Servant leadership: putting your team first
The idea is old but powerful: the best leaders serve first and lead second. Here is where servant leadership comes from and how to apply it in a small business.
There are two ways to understand a boss. The first: people work for him. The second, much rarer and much more powerful: he works so that his people can do their best work. That second way is called servant leadership, and although it sounds modern, the idea was put into words more than half a century ago by a man who spent most of his life studying organizations.
In 1970, Robert K. Greenleaf published an essay titled The Servant as Leader. In it he proposed something that went against the grain: that the best leader is, above all, someone who wants to serve. The exact line he opened with became famous.
The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. — Robert K. Greenleaf
What leading by serving really means
Servant leadership does not mean being soft or letting everyone do as they please. It means flipping the order of priorities: instead of asking what can my team do for me, the leader asks what does my team need to succeed. Greenleaf said the servant-leader focuses first on the growth and well-being of people. If your people grow, your business grows; that is the deal.
Greenleaf's test
Greenleaf proposed a test for whether you are truly leading by serving. It does not measure your speeches; it measures the effect on your people. Ask yourself: do the people I serve grow? Do they become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous while working with me? If the answer is yes, you are on track. If your people come out smaller, more fearful, or more dependent than they went in, something is wrong no matter how good your intentions.
What it looks like in a small business
Applying servant leadership does not require an MBA. It requires small daily acts that put your people first.
- Listen before you command: ask what is slowing your team down and remove those obstacles.
- Pass credit down and take blame up: the recognition is theirs, the mistakes you cover.
- Develop people instead of just using them: teach them something useful beyond your business.
- Defend your team against an unfair customer instead of humiliating them in public.
- Ask often what they need to do their job better, and then go get it.
Why it works, especially in small businesses
The expert Larry Spears, studying Greenleaf, identified ten traits of the servant-leader: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of others, and building community, among them. They all share something: they build loyalty. And in a small business, where you cannot compete with a corporation's salaries, loyalty is your best weapon. People who feel cared for stay, try harder, and treat your customers the way you would.
There is a practical detail: to serve your team you need time and energy, and repetitive work steals both. When an owner is freed from mechanical tasks, like answering the same message a hundred times, there is room left to do what no tool can: listen to, develop, and stand by their people.
Takeaway
Servant leadership flips the usual question: instead of what your people do for you, you ask what you do so your people can shine. Greenleaf summed it up fifty years ago and it still holds because it touches something simple: people give their best when they feel someone is looking out for them. Serve first, lead second, and your team will follow you not out of fear, but out of conviction.
Sources
- Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership — https://greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/
- Boyden (Greenleaf Servant Leadership) — https://www.boyden.com/media/just-what-the-doctor-ordered-15763495/Leadership%20%20Theory_Greenleaf%20Servant%20Leadership.pdf
- David Burkus — https://davidburkus.com/2010/04/servant-leadership-theory/