Aspects of Leadership Essay

Today, leadership plays a particularly important part in the organizational development as well as in professional and personal development. The contemporary organizations rely heavily on their leaders and the ability of leaders to head their organizations to the ultimate success determines, to a significant extent, the overall success of organizations. At the same time, the development of an efficient leadership style is very important for me, in person, in regard to my career development as well as my personal development. In actuality, leadership skills are essential not only for managers holding top positions in organizations but for all managers. At the same time leaders and managers are still quite different in their key features but the combination of the leadership and managerial skills can help me to make a successful career.

Introduction

At the moment, I believe the servant leadership style is the most efficient one because it allows the leader to establish positive interpersonal relations with subordinates, encourage them to work better and show them the positive model of behavior which they are likely to follow. This is why I try to do my best to develop my servant leadership style but still I have to make certain improvements in my leadership style to make it closer to the servant leadership and to increase its effectiveness consistently.

More often than not leadership positions are used for personal gain rather than to serve others and bring servant leaders to be among the best in them.  Servant leadership emphasizes trust, empathy, and collaborations between and team and its leaders. These features are crucial for the servant leader but they are also very important today, when interpersonal relations are crucial for the effective interaction between the leader and subordinates. This is why the servant leadership is very prospective.  Servant leaders often serve others by working toward their development and their goals in order to meet the goals for common good. This paper examines the strength and weakness of a Servant Leadership and who it will translate into the professional world of a Public Service Leader.

Characteristics of a Servant Leader

There has been a swing in leadership styles and more organizations are moving towards and looking for servant leaders (Gilley, et al., 2009 ). The ten critical characteristics of a servant leader are: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (Spears 2000). In fact, effective servant leaders focus on serving their subordinates to help them realizing their full potential and uncovering their internal skills and capabilities. The primary task of the servant leader is to make subordinates feel confident not only in their leader but also in their own skills and abilities to reach the goals set by the leader. At the same time, subordinates can always count on the support and guidance of their leader, who is always ready to help his/her subordinates.

At the same time, the ten characteristics of the servant leader identified above are crucial in the contemporary business environment because they help leaders and their subordinates to establish positive interpersonal relations and maximize the effectiveness of their interaction eliminating barriers between leaders and subordinates that help them to work as a team. In such a situation, the function of the leader is to guide his or her subordinates through all the challenges to reach the organizational goals. In hits regard, the personal example and lead of the leader are very important because the leader should show subordinates how they should act, while the leader helps subordinates to develop the target skills and model of behavior.

The characteristic I posses

In fact, I strongly believe that servant leadership is a very efficient leadership style that is worth implementing in many organizations to provide them with the high degree of flexibility and effective interaction between leaders and their subordinates. This is why I am also attempting to adapt the servant leadership style, which I believe to be quite efficient and prospective. In fact, the servant leadership style basically matches my personal inclinations and my key traits of character

At the moment, I have well-developed listening skills, commitment to growth and stewardship which are essential for the effective servant leadership. In fact, listening skills help me as a servant leader to hear messages from my subordinates. At this point, it is important to place emphasis on the fact is not only listen what my subordinates tell directly but also what they imply. More important, I should understand their motives and get insight to their further actions to be able to forecast their behavior and to respond respectively. In such a way, I can foresee possible difficulties my employees may encounter and I can help them to tackle their problems.

Furthermore, the commitment to growth is essential because it helps me to keep progressing throughout my professional development. As a leader, I cannot stop in my professional development. Otherwise, I would start to degrade and deteriorate my performance. In such a situation, my professionalism and leadership would be questioned by my subordinates that would end up in my failure as the leader. In such a situation, my commitment to growth helps me to develop my leadership skills and to perform better over and over again. More important, my commitment to growth encourages and motivates my subordinates to work better. They feel being inspired by my commitment to growth.

As for stewardship, this is an essential attribute of a true servant leader. Stewardship implies my skills and abilities to lead my subordinates standing on the equal ground with them. In such a way, I can be very efficient as a leader because, when my subordinates do not feel the gap between me and them, they become fully aware of their ability to reach our organizational goals and they start performing successfully. Stewardship motivates employees to work better because they feel confident in me as their leader. At the same time, I am always there to help them, when they need.

The skills to improve

On the other hand, I am fully aware of the fact that I am not the best servant leader so far and I have a number of skills to improve to become a better servant leader. In fact, I believe that the true servant leader should always work on his/her self-improvement (Boon & Makhani). In such a way, leaders will keep progressing and lead their subordinates to the further progress in their professional development, while their organizations will take the leading position in the market due to the orientation on the progress and success. At the moment, I would identify the following skills which I need to improve: empathy, persuasion.

In fact, empathy is very important for the servant leader because empathy makes me really a supportive leader. My subordinates can feel my devotion and readiness to support them. My involvement in their performance, career, their problems and successes contributes to the overall improvement of our interpersonal relations. My subordinates feel confident in my support, understanding and sympathy. This is why they can ask me for help anytime.

At the same time, persuasion is crucial for me as the servant leader because without persuasion I cannot actually lead my subordinates. Servant leaders cannot use the authoritarian methods and push on their subordinates. Instead, they use persuasion as the main tool that helps them to gain the support of their subordinates and makes them following their lead (Parris, et al., 2013). This is why I have to develop my persuasion skills to make my professional performance as the leader more efficient and successful. In fact, persuasion is crucial for the overall success of any servant leader because this is the main tool that helps the servant leader to make his/her subordinates following him/her.

Conclusion

Thus, I was a Servant, Contingent and Trait leader as determined by the leadership assessment. At the moment, I believe that the servant leadership is the most efficient leadership style which, though, requires numerous efforts and the hard work from the part of the leader. In this regard, I have already got basic skills, such as listening skills to succeed as the servant leader. On the other hand, I still have to develop some of my basic skills, such as persuasion and empathy to become a truly successful servant leader.

 

References:

Boon, L.W. and Makhani, S. Five Necessary Attitudes of a Servant Leader

Gilley, A. et al. (2009). “Organizational Change: Motivation, Communication, and Leadership Effectiveness,” Performance Improvement Quarterly, 21.4 75-94.

Parris, D. L. et al. (Mar 2013). “A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts,” Journal of Business Ethics 113.3, 377-393.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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