Rethinking Servant Leadership in a Business Context
“Servant Leadership” is a term coined by Robert Greenleaf. The idea behind Servant Leadership is that, while some people aspire primarily to lead (often for selfish or egotistical reasons), some people aspire primarily to serve, which then thrusts them into leadership positions. (Think George Washington, who was practically forced into presidency by dutiful obligation to his country.)
The Servant Leader’s goal is to “make sure that other peoples’ highest priority needs are being served”. In other words, the Servant Leader is not in the driver’s seat because he wants to get to his own personal destination. Instead, the Servant Leader is constantly observing, listening to, and empathizing with the people he serves and then acting on what they need and request. The Servant Leader constantly checks his success by asking himself (and I quote), “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”
In a world chockfull of Super Selfish, Too-Big-for-Their-Britches, Fat Wallet, Big House, Cool Yacht Andy’s…
…Servant Leadership sounds pretty revolutionary, no?
I actually was so intrigued by what I’d heard about the concept of Servant Leadership that I took an entire upper-level elective on it at Georgia Tech. (…many, many moons ago, ahem.) As a class, we read Robert Greenleaf’s original essay and discussed it, and to this day, that was one of my most memorable learning experiences.
Now I’m not going to get into a full-blown pedantic criticism of Greenleaf’s entire essay. (I know you’re sooo disappointed, har har.) In full transparency, Servant Leadership, the essay, includes a vast number of pretty controversial, slightly bizarre sub-concepts beyond just the heart of humility that Servant Leaders should possess. (Less popularly, Greenleaf also discusses a Servant Leader’s moral duty to accurately predict the future; the merits of communicating but not executing a vision; radical acceptance of low-performers and non-performers; etc. If you really want to learn more about everything a Servant Leader should do according to the source material, you can get through the entire essay in an hour or so. Sincerely, even though I disagree with a lot of it, I still think it’s a worthwhile read.)
What I am going to do is address and critique the most popular business aspect of Greenleaf’s essay, namely the idea that a Servant Leader is someone who does not drive his own personal goals, but rather someone who asks what his team wants and then focuses on fulfilling, supporting, and building up his people and their desires. When I talk about “Servant Leadership” after this point, I’m talking about just that concept, not the full amalgamation of concepts in the actual essay (which, again, includes some wild, wild stuff lol).
To note, the original essay written by Robert Greenleaf was focused primarily on Servant Leadership in the context of society - not business. If you’re someone who wants to, politically and economically and socially, go full-on Vive La Révolution, then I think Servant Leadership is quite a useful tool to explore and potentially add to your toolkit. But frankly, given that I can’t (and won’t) single-handedly change the capitalist nature of corporate America (nor will you, me thinks), I have to argue that there are a very large number of obstacles surrounding Servant Leadership when applied as a business leadership style. And as an executive coach, I’m consequently getting fairly concerned by the fact that Servant Leadership has gained a lot of traction amongst business leaders. Greenleaf’s ideas, in my opinion, are being plucked out of a decently workable context (i.e. society) and transplanted into the rocky soil that is business. I don’t think his ideas survive contact with reality in the business world. In fact, to say this as bluntly as possible, I actually believe that Servant Leadership may even damage the effectiveness of your business leadership - by Greenleaf’s own standards (i.e. trying to primarily benefit the people you serve).
All to say, to any leaders in business who hold to Servant Leadership or are thinking about working with a coach who does, please consider this post as some hot-take food for thought - before you get too lost in the trendy Servant Leadership sauce.
What Happens If You Apply Servant Leadership in a Business Context?
The Servant Leader is, by definition, supposed to serve. This means the Servant Leader is not supposed to independently pick the team’s vision or guide the way. The Servant Leader trusts that his team will, together, identify the right way to go, and the Servant Leader will then apply himself as a supporter, resource-obtain-er, and path-clear-er towards that end.
In theory, this is great. Very humble, very considerate.
Well, let’s talk out what happens in reality when these concepts are applied in today’s business context. Let’s say the Servant Leader puts his foot down and tells his work team, “Hey guys, I will no longer impose my personal opinions on y’all. From now on, I am here to serve you. You guys just tell me where we’re going, and know that I’m here to help.” Team members then gather to reach a unified agreement on what they want.
What happens next?
Potential Outcome #1. Team members coast.
By and large, nearly all teams asked to set their own vision without leadership involvement tend to sell themselves short. They make easily achievable goals. They do not challenge themselves. They put the bar in the Mariana Trench.
Why would they not?
For one, teams are logically lazy. If they’re salaried in particular, there is little incentive to do more work for an equal amount of pay. You can foam at the mouth all day and night as an employer about how much that attitude sucks, but I’d argue that for employees to do otherwise - with no additional incentives - is simply irrational behavior.
