Leadership Report: Servant Leadership at Essex High School

This report analyzes the servant leadership exhibited by Mrs. Noble, the main office manager at Essex High School. Despite lacking formal education, Mrs. Noble demonstrates servant leadership through her dedication to students and staff, fostering a positive school environment and bridging the gap between students and management. The report explores her behaviors, including her empathetic approach, willingness to help, and commitment to the school's well-being. It identifies her followers as students, teachers, and office staff, highlighting her influence on their development and the school's organizational performance. The analysis uses the servant leadership model to evaluate her impact on societal impact, organizational performance, and follower performance. The report also draws a comparison with a personal experience involving a music school caretaker, illustrating the lasting impact of servant leadership principles. Mrs. Noble's actions are characterized by democratic behavior, transformational leadership qualities, and innovative ideas. This report provides a comprehensive overview of Mrs. Noble's contributions as a servant leader.

LEADERSHIP

1. What servant leader behaviours would you say Mrs. Noble demonstrates?
Servant leadership activity is a vital element of leadership, where the main objective is to
help the others, who are doing poorly and require assistance in form of motivation (Seto and
Sarros 2016). Similar role is seen to be played by Mrs. Noble of Essex High School. Even
though she hardly has any formal academic education, she is known for her hard work and
dedication towards helping students. A school is an assortment of various kinds of power
positions—there are students, teachers, other staffs and the management. In Essex High
School, the principal of the school along with the management can be considered the leader
of the institution. On the other hand, the students play the role of the one who require
assistance in the work of their life. Mrs. Noble, who has been in charge of the main office of
Essex High School for over 30 years, plays a median between the students and the
management. She creates a bridge between the two parties and makes sure both the parties
grow and succeed in their own work spheres.
As we see Mrs. Noble’s job description, she maintains good relationship with each and every
stakeholder of the institution. However, she takes special care towards the students and helps
them grow out of their failures and weaknesses (Spears and Lawrence 2016). Her corny
behaviour may not fit very well with the school’s office decorum, but her efficiency and
excellence in her field of work makes her an exceptional member of the organization. She is
well informed about the laws and procedures that govern the every-day life of the school and
strives to maintain a good relationship with the management as well as other members of the
school. In an ideal servant leader position, it is necessary to first be a servant and then
become the leader of servants. In Essex High School, Mrs. Noble dedicatedly pursues her
role of a servant to the management and not only that she also makes sure that the rest of the
“servants” or employees of the institution perform their best to grow individually as well as
an organization.
Some of the essential features of a good servant leader include democratic behaviour,
transformational leadership qualities, innovative ideas and flexibility. Mrs. Noble’s attributes
reflect all of these features as she goes out of her ways to help the students follow the
school’s laws and empathizes with them by listening, spreading awareness, helping them
heal, reflecting foresightedness and showing a steady dedication towards the growth of the
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institution as a whole (Newman, Schwarz, Cooper and Sendjaya 2017). Her efforts to keep
the office environment cheerful and lively goes a long way to maintaining the organizational
culture and environment. Her acute awareness regarding the school’s proceedings and
surroundings made her indispensable for the organization. Her simple clothing and
unpretentious outlook towards her works reflects her honesty and dedication, and also makes
her equally acceptable by all members of the school (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn and Wu
2018). From helping a sick student collect all the class notes while the student is unable to
attend classes to helping out the teachers with almost anything, Mrs. Noble truly shows the
zeal of a true well wisher and growth influencer of the organization.
2. Who are Mrs. Noble’s followers?
Mrs. Noble has many followers like the students, teachers and office staff. She is admired for
her involvement in the day-to-day lives of Essex High school goers. From helping students
with co-curricular activities to guiding them in taking proper decisions academically, Mrs.
Noble had her know-how in every sphere. She was also appraised by the teachers for her
honesty and integrity. But mainly her followers were the students of Essex High. The
students respected Mrs. Noble for her empathy and patience for listening (Seto and Sarros
2016). She thought equally of all the individuals and believed in their true potential. Students
felt accepted and important because of Mrs. Noble. She provided them a safe space to
express themselves in their unique ways and never lost patience to their eccentricities. Sharon
also guides them non-judgementally whenever the students violated any norms (Chiniara and
Bentein 2016). The students like her for her unpretentious behaviour as she projects herself
very simply and a person anyone can approach. Some students are also helped by Mrs. Noble
in preparing their college applications, even though it is not her job. She is said to excel at
these matters and helps almost every single student she can (Chen, Zhu and Zhou 2015). Her
inability to educate herself with a proper degree helps the students to feel very inspired and
motivated.
Mrs. Noble was a practically knowledgeable person who was admired by the students for
wisdom. She had all the information regarding everything one can ask for. The students were
amazed by her ability to know all the materials, requirements and deadlines required by
different universities. The students always felt safe and secured for asking help from Mrs.
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Noble (Ford and Harding 2018). She kept on pushing the students in achieving their
maximum output helping and guiding them in their day-to-day school lives. Her involvement
in the progress of a student’s life is unimaginable and she spends hours of her days guiding
them with proper academic tasks and goals to follow. When one of the students met with an
