Commitment to the growth of people

Servant leaders are deeply concerned about wellbeing of all people around them. They ensure
holistic development of everyone, both personal and professional thus practicing win win
leadership style. Question is how do you help the people around you win?

1. Engaging in honest self-evaluation and being a Role model: Not only do

servant leaders themselves feel an obligation to serve the community and give back, but
they also need to promote this kind of activity and help followers understand the value
of giving back and what that means for an organization and for the community and
people they are supporting eg- Mother Teresa, and today Sonu Sood, Akshay Kumar
and many more anonymous donors. A servant leader should always be someone who
leads their team by example. Leaders will be taken seriously if the leader is ethical,
truthful and forthcoming and be willing to do anything you ask your team to do. When
your team members see you are willing to put in the same amount of work and effort
they do, it helps motivate them to engage in their work and the organization.

2. Understand need of individuals and Commitment to the growth: Servant

leaders are aware of their responsibility to effectively groom people around them in all
spheres, including personal, professional and spiritual. They first make it a point to
understand the needs of an individual for delivering on their responsibilities and then
ensure to nurture them in relevant fields to enable them to succeed in their job.

3. Encouragement and motivations Servant leaders have great potential to be

phenomenal encouragers. Many people feel encouraged when they are being served,
especially by someone they would least expect, such as their leader. Generating change
must also include encouragement. A common way of encouraging throughout the
change process is setting goals that can be achieved and then celebrating the
completion of these goals. Praise/ appreciation can be given either publicly or privately
with humility. Creating a work environment where employees feel empowered to
contribute and are motivated to be engaged is critical to being an effective servant
leader.

4. Creating empowered individuals and teams: The next step will be to create a group
that will carry out the changes. No one person can change an organization, especially if the
company is of considerable size. To help guide the change, leaders must create a team that
understand the end goal and is credible, trustworthy, and have position of power. The goal
must appeal to both the mind and the heart, make logical sense, as well as resonate with the
team members. Building up the environment where one takes care of the members on
personal level, when they feel happy and fulfilled in their personal lives so that they
contribute to their success in their professional life. A servant leader needs to assess and train
people in the areas of basic management, technical skills, and communication competency
(staff training in job competency), education and employee development programs to help
them continue to expand their knowledge and skills. They should make their teams feel that
their voices and opinions matter. Train staff in company culture. Create opportunities for
their staff to learn/ study technical learning, management, company culture, and values.
Create more trust in their team. When you take steps to encourage your team to work
together and to suggest new ideas to help improve the organization, it shows them you care
about what they have to say and appreciate their contributions. An example is "taking
personal interest in the ideas and suggestions from everyone, encouraging worker
involvement in decision making" (Spears 2004:4). It includes a lot of delegation,
providing accountability and empowering people. This can motivate your team to put their
best effort and result in higher quality work. One can also try to encourage team members to
take an active leadership role during group projects.

5. Encourages engagement and Fostering collaboration: Breaking down silos

and barriers can seem like an insurmountable task for many. However, silos and
barriers cannot be broken down unless someone makes the first move. To start, a leader
should look within their team to identify if staff is effectively working together. Are
there any barriers that need to be addressed within the team first? Once you feel
confident that the team is effectively collaborating, encouraging partnering with other
teams may be an appropriate next step. Irving and Longbotham suggest leadership
should “encourage workers to work together rather than competing against each
other.” Be a team player. Be a part of struggles, support, open to them, strengthen
relationship with them. Building an enjoyable team. Servant leaders are great at
helping their team members also become leaders. They do this through leading by
example and providing their team with opportunities to grow and develop. Be
transparent, try to make your team members feel empowered to come to you with
suggestions at any time and regularly ask for feedback from people who don’t
naturally provide it. Encourages community outreach and volunteering. They
provide paid time off even to volunteer so we can make a difference in our
communities. An investment in the community is ultimately an investment in the
organization.

