The rise of servant leadership: How communication drives genuine growth
Servant leadership is all about making goals clear and then rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation they don’t work for you, you work for them. — Kenneth Blanchard
When we think about what it means to be a successful and inspiring leader, communication isn't just a tool, it's the foundation. Looking at servant leadership, which is becoming more prominent, communication plays a central role in empowering and driving genuine growth for both people and organizations. This leadership philosophy and model is a disruptor, challenging the more conventional leadership paradigms we’re used to.
What is Servant Leadership?
Servant Leadership is when leaders prioritize the growth, well-being and aspirations of those they lead, and continually engage and communicate with them. Such leaders view their role as an act of service, fostering a workplace environment that encourages active listening, empathy, and feedback. Unlike self-serving leaders, who may be distant and focused on status, servant leaders empower their teams, embrace feedback as a growth opportunity, and communicate transparently to ensure everyone is on the same page. This leadership style is rooted in service and humility and emphasizes a commitment to the success of both employees and the organization as a whole. It also places high importance on value-driven foundations to ensure the mission and vision of the organization aligns with its core values and ultimately benefits those it serves.
Communication is the Heartbeat of Servant Leadership
Central to the servant leadership model is effective communication.When leaders serve, they constantly bridge gaps — aligning visions, expectations, and objectives. It’s not enough to just have a vision; it has to be communicated constantly and then operationalized into action. Effective servant leaders understand that to truly connect with their people, they must communicate with empathy and be willing to understand them on a deeper level.
Furthermore, true servant leaders recognize that communication isn't about dictating — it’s a dialogue. They equally value the messages they deliver and the feedback they receive. While conveying a vision is crucial, actively listening to others is just as important. Active listening goes beyond just hearing words, it's about having the desire to understand the emotions, motivations, and aspirations behind those words. A servant leader is also a conscious one and tunes into these subtleties to properly address concerns, adjust their messages and get the buy-in they need to move forward successfully.
Servant Leaders Have Two Defining Roles:
A servant leader has two fundamental roles: the visionary role (that’s where leadership comes in) and the implementation role when leaders are required to serve and support their people to operationalize the vision.
1. Visionary Role
The visionary role of servant leadership provides direction and lays down the foundation for where the organization or team is headed.
Communicate the Purpose: The servant leader is responsible for ensuring the organizational purpose is clear, inspiring, and genuinely serves the community or customers. Servant leaders ensure that every message, every communication, reinforces the organizational purpose with clarity.
Paint a Picture of the Future: A compelling vision clearly articulates a desired future state that motivates and energizes all members of the team. This isn't a one-time announcement but ongoing communication that keeps the vision alive and always resonating. The vision for the future should be clear, inspiring and something everyone can envision and get behind.
Establish the Values to Guide the Journey: These are the guiding principles and standards that will dictate how members of the organization behave and make decisions. Servant leaders not only establish these values but live by them and lead by example.
2. Implementation Role
Having a vision is essential, but without proper implementation, nothing gets done. This puts the "servant" in servant leadership.
Operationalize the Purpose: Servant leaders consistently communicate how daily operations connect back to the larger vision, ensuring alignment and clarity. A servant leader operationalizes the company purpose by being accessible, solving problems, and living in alignment with the company’s vision and values on a daily basis.
Empower and Serve the Team: Servant leaders know that being a leader isn’t about being in the office while everyone else is doing the work. They are physically present and constantly checking in, offering guidance, and asking for input. They frequently engage with team members, provide resources, training, and support, ensuring they have everything they need to be successful.
Champion Collaborative Problem-Solving: Overcoming challenges is normal. Servant leaders are proactive in addressing issues and they often seek feedback from team members and collaborate on solutions, rather than dictating them.
Provide Active Support to Achieve Goals: A servant leader ensures productivity within their teams and aligns tasks with the organization's vision, to ensure all efforts are working toward its desired future state.
Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.—Theodore Roosevelt
When leaders actively and consistently communicate and engage with their fellow leaders, team members and stakeholders, it builds trust and shows people you care. When leaders invite feedback from employees and ask them how they feel, it demonstrates that their opinions are valued and factored into decision-making. When leaders are on the ground with employees and visible, it breaks those hierarchical barriers and fosters a culture of unity, connection and mutual respect.
A Leadership Model in Service to Your Bottom Line
Embracing servant leadership has proven time and again to drive favourable business outcomes. At Jason’s Deli, when management adopted a service-first approach across their 71 restaurants, job performance increased by 6%, customer satisfaction shot up by 8%, and, most notably, employee retention surged by 50%. Similarly, Datron World Communications offers another compelling example of the transformative power of servant leadership. When Art Barter took over the company in 2004, it was valued at $10 million. After integrating a servant leadership model, Datron's valuation skyrocketed to $200 million in a just six years! Another study conducted by the Journals of Problems and Perspectives in Management also found that servant leadership positively influences job satisfaction by 85%. All of these examples not only reinforce the impact of this leadership style on employees' well-being but also indicate its potential to create an unstoppable workforce. Additionally, they are powerful indicators of the transformative power servant leadership holds in positively impacting a company's financial success.
Servant leadership represents an ideal that leaders from across the globe can embrace. It signals a philosophy that challenges traditional leadership styles and offers a new approach that embraces transparent communication and builds trust, fosters mutual respect and genuine connection between leaders and employees, and drives meaningful growth and results for people and organizations.
