An Analysis of Mrs. Noble's Servant Leadership at Essex High School

This case study analyzes the servant leadership behaviors of Mrs. Noble, a school secretary, and her impact on Essex High School. Mrs. Noble exhibits key servant leadership qualities such as prioritizing the needs of others, fostering follower growth, and promoting organizational performance. Her actions, including mentoring students, supporting teachers, and maintaining a positive school environment, have significantly contributed to the development of students, the efficiency of the school's operations, and the overall reputation of the institution. The study highlights how her selfless dedication and commitment to serving others have made her a central figure in the school community, demonstrating the profound influence of servant leadership in an educational setting.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Leadership management
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Servant leadership behaviours exhibited by Mrs Noble..................................................................3
Followers of Mrs Nobel...................................................................................................................6
Outcomes attained by servant leadership of Mrs Noble..................................................................7
Description of relevant personality..................................................................................................8
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................11

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Servant leadership behaviours exhibited by Mrs Noble
Majority of the servant leaders have some fundamental perception regarding the people they lead
and engage with. Based on their belief, they exhibit some common behaviour. Firstly the value
that attach to every person is equal and operates with the belief that every person deserves
civility, respect as well as trust. Hanse et al. (2016), believe that people with leadership qualities
can accomplish much more than their inspired by a purpose beyond themselves. These are the
two perception based on which servant leaders like Mrs noble are expected to exhibit five
common practices. Firstly they always looked around for clarification as well as reinforcement of
the need for rendering service to the others. They educate the members of their organisation or
Association with their words as well as actions and encourage other people to subside their self
interests in order to fulfil the interest of others (Schwarz et al. 2016). Servant leaders are not
positioned in authoritative roles naturally; rather they have exhibited leadership qualities in order
to gain followership of others. The qualities that help them to achieve this is listening
intentionally and observing closely. Listening closely to the people, they promptly solicit their
participation, feedback as well as ideas. In time they have the best idea regarding the individual
perception of their peers as well as subordinates which makes them capable of tailoring their
leadership methods accordingly. The tendency of the servant leaders on most instances is to play
the role of selfless mentors by helping for guiding the people who work for them or under them.
The help them people associated with them to learn vital skills which helps them in improving
their performance as well as improving themselves as a person. It has also been witnessed study
and in general also, among the servant leaders that demonstrate persistence on most occasions.
They often understand that desired changes in the mind-set or attitude in some of the people
associated with them are not brought about in one or two conversations. As suggested by Seto

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and Sarros (2016), the servant leaders are willing to invest whatever time it might take to educate
as well as inspired them, so that they can undertake the right decision and right attitude in case of
any challenge in the future.
The last and the most differentiated behaviour that is exhibited by them is to lovingly hold
themselves as well as the others were accountable for their large commitments. The servant
leaders understand that nobody is perfect and anybody on any order can make a mistake. With
this idea on mind they are always motivating themselves as well as for the peers for achieving
higher standard of performance, quality of service as well as ensure alignment to values which
are essential qualities for all the members of his or her team.
Mrs Noble is one of the biggest examples of a person who believes that people can accomplish
much more by means of inspiration beyond their own purposes. This is why in spite of not
having a College degree hard work as a secretary of the School has never been hindered. In order
to give people at target to move on with their regular initiatives beyond their immediate
purposes, she cracks corny jokes get along with the teachers as well as students. As discussed
previously, the servant leaders make others accountable for their commitments and this is why
while getting along with the teachers and students they always deal with the rules and procedures
which govern regular operations of the school life (Donia et al. 2016). However, considering the
most frequent behaviours of Mrs Noble, it can be referred that the act of being the selfless
monitor is most suited with her character. The fact that she is wise is never reflected in attributes.
She always uses her knowledge about the core curriculum, testing, skip policy, helicopter
parents, as well as after school programs in order to inform the students about the best way to
take help from these procedures. The primary goal is to help the people associated with her to
improve their performance and take the best seats in life so that they can achieve the best