For another, teams are logically scared. As Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale wrote about Servant Leadership: “Servants don’t fire the people they serve, and you [the leader] do. Servants don’t set salaries for the people they serve, and you [the leader] do.” A team setting its own vision understands that it will be asked to deliver on that vision. Provided that there is any consequence whatsoever for failure, most teams will conclude that shooting for something easily attainable is best.
Potential Outcome #2. Someone on the team rises to the occasion, and that person becomes the new, de facto leader.
When the leader drops his typical authority responsibilities under a guise of “servant-heartedness”, a gap is left. Someone on the team may feel such ensuing discomfort that she steps up to fill the void for the sake of her team members. Alternatively, someone may be so popular that the team elects for her to become the de facto leader. Someone who is eager for authority may quickly volunteer to fill the gap.
No matter how it happens, someone will rise to the occasion to do the Servant Leader’s former work. This person may begin to facilitate conversations: setting up meetings, listening to all perspectives, collecting insights, deciding where compromises need to be made, summarizing what is being discussed, etc. This same person may also drive the team to consensus and present (or delegate) the team’s finalized vision to the Servant Leader.
Perhaps, as a result of the team’s own efforts, this potential outcome could have a happy ending.
But has the leader of this team truly served his team? Or has he simply absconded from his responsibilities and forced the team to flounder, scramble, and find a path forward on their own?
Potential Outcome #3. Team members find a loophole to rope the Servant Leader into using his authority anyway.
This option looks like the team saying, “Hey, Servant Leader, do you wish to serve us? Then you can serve us by helping us pick a vision!” (Wish for more wishes, as they say.)
A reluctant leader will reply, “No can do,” in which case he’s really lost the spirit of Servant Leadership.
A still-reluctant-but-slightly-wiser leader will say, “Sure, but I’m only going to facilitate; I’m not going to weigh in at all.” In my opinion, though, the problem with this outcome is that most team members will still try get their leader to give his true opinion on matters anyway, whether by reading his expression, wearing him down with badgering questions, or even baiting him into revealing an answer. Unless if the Servant Leader in question has a professional pokerface (or absolutely no opinion whatsoever), his position is going to be discovered, and his team will have performed all sorts of extra, unnecessary guess work to get to the same end: figuring out what pleases him.
As I hope you’re beginning to see, Servant Leadership pretty much fails in the context of business because: if you’re a leader, YOU ARE NOT A REAL SERVANT. In fact, you have an enormous amount of power - because you have a say in hiring, firing, promotions, and raises. In other words, you have proxy control over your team’s entire source of livelihood - which is a ridiculously weighty responsibility that must be stewarded solemnly, wisely, and considerately. Given that, in what kind of twisted world should a leader act all lowly, servile, and deferential while secretly holding the keys to the full kingdom - including the guillotine?! If you want to psychologically terrorize your team, Servant Leadership is a great way to do it.
Potential Outcome #4. Politicking goes wild.
In the case where no benevolent team member steps up to fill the gap of authority left by a Servant Leader, teams are likely to auto-segment into alliances and begin defending their sub-group’s interests.
This may not necessarily be malicious, villainous warmongering. Once again, I believe that, in the absence of a leader (or a de facto leader), politicking is actually a logical, sensible course of action. After all, in business, resources are limited. Team members who care about themselves, their closest allies, or their department will lobby for the interests of their specific subgroup to obtain as many resources as possible. This could be a decision based in protective and even caring intentions, not hurtful or selfish ones.
That being said, the outcome of Servant Leadership is the same: a team is splintered, thrust into conflict, and forced to curry favor with whoever hands out resources (i.e. the leader). Do you want a team filled with flatterers, yes-men, and bad-news-suppressors? If so, be a Servant Leader.
Potential Outcome #5. Team members come to unified - but wrong - decisions.
In today’s business landscape, it is extremely rare that a team knows more about the organization’s context than its leader does. Team members are not sitting at the same tables as their leader. Team members are not aware of what other cross-functional teams are doing. Team members are not aware of what competitors are doing. Without that information, how can team members make a solid decision about where they ought to go or do?
Maybe Greenleaf would argue that a true Servant Leader would try to obtain such relevant information for the team… But I would argue that, in a business world, with so many meetings and so many hours in a work week, this is not always feasible. It’s certainly not a particularly considerate course of action to saddle your team with extra hours of meetings (oh joy). We have division of labor and hierarchy for a reason.
Consequently, a Servant Leader who pawns off vision and goal setting to his team - without first ensuring they have the information they need - is inadvertently exposing his team to poor or even flat-out bad decision-making. Then, because he’s also removed himself from the burden of responsibility, this Servant Leader furthermore forces his team to bear the consequences of their poor or bad decisions - that he himself contributed to! (Have I mentioned that Servant Leadership can be psychologically terrorizing?)
