Servant Leadership – an Oxymoron?

Many of us expect our leaders to be striking examples – people who stand atop the ridge and inspire us to follow them into flame and storm.  While we all seek strength and direction from our leaders perhaps we should first understand the purpose that the leader seeks to achieve. 

Robert Greenleaf in the 1970’s introduced a model of leadership he called servant leadership.  This model of leadership resonates with the teaching of all major religions ranging from Taoism’s  “the way to Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure” to Christianity’s ”Just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” or the Islamic Hadithic text stating that “the best of men are those who are useful to others” and even the more recent business guru’s such as Jack Welch recognised that “before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

So how does it work?  Well according to Greenleaf there are two types of leaders;  servant-first and leader-first leaders,  the latter focus on their own importance and well-being, in that for them serving others is just a means to acquire a position or perceived importance.  For the former, serving is the primary objective and leadership is just a tool we use to facilitate serving others.  

Sounds challenging?  It can be…

So which type of leader are you as a scouter, Commissioner or merely in your day to day life?  For people working in the ”I-centric” leader first concept, leadership is about how to accumulate and wield power, how to make people do things. It is all about clever strategies, applying pressure, and manipulating people to get what you want, no matter the cost or impact on them.

If this is you, you will probably focus more on the acquisition of power rather than the application thereof.    And when you finally achieve that vaunted position, then your very fear of losing it will in most cases make you ineffectual, causing you to dominate and for want of a better word terrorise any who might challenge you. This not only undermines your team it also steal your greatest tool away.  Besides, if you really think about it in a volunteer organisation what is the worst you can do to your underlings? Perhaps ask them to leave and lose their volunteered services?  This hardly ranks up there with loss of income by being fired or the more dramatic applications of power by some historical leaders.

On the other hand the servant leader understands that success is based on merit and your ability to deliver the goods, and any power derived from perceived authority is merely a tool to further that success.  A servant leaders share powers to make use of the greatest skillset from the team to achieve any given task, be it training the new tenderfoot or mentoring the greybeard scouter in a new skill.    This is not abdication but delegation the nurturing of others in the necessary skills to make them more valuable and in the process more committed to the organisation.

Given your choice to volunteer to serve the youth, which of these models would you like your “superiors” to use, and given that answer what will you use with those you lead?