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outcomes (Harwiki, 2016). Which this motive she has been helping the students who wanted to
have a big sale suggesting the best way to do that and similarly she has also help students who
wanted to undertake advanced placement courses by suggesting the best courses to undertake.
Another major quality of a servant leader is clarifying as well as reinforcing the need of doing
the service towards others. In this context Panaccio et al. (2015), opines that the servant leaders
always sets aside their self servicing behaviours in order to serve the interests of others,
diligently. The same quality is exhibited in Mrs Noble, who has nothing pretentious about her.
She is always seen to drive her old car and wearing simple clothes and hardly anyone in the
school has seen her with makeup. Nevertheless, in spite of simplicity she is the focal point of the
fads and eccentricity of the students. Her behaviour also matches the qualities like listening
instantly as well as observing closely. Servant leaders listen to other people, observed attributes
activity; solicit their participation as well as ideas (Van Dierendonck et al. 2017). Such leaders
give maximum liberty to their subordinates, unless they are doing something really wrong. That
is why when the students were having long hair as well as fringed vests back in the 1970s; Mrs
Noble was ok with it. In fact when the students feel ostracized and modify their dress codes to
seek attention of others, she is still able to communicate with the sentiment of such students. She
keeps up with the spirit of the students until they are violating the dress code. However, even if
the students violate the dress code she exhibits participating style of leadership and talks
absolutely non-judgmentally with them to guide them regarding their clothing and suggest them
to make different clothing choices so that they do not come into trouble. We get other examples
of her role as a selfless mentor in acts like helping the juniors to prepare the applications for
college since she is aware of the requirements as well as deadlines and the materials which the
different universities need. Her selflessness is exhibited in the fact that she hardly cares if the

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students are going to the Ivy League schools, community colleges are the state schools, what she
cares about is that if the students are ultimately going to school at all.
In the list of the common behaviours of servant leaders who has been mentioned that they realise
that often one or two conversation enough to alternate the mind-set of people that they feel
should be changing (Karatepe, Ozturk & Kim, 2019). This is why when the faculty feel that the
assignments set by the principal is difficult to accomplish, they are approach her to deal with the
principal for that matter. Her sensitive approach is enough to convince the principal.
Followers of Mrs Nobel
The exhibition of the previously stated behaviour as well as servant leadership qualities has
gradually enlarged the list of followers of MRS noble. It has been already mentioned in the case
study that her work in the school is not limited to the duties of a secretary only. She is very
efficient in the operations of her own office; along with that she also gets along with teachers as
well as students regarding their day to day activities, challenges as well as course of action. The
list of her followers starts with the senior school leaving candidates who are willing to take
advanced placement process and there is nobody more capable to suggest them regarding which
course to undertake. Even the parents of the students are also her followers and if anybody needs
to your regarding any curriculum regarding Essex High School, the parents suggest them to
approach her without any hesitation. There is no doubt that the students of this school are added
followers of her. They do not find a more curative friend, philosopher and guide than Mrs Noble.
To enlarge the list of her followers, there is the junior who are preparing their applications for
colleges and seeks her help since she is aware of the requirements, deadlines and also the
materials that is needed by the various universities. In fact the seniors like the teaching faculty is