accident, Mrs. Noble personally saw to it that one of the teachers goes to the student’s house
to give her assignments, and also pick up them after the student has finished with it (Panaccio
et al. 2015). So, here we can see the student being helped by Mrs. Noble even though she
could easily ignore this and let the student suffer for her actions.
When the seniors were raising money for cancer research, Mrs. Noble actively participated in
organizing the event and made sure everything went as planned. Mrs. Noble had her eyes
everywhere. From the daily legal procedures of the school to helping teachers get acquainted
in their jobs, to guiding students in different academic matters to helping them build a strong
personality, efficiently managing the school is something that Mrs. Noble did very naturally
and lovingly (Du Plessis, Wakelin and Nel 2015). Therefore, Mrs. Noble had many followers
in almost all spheres of office-work. Not only did she guide them all through the nitty-gritty
of everyday processes but also inspired everyone through her performance and diligence. She
was a true champion of her people in Essex High.
3. Based on the model of servant leadership (figure 10.1), what outcomes has Mrs
Noble’s servant leadership attend?
Mrs. Noble allows for an all-round development of her followers or the students and other
employees of the Essex High School. According to the servant leadership figure 10.1, there
are various elements that make Mrs. Noble an accurate example of servant leader. The
various elements of the servant leader role as understood by the condition of Mrs. Noble are
briefly discussed below:
Societal Impact: Talking about context and culture, Mrs Noble has a balanced mixture of
both in a sense that even though she has no academic qualification and doesn’t stop herself
from making corny jokes in the office room, she maintains a particular work culture that is
accepted and admired by all (Ruben and Gigliotti 2016). Even though passing corny jokes
could be deemed unprofessional in school office, her untiring and devoted work towards the
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betterment of the students and authorities overlooked the code of ethics and saw it as a
unifying factor that helped her become equal with the other working staff. Since Sharon
Noble has been in charge of the main office for more than 30 years without any college
degree, her extraordinary work stands out amongst the contributions of the rest of the school
employees. She is conscious and alert about the fundamentals of the school, its context and
visions and is focused on upholding a strong culture through the performance of different
operational bodies.
Organizational Performance: Mrs. Noble has all the attributes that a leader needs to have.
Her ability to manage and help almost whole of the school is something that is very rare to
find. Her constant effort in improving the academic and mental conditions of the students and
to carefully behave with all of them equally is very hard to maintain and it is something that
Mrs. Noble does with a lot of involvement and dedication (Yasir and Mohamad 2016). She is
valued and respected for her proper and ethical behaviour towards all the members of the
school from teachers to students and even the management. All of her efforts result to the
better performance of the organization and growth is consistent (DeConinck and DeConinck
2017). She boosts up the performances of the teachers as well as students by simply being
there for them, listening to what they have to say.
Follower Performance: The true success of a servant leader lies in the growth and
development of the followers. Empowering the fellow colleagues is a primary element in
Mrs. Noble’s day-to-day schedule. Mrs. Noble spends and extravagant amount of time
helping others get better at their field of work, be it students or her co-workers Sousa, M. and
(Van Dierendonck 2016). The senior employees of Essex High School had held a dance
marathon to raise money and awareness for cure of cancer patients. Mrs. Noble took active
part in organizing the entire event even though she got the least benefits out of it (Reid et al.
2018). She put forwards the needs and requirements of her followers and made sure the event
was a success. Her constant nudges regarding the students’ curriculum includes their
application form fill up, regular studies, cleanliness, consistency in performance, like class
tests and more (Al Hila and Al Shobaki 2016). Therefore, Mrs. Noble could be considered
the main person who ran the school or looked after all its’ day to day activities.
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4. Can you think of someone at a school or organization you were part of who acted
like Mrs. Noble? Describe what this person did and how it affected you and the
school or organization.
As a kid I was a part of a music school, where I went to learn piano and came across the
caretaker of the studio, who was a very diligent person. Every day he would clean up the
studio before and after the music lessons and kept the place neat and tidy. He was never
absent or lazy even on his worst days and took up his profession with great honour and love
for music. Since he was very friendly to most students we had to come to know about his
amazing singing skills and inspiring life’s story. Mrs. Noble reminded me of this man whose
name was Mr. Mills and I remember his dedication towards his work. Another thing that I
noticed about Mr. Mills is his attentiveness towards the success of our music class. Every day
he would make sure that enough water is available, whether the electricity’s working alright,
whether the instruments are in place, etc. His ears were so musical that often he learnt a lot
faster than most of the students.
As a kid, Mr. Mills used to surprise me every day with his amazing skills of managing the
music studio. He took care of so many departments all at once that it was inspiring. Even
though he was just a caretaker, his music skills were rightly acknowledged by the students as
well as the teachers of the school. Occasionally he would be requested to perform and play
with us, other days he kept to his work diligently. Even though he wouldn’t play the piano a
lot, we all knew theoretically he was ahead of us. The fact that he developed his musical ears
even though he was the caretaker of the studio inspired a lot of students and teachers. He had
been working in the studio for more than thirty years and seldom took leaves. Sometimes he
would tell us how it is important to love what you do, because only then can you put your
entire productivity in your work. These were not just words, we saw Mr. Mills live by them
every day. In my childhood, Mr. Mills was an inspiring character who helped me shape my
perspective in a particular way.
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