Servant Leadership -- Robert K. Greenleaf
Introduction to Robert K. Greenleaf
In order to examine the views and philosophies of Robert K. Greenleaf -- even before reading his book -- it is helpful to review the Web site which fully describes his brainchild, "The Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership." The late Greenleaf, a former executive at AT& T, began his initial career there in management research, development and education. Following his work at AT& T, Greenleaf became a respected lecturer and consultant for MIT, Harvard Business School, and Dartmouth College.
It was during the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam war years when many young people were rejecting traditional American values that Greenleaf began to develop his theory that the institutions in America were not fulfilling their responsibilities in serving the needs of the people. He wrote an essay in 1970 called The Servant as Leader, in which he pointed out that the nation needs a whole new fresh way to look at leadership; he wrote that leaders must be able to serve first, prior to their familiarity and understanding of the pivotal duties and responsibilities of leadership.
"The servant-leader is servant first," according to the Web site for the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership (originally founded as "Center for Applied Ethics" in 1964), which Greenleaf developed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and which today serves as an important reflection of his legacy. Servant-Leadership, the Web site states, "is a practical philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions."
Servant Leadership
In his book, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power of Greatness, Greenleaf writes that a great leader embraces the theory of prophecy -- "seekers make prophets" --...
Servant Leadership Even though servant leadership is in most cases associated with the Bible and Jesus Christ it is quite compatible with most religions and theories of philosophy. This paper is a comparative study using Greenleaf's characteristics of servant leadership which is based on Christianity against other philosophy and other leadership theories. "…The great leader is seen as servant first…"-Robert K. Greenleaf. This is a fragment from a sentence in an essay
Servant Leadership At the center of servant leadership is a leader's ability to transform a team, department or entire organization by concentrating on their specific needs for direction, individualized coaching, development and recognition. A highly effective servant leader will also have a correspondingly high level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and exhibit the traits of transformational leadership (Washington, Sutton, Feild, 2006). A highly effective servant leader will often create unique development and
Servant Leadership Defining Servant Leadership The principles of Servant Leadership were laid out by founder Robert Greenleaf in his important 1970 book, The Servant as Leader. Greenleaf, to his great credit, wanted to stress the point that leaders should first serve, and later lead through service. The leaders who have power but have not led, and use the power to push his or her own viewpoints and agenda, are not the kind
This is why the journal article advocated more empirical research that is still lacking ten years later (Russell & Stone, 2002, 145). B. Servant Leadership-Greenleaf The primary aspect is that a servant leader is first a servant who feels a natural need to provide for the needs of others (Greenleaf & Spears, 2002, 27). A concrete example of this would have been a leader such as Martin Luther King Jr. who
Therefore, the servant leadership theory reflects the need for analyzing this type of leadership. Servant Leadership Cons There is also certain criticism addressed by some to this theory. It seems that servant leadership provides a too soft approach that does not favor the development of competitiveness within the company. The increased competition in the business environment requires that companies also build a competitive environment within them in order to help employees
Servant Leadership Annotated Bibliography Within the context of organized behavior, leadership is one of the critical and core aspects. True leadership is decision making, but it is more complex. Leaders are not managers -- but they may manage. Leadership is less formal, more psychological, and effective leadership looks at more of the gray than the black and white and enables others, or other teams, to work well to achieve goals while
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