6. Communication and interaction: When examining team dynamics,

communication is the most commonly identified skill that needs to be improved.
Creating the mindset of communication, interaction and clarity with employees can be
done by openly talking about the change and the vision behind it (Kotter, 1996, p. 66).
The vision must also not be established by just one person, but rather the effort of a
team working together to create the perfect statement or idea for change. The next step
is to communicate this change vision in a clear and concise manner. It can be a
struggle for leaders to empower their employees, but with the right mindset and hard
work, it can lead to more effective change (1996, p. 115). John Maxwell, a renowned
expert on leadership, explains there are seven elements helpful to a vision being
successfully transferred. These seven facets are clarity, connection, purpose, goals,
challenges, stories and passion. It must resonate with a person’s mind and heart to be a
strong vision statement. Social interactions shape the lives of all persons, they try to
identify ways and means to build community feeling among persons working within a
given institution. The leader should get creative with how the vision is pursued. By
engaging in Transparency, active listening, empathy, self-sacrifice or risk-taking, the
leader shows the vision is worth fighting for. Kotter explains the vision should be heard
often and in multiple ways. Memos, letters and emails, as well as meetings on smaller
levels can all inform employees of what will be happening.

7. Care, value and appreciation: Servant-leaders believe that people have an

intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. Value people and
establish them in communication in small ways—to recognize people in timely ways
and specifically in words. Showing care and valuing people show why they and their
jobs are important. Value innovation, caring, accountability, respect, and excellence
are important. When employees feel that what they do is important to the overall
success of the organization, they usually feel more empowered and are willing to work
harder to help the company succeed. Servant leaders should try to make sure their team
members know why the work they do is important and how their work directly affects
the overall success of the company. Another thing you can do to become a servant
leader is to show your team members you care about them on a personal level. Being
empathetic and trying to offer advice when you can, may help create a more positive
work-life balance for your employees and can help them cope with personal stress
better. When your team members feel that they matter as an individual and not just as
an employee, they are more likely to be happy when coming to work and to produce
better quality work. Laub (1999) suggests that building up others through
encouragement and affirmation is one of the primary means by which servant leaders
can develop people. Being intentional and specific in sending thank you emails or
personalized notes detailing the work they did and how it benefitted the team is one
example of showing your staff how much they mean to the success of the team building
a trust relationship.

Decision making

8. Establish a sense of urgency for creating value. While literature on leadership

and team effectiveness will continue to expand, one question will remain: “how do I
move my team from good to great?” When we have teams that are engaged and have
clear direction, amazing things happen. By creating value for the community, the
servant leader creates a sense of urgency in others to want to give back and foster the
never-ending circle of everyone helping everyone and getting the support that everyone
needs. People in the organization must realize the problem is real and that change must
occur for the organization to continue to move in the right direction. Some people
working in organizations have a sense of complacency and are happy with the way
things are. Changing the desire to keep things the same is not an easy task and
everyone must understand why this change is so urgent. To increase urgency, the
company must remove any idea of complacency.
9. Resistance to change: However, one is likely to face reservations to change.
Opposition to change will most likely increase and must be met with even greater
perseverance (Kotter, 1996, p. 143). There are three strategies to managing resistance
to change: force change strategy, educative change strategy, and rational change
strategy. Force change strategy is as simple as it sounds; it is giving orders and
imposing change by not making it an option not to. This strategy, while it can be a
faster process than other strategies, is usually met with more resistance. The second
strategy is educative change strategy, which involves teaching those involved why the
change is necessary and how it will improve the company. This can create higher
commitment, but will take more time. The most desirable strategy to implement is the
rational change strategy. The rational change strategy seeks to show that the change is
not only necessary and benefits the company, but will benefit the employee personally
(David, 2013, p. 234). Kotter’s solution to resistance to change is simply more change.
The short-term wins should be used to help produce the long-term, big-time changes.

10. Sink into the culture: The culture of an organization can be compared to DNA of a
body. Although a person cannot necessarily see it, it defines how things happen within that
company (McShane & von Glinow, 2010, p. 416). With the culture having such weighty
control over an organization, changing it can be a difficult task, although not impossible. For
this to happen, the results of the change process must be favorable. Everyone involved must
be certain the new way of doing things is superior to the old. Talking about the effectiveness
of the change and reassuring that this new system and the change that occurred are valid is
crucial. With much change in an organization comes a high possibility of turnover. It is also
essential to the process for this change to not end with the present leadership. There must be a
continued passion for growth and change. The people in charge dictate what direction the
company goes, so the future leaders should be identified and developed to succeed and take
the change to the next level (Kotter, 1996, p. 157). Maxwell suggests developing the person
as opposed to the system in which he works. He writes: getting the job done makes you a
success. Getting the job done through others makes you a leader. But developing the people
while helping them get the job done at the highest level makes you an exceptional leader.
When you develop others, they become better, they do the job better, and both you and the
organization benefit. (2005, p. 229)