A CASE FOR “SERVANT LEADERSHIP” AS A NO-BRAINER FOR MORDERN CIVILIZATION

By Joshua U. Njokuocha

Servant Leadership: An Introductory Overview

The discourse on “leadership” is age-old because successive generations have had their
take on this striking subject. However, this is not bewildering because leadership is the
giant of all competing factors that has shaped, and continues to shape civilization. It
largely determines the state of mankind in every era. Servant leadership is a fast
emerging leadership model that is rather overdue for a near global embrace. The
concept is timeless in age, yet quite modern in formal articulation and real life sampling.
Through this essay, I seek to prove that servant leadership is the current best-option
model of all leadership models there is. My thesis is best captured thus: Servant
leadership has become a wherewithal, if modern civilization must continue to gain an
onward positive advance, and must be accorded a right-of-way across the varied
spheres of human engagements. It is indeed a no-brainer for the present world; given
the realities of modern times, and owing to the fact that mankind has experimented
with, and has had a fair taste of other various kinds of leadership. Theoretically
speaking, it is valid for all cultures and applicable in all settings. In proving my case, I
shall discuss the matter of servant leadership as pitted against the traditional autocratic
and hierarchical modes of leadership, and would seek to establish the point that the
latter has had its time on the global scale and thus must give way for the former to
thrive. To achieve this, I shall clearly x-ray the very tenets of servant leadership, and
would go ahead to try such tenets in the three major settings of social engagements –
the family, organizations, society at large – and sufficiently demonstrate my point.

Understanding Leadership

Leadership, among several definitions, has been identified as “the lifting of man’s vision
to higher heights, the raising of man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of
man’s personality beyond its normal limitation,”¹ according to Dr. Peter Drucker. Of all
the numerous available definitions of leadership, one theme remains clear: PEOPLE. This
is because leadership derives from, and thrives on human resources. Thus leadership
can be thought of as human-centric, irrespective of its set material objectives. Suffice it
then to state that though being a means to an end, it is as much critical in terms of its
means as its end. This essay bothers on the subject of its means, based upon the
premise that if leadership is an “art,” then a continuous review of its methodologies is
vital for onward advance.

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The coinage of the term, “Servant Leadership,” is attributed to Robert K. Greenleaf, who
observed the differences between servant leadership and its traditional autocratic
counterpart as manifest in “…the care taken by the servant-first [leader] to make sure
that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. That the served…grow as
persons, become healthier, freer, wiser, more autonomous…that the least privileged in
society benefits or at least not be further deprived.”²

For the purpose of this piece, a review of the further categorization of leadership by
James McGregor Burns is expedient. According to Burns, leadership can either be
transformational or transactional. Transformational leadership, “occurs when one or
more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one
another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Transforming leadership ultimately
becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspirations of
both the leader and led and, thus, has a transforming effect on both.”³ Thus the
leadership enterprise engulfs both the leader and the led, and the terms of co-existence
becomes mutually binding on the duo parties. Meanwhile, transactional leadership
wields the carrot and stick approach to leadership, whereby the leader poses as a
patronizing sovereign. When one dances to his tune, one gets the carrot and otherwise,
one gets the stick. It is based on an exchange of services for various kinds of rewards,
which can be in form of salary, promotion, or other things, that the leader controls, at
least in part. Thus transformational leadership is more akin to servant leadership while
the transactional closely resembles the autocratic mode of leadership.

Why Servant Leadership?

My choice of servant leadership as a preferable model is anchored on what I would term

the utilitarian factor; this model of leadership is provable in the various settings that
define human coexistence. Beginning from the home front, which is the smallest organ
of society, to the organizational arena, and then to the societal level, servant leadership
is almost inevitable. Humans are as much emotional beings as they are logical, and
servant leadership appeals to, and satisfies both features as against the autocratic style,
which tramples on the former attribute in both the leader and the led, but caters to the
logical machinations of the leader alone. Autocratic leadership is highly pyramidal. It
engenders power gaps. In some instances, such power gaps are further widened to
become great chasms that separate the leader from the led. On the contrary, servant
leadership builds bridges. It narrows the power gap (if it allows any) and seeks the
better involvement of the led for the attainment of the material objective. As opposed
to the servant leadership style, autocratic leadership operates with a psyche that tends
to downplay the humanity of the led and has the tendency to rather narrow the gap

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between the led and (for instance) the inanimate component of a productive process,
thus emboldening the “cog-in-the-machine” cliché by inadvertently glorifying the
“material ends” while trampling the “human means.” Servant leadership in a corporate
setting leads by the business case, and fosters the adoption of best practices,
irrespective of who it comes from – whether the leader or any of the led. Consequently,
the insecurities (if any) of the leader are made bare while the competencies of the led
become clearly visible. Such scenarios that make room for the leader’s vulnerability are
scarcely embraced in an autocratic environment, thus dowsing creativity.

