levels at the workplace. This
invariably leads to greater attrition levels and increased absenteeism among the staffs.
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