Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a Servant Leader that I like the sound of that concept. It means that you concentrate on helping and supporting others so that they continue to grow and develop into great leaders.
As a servant leader, you walk into a room of people viewing things in a different way than leaders who don’t subscribe to that style of leading. Instead of walking into the room and saying,
“Well here I am”
you walk in and say,
“Well there you are! You are the people responsible for making great things happen.”
You focus on them and their individual contributions, not your status and power.
Liza Howard is the owner of a hair salon in Sarasota, Florida. She makes a very good point about this subject in an interview in Business Observer, a Florida business publication. She said,
“I can teach you how to cut hair, but I can’t teach you to have a servant’s heart.”
When the leaders I work with sometimes have issues with a “problem employee”, I wonder whether they interviewed them extensively enough when they hired them to make sure that they have a “servant’s heart”.
People who don’t have that tend to see their own issues as the most important. They think that they are always right. They have “blinders” on so that they never even notice that they should be helping the co-workers around them.
Serving others is a way to make great things happen in an organization.
Action Steps for This Week…
- Who do you spend more time focusing on— you or your people?
- Do your people have respect and concern for each other?
- Have you ever had a team discussion about a “servant’s heart?
- Do you demonstrate a “servant’s heart” in your daily actions?