Scenario Considerations

Leadership on the home front can be quite delicate. This is not unconnected to the fact
that such leadership is character dominated rather than personality/charisma
dominated. Therefore, the home leader (which I assume to be either parent), leads
inadvertently by inspiration, because studies have confirmed that children are thrice
more “see-ers” than listeners, and as such prone to copying than obeying. According to
Vincent Lombardi, “leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire others
to follow.” This definition aligns with the servant leadership model, and finds the
greatest expression at the home setting. Authoritarian parenting, on the other hand has
proven contrarian to the possibilities of raising an emotionally stable child. Such practice
would rather impede development, generate complexes and result in an eventual (and
often wild) ventilation of hitherto suppressed emotions and lurking ambiguities. In
addition to that, and my personal opinion, the domestic show of autocratic leadership
has also been instrumental (though not solely) to the modern rising of agitations that
has gained reasonable expressions through (among others) the feministic movement.

Talking about the organizational setting as it relates to the workplace, the emerging
global trends will necessitate a shift from the traditional hierarchical leadership style, to
something more fluidic. The available indicators have shown that the businesses of the
future would thrive on customized design, rapid innovation, customer experience (as
against product features alone), and communication. Autocratic leadership would be
counterproductive to a work setting that would largely depend on such attributes. This
is because autocratic leadership model tends more towards the bureaucratic and is
impervious to rapid change, as against the servant leadership model that tends towards
the fluidic, and thus can be welcoming to change. The most worthy of note in this regard
is the scuttling of dissenting voices of innovative subordinates, and frustration of the
rebelliously creative juniors at the workplace. The rise of modern technology has further
compounded the dilemma of the hypothetical managing director or chief executive,
who would not let go his/her bureaucratic grip. With the speed-of-delivery increasingly

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becoming of essence in today’s high-tech competitive marketplace, the outsourcing of
highly critical job functions to remote specialists has become almost inevitable. As such,
a corporate servant leadership style (and thereby more fluidic, as captured above),
would be more ready to quickly yield to such alternatives upon recommendation and
achieve the desired outcomes in real time, thereby beating the competition. Thus, the
“autonomy” component of Mr. Greenleaf’s definition of servant leadership as captured
earlier in this piece is increasingly becoming inevitable in the corporate world.

In addition to these and with reference to afore quoted descript of servant leadership
by Mr. Greenleaf, an ideal workplace executive (as a leader) would understand that
his/her role incorporates the engendering of continual personal and professional
development of staff members. This would in turn become a magnetic pull on top
talent, and is averse to the cog-in-the-machine air of an autocratic work setting. As
evidenced by the Fortune’s “Best Places to Work For” list, organizations practicing
servant leadership tend to achieve a superior employee engagement, as opposed to
such organization that do otherwise. Higher employee engagement would also translate
to higher levels of effort and lower levels of turnover.

The leadership climate of a society has everything to do its progress or regress. Servant
Leaders are vision-driven while authoritative leaders are position-driven. Furthermore,
having the best outcomes at heart, such (servant) leaders lean towards the meritocratic,
as opposed to parochial fantasies of every despot. However, Leaders come and go but a
national vision endures, being the rallying point for the citizenry. Communicating a
strong vision enables a leader to generate hope and momentum to act effectively and in
concert, without the iron fist of an authoritarian. Lawrence E. Harrison, in the chapter
he contributed in Culture Matters, captioned Promoting Progressive Cultural Change,
outlined ten attitudes that distinguish progressive cultures from static ones. One of such
is the attitude to authority. He noted that “authority tends towards dispersion and
horizontality in progressive cultures, but tends towards concentration and verticality in
static cultures.”⁴

As the clamor for sustainable infrastructural development gains momentum on a global

scale, government leaders must necessarily give attention to human development. This
is because people will always reduce the state of their outward environment to the level
of their inward ‘environment’. Consequently, a servant leader in a political setting would
build people as he builds resorts. Joseph E. Stiglitz, an economist and Nobel Prize winner
wrote in his seminal book Making Globalization Work: “development is about
transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.”⁵ This intellectual
edict clearly resonates with the very tenets of servant leadership – captured by

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McGregor as transformational, as opposed to autocratic (transactional). Thus a servant-
hood approach to governance sets the leader on course to be transformational.

In summary, I must reiterate that servant leadership has become a wherewithal, if

modern civilization must continue to gain an onward positive advance, and must be
accorded a right-of-way across the varied spheres of human endeavors. “The longer I
live” declared Charles R. Swindoll, “the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than…the past, education, money, circumstances,
failure, success, appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a
church…a home…”⁶ thus, if this observation by Swindoll is anywhere near accurate, it
then goes that the “leadership attitude” of any setting far outweighs all other factors
relevant to the attainment of sustainable success. And through this submission of mine,
and within the limited space accorded, I have demonstrated the pragmatism of servant
leadership as the best-option leadership model in both the family, organizational and
societal scenarios, with the view that a holistic transformation of nations must be
tripartite along these three critical lines and with concrete evidences on why servant
leadership should take preeminence in all facets of social engagements.

Thank You.

REFERENCES

1. Cohen, W.A. (2000), Drucker on Leadership – New Lessons from the father of modern
management. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.
2. Greenleaf, R. (1991). The servant as leader (Rev. Ed.). indianapolis, IN: Robert K.
Greenleaf center.
3. Burns, J.M (1978), Leadership. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Page425.
4. Lawrence E. H and Samuel P. H. (2000. Eds), CULTURE MATTERS – How values shape
human progress. New York: Basic Books. Page297-307.
5. Joseph E.S. (2006). Making Globalization Work. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
6. Charles R.S. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5139.Charles_R_Swindol