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also her followers since whenever they get difficult teaching assignment from the principal, they
approach to persuade the principal.
Outcomes attained by servant leadership of Mrs Noble
The first outcome of servant leadership exhibited by Mrs Noble is development of follower
performance and growth (Güngör, 2016). The most significant prospect of growth is observed
among the students who are planning to enter the universities by means of advanced placement
courses. The suggestions she provides to these Aspiring students have been very valuable and
helpful for them to get placed in the best of colleges and Universities. Another important
outcome of development of the followers is achieved through help provided to juniors for
preparing applications for the colleges. The tips and help regarding requirements, deadline as
well as the materials needed by various universities has helped them to Foster their career.
Another major follower development was achieved when she personally worked with the
teachers of a student who was unable to attend school because of a car accident and urgently
worked deliver the assignments to the student's home and collect them once they were
completed.
Significant role played by Mrs Noble helped in the development of organisational performance
also. She is wise and is aware of almost all the curriculum about the school. This is why she has
been able to successfully help the internal as well as external take off the school and thereby
insurance smooth state of operations. An important step towards better organisational
performance is conflict management in organisation. Her friendliness towards the students as
well as the teaching faculty has been of great help in maintaining harmony among the
stakeholders of the school.

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On several occasions students have felt ostracized in the school. However, because of the
generous help provided by Mrs Noble on the location to such students, the school code save
itself from negative word of mouth publicity.
There has been significant societal impact of the servant leadership behaviours displayed by Mrs
Noble. The reputation of the School has crossed the limit of students to spread across their
parents also. It is because of this person that the parents tell each other that if they want to collect
information regarding school or entrance to University they should approach Mrs Noble in the
Essex High School. Her lenient approach towards the students is the reason why no disciplinary
issues have taken a great shape in the school. Many juniors making applications for entrance to
colleges have received help from her which help them in turn to achieve success in their lives.
The impact of the presence of MRS noble in the school has been that when the reunion of the
school took place in 2010, the students were unanimous about the opinion that is Mrs Noble who
actually runs the school.
Description of relevant personality
To speak of a different personality having the attributes of Mrs Noble, who exhibited all the
major qualities of a servant leader, I should speak of the role played by the executive supervisor
of operations at our office. He was one of the most senior members of our office. His job role
was limited to the supervision of the technical aspects of the three dedicated projects every
month, for which he earned his salary. However, we all witnessed that he never took his job as a
profession, rigidly. Rather, his workplace was like his family and his colleagues were like his
family members. He used to handle projects of other team leads or supervisors, whenever they
were absent, voluntarily. The amount of knowledge regarding project specifications and
execution by far surpassed the conceptions of the lead of operations of our state. Hence, we

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would observe that he was a common face in every project planning meeting, whether he would
be associated with the project on real time or not.
I have always observed that at his neck and call, all the team members of any project tea were
always ready to give their best. I personally had the opportunity of working with him on two
major projects and 5 lateral works where I have been the lead and he was in charge of
supervision of the progress of the field work. Analysing the way he worked with his team
members, I have observed that he always inspired the whole unit to work in an integrated way.
Whenever, any of the employees would have issue regarding their shift timings, they would
approach him. He would listen to their cause and generally on most occasions tried to persuade
the higher management to allocate the employees on their preferred shift timings. Howsoever, I
feel that his greatest achievement as a servant leader was perceived at the time of financial crisis
which the company faced during the financial year of 2011-12. Under his advice and Persuasion,
the higher management was compelled to remain transparent with the subordinate employees and
keep transparency with them regarding the state of affairs of the financial problem that the
company have been facing for the last one and half years. He was confident that if the company
would do so and following that if he persuaded the subordinatesas well as his colleagues to
maintain integrity as well as dedication in their work, in spite of the fact that the company could
not make their full payment, he was convicted that we could pull out of the situation easily. I
remember, him, going from one project site to another, irrespective of his own job domain and
explaining the employees to keep faith and maintaining their support with the seniors. Since
there was hardly any one employee who had not received help from him, whether personally or
professionally at the time of their crisis, nobody would ignore miss call when he personally
requested them to keep calm and keep faith on the organisation. Finally, when we recorded

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130% profit over the operations, as prescribed by him, the company gave out dividend bonus to
all the employees of the organisation. In spite of having 15 full-time supervisors and 5 major
team leads, if anybody is asked regarding the fact that who is the real manager of the operations
department, nobody would hesitate to see that it is him, undoubtedly.

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