If you follow my column, you know I love writing about servant leadership, which I believe is the most powerful leadership philosophy on the planet.
As a servant leader, your role is to elevate your employees and help them achieve their goals with joy. When they succeed, you succeed, and the entire organization succeeds. This is a beautiful thing.
When you choose to serve first, it is for the benefit of the other party. You selflessly shift your attention from yourself to others. Leaders who operate in this way can get the most out of their employees, resulting in excellent business results.
Putting servant leadership into action
To add something practical to your routine Elements of servant leadership, here are seven ways:
1. Practice removing barriers that make it difficult for employees to do their best work.
2. Provide information, technology, resources and support for people to do great work.
3. Ask your direct reports, “Is there anything I can do to help you?” or “What can I do — not what — to help you succeed?”
4. Catch people doing the right thing – and show people you “see them”.
5. Look for opportunities to develop people’s skills. Think about the people you serve that can benefit by improving their skills.
6. Be more generous with your time. Hold one-on-one meetings not to benefit you as their manager, but because they benefit your employees in the first place.
7. Have a clear vision for the future, but be sure to unite your people and move in the same direction. You can do this by communicating an exciting vision that gets people out of bed in the morning hoping to make it happen together as a team.
When you look at this list, it may feel too difficult to achieve. In these moments, when a servant leader feels like it takes too much time or effort, remember the law of reciprocity : What you give is what others give you in return, and often multiplied. If you want people to care about you and the organization you lead, you must first care about the people who do the work.
