Servant Leadership in Action: Mother Teresa and Leadership Principles

This essay examines the servant leadership style of Mother Teresa, focusing on her application of key principles such as listening, empathy, and healing. It provides examples of her actions, such as giving sandals to the homeless and fasting to raise awareness, illustrating her commitment to serving others. The essay further discusses how her leadership style, characterized by altruism and a focus on the welfare of others, inspired a large number of followers and led to the establishment of numerous missions dedicated to helping vulnerable populations. Additionally, the essay explores traits that can be emulated from Mother Teresa to become an effective leader, emphasizing the importance of valuing diverse opinions, encouraging others, and acting with humility. The essay concludes by highlighting Mother Teresa's ability to extend help to vulnerable people and the enduring impact of her leadership.

Running head: SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Servant Leadership
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Servant leadership refers to the leadership philosophy where the individuals interact
with the other people that helps him in achieving the authority instead of the power. A
servant leader demonstrates characteristics of the empathy and the listening that helps in
embodying decentralized organizational structure (Spears & Lawrence, 2016). Mother
Teresa was founder of Order of the Missionaries of Charity which is a Roman Catholic
congregation which was dedicated to service of poor within India. This essay elucidates on
the principles of the servant leadership which was employed by Mother Teresa. This essay
provides the various examples that shows that Mother Teresa was abiding by the principles of
the servant leadership. The essay discusses about the traits that can be emulated from Mother
Teresa that can help in the functioning of a company.
Discussion
The principles of the servant leadership that was made use of by Mother Teresa
pertains to listening, empathy and the healing. Mother Teresa did not make use of the
institutional power but used to shift the authority to the people who were being led. She used
to put the interests of the other people in the forefront which can be said to be a hallmark in
relation to the servant leadership. The servant leader uses the actions and the words which
helps in demonstrating that he is concerned about the welfare of the other people. It helped
her in evolving as the role model for the fellow missionaries as she demonstrated the virtue of
the self-sacrifice that helped her in serving the society (Eva et al., 2018). She demonstrated
the feelings of the empathy and she was altruistic and had a deep desire of serving the other
people. Mother Teresa used to listen to the followers and she developed the long-term
relationship with the people that helped in benefitting the society.

2SERVANT LEADERSHIP
There are examples which can be put forward that helps in illustrating the principle of
the servant leadership of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa gave the sandals to the homeless
woman and she used to fast for many days so that she could raise the awareness regarding
living conditions of the slums of India (Williams et al., 2017). The acts of the altruism bear
testimony to the fact that her life was devoted in serving the welfare of the other people. She
led the organization which had 610 missions within the framework of the 123 countries that
used to serve the people having the HIV, leprosy along with the tuberculosis (Collopy,
2016). The servant leadership style of Mother Teresa won her many followers and she was
able to inspire a large number of people. Her style of the leadership made many people
dedicate the lives to Missionaries of the Charity. She embodied the principle of the healing
and was imbibed with the empathy that helped her in providing the assistance to the other
people (Eva et al., 2019).
There are certain distinctive traits which can be imbibed within me by learning of
Mother Teresa that can help me in becoming an effective leader in a company. The leadership
should possess the distinctive traits that can help in the growth of a company. The leaders
should be able to value the diverse opinions that can help the employees in expressing their
opinions in a free manner (Bauer et al., 2019). The leaders should provide the
encouragement to the other people that can help in the creation of a proper culture in a
company. The leaders can act with the humility that can help him in solving the problems of
the other people.
Conclusion
Mother Teresa had the ability of the listening along with the empathy that helped her
in extending help to the vulnerable people in the society. She used to give her sandals to the

3SERVANT LEADERSHIP
homeless people so that it could alleviate the misery of the other people in the society. She
committed the acts of the altruism that helped her in serving people in the truest sense.
References
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