The “Take the Meat, Spit the Bones” Summary of Servant Leadership
I understand that I’ve been pretty harsh on Servant Leadership as a concept here. I also recognize that most leaders adopt Servant Leadership because they are seeking to be humble and caring towards their followers. Don’t get me wrong; these intentions are great. (Humility in business is in fact so important, I will very likely end up writing an entire Soapbox post about it later.)
I just really cannot be convinced that Servant Leadership is the best way to express humility and care in a business context, and I chose to be harsh in this post because I find that this model actually harms followers, burdens them, and, worst of all, deprives them of the ability to protest against the model. (After all, how exactly do you tell your loving boss that, despite all of his good intentions, he’s royally messing up his efforts to care for you? To once again quote Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale, “[Servant Leaders] think they’re being noble and sharing power. But when they deny the obvious power inequity, they cement it. They make it harder to point out that it’s not true, that the system isn’t balanced. It is a punt on their own accountability. All while telling you how generous and fair they are.” Absolutely brutal.)
In lieu of Servant Leadership, here are some alternative action steps for humble and caring leaders:
Just be humble and caring, without the Servant Leadership. You don’t need to ascribe to the entire model to ask regularly for feedback, seek to serve and be helpful, love on your people, do what is best for them, look out for them, strive to remove obstacles from their path, invest in them, etc. If you want to be a humble and caring leader…just be humble and caring.
Foster psychological safety. In my opinion, one of the most severe, hidden dangers of Servant Leadership is how psychologically terrorizing it is. Servant Leaders are wielding immense power while pretending they aren’t, and followers have no idea when or how that power may be used. (Literally the stuff of horror movies.) As a people leader in a business context, you need to recognize that you are holding power. You need to understand how your authority will come across to your team. You need to understand that, no matter how friendly and close you are to your followers, they will always be hyper-conscientious of your ability to affect their livelihood.
Accordingly, you need to foster psychological safety by being extremely clear, ethical, and consistent on when your power will and will not be exerted. Are you stepping in to resolve conflicts on your team and arbitrate righteously? This builds psychological safety. Will you address and even fire low-performers if necessary? This builds psychological safety. Have you made it extremely clear what leads to various rankings in performance reviews, how promotions are achieved, what the spectrum of high to low performance looks like, what each team member’s full set of responsibilities entails, etc? These are the actions that give certainty to your followers and help to build psychological safety. When they know the rules of the game, they can play fairly and without fear.
Serve your team by wielding your authority honorably. Being a leader in a business context is not for the faint of heart. You will be asked to cast a vision, strategically execute, manage resources, bring on people, handle an immense workload - and most importantly of all - bear responsibility. In cases like when a CEO turns a $1M start-up into a $300M well-established company, hey, responsibility feels fantastic. “Yes, I did that!” the CEO cries victoriously to the press. But when a different CEO takes a $1M start-up, absolutely crashes it into the ground, and unemploys everyone in it, including himself…? Yikes. Responsibility’s not looking so pretty.
I get that.
But the upright response to this fear is not to simply abdicate your authority by hiding behind a model like Servant Leadership. And the upright response is definitely not to hot-potato important decision-making, goal-setting, vision-casting - and the burden of responsibility - onto your people. The upright response to a fear of responsibility is to confront it, admit your own limitations, and seek to do the very best that you can.
Gain knowledge. Seek wisdom. Pursue instruction. Then take the God-given authority you’ve been granted and wield it for the good of those who are under you.
Lastly, remember that in business, the absolute most basic and necessary method for serving your team is to help everyone make plenty of money to go around. People (at least those who need to work to live) can’t be in a business where they feel loved and cared for, invested in, cherished, grown, developed, and mentored - but where they hardly make a dime. Such a position is oxymoronic. I won’t argue whether this is right or wrong, because I’m not an economist, but people need money to live. If you as a leader care about your people, you’ll help them get what they need to live - in abundance. Whether you’re a leader in a large corporation with relatively little impact or the leader of a small business where you call all of the shots, you must recognize the importance of making money as a means to help serve your followers. I’m not saying to treat your people as cogs in a machine, but between “caring” and “making money”, focus your efforts appropriately. Many times, making money is caring.
Leadership is no light matter.
I hope this post provided an alternate perspective to Servant Leadership and ultimately encouraged you, if you’re a leader, to keep reflecting on and honing your craft. The work is hard but worthy.
Hey, Megan here! I love hearing from you. If you have any thoughts about this blog post, if you found anything funny or thought-provoking, or if you just want to let me know you were here, please drop me a comment below!
