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Leadership Style9

Servant Leadership

Choosing the Right Style for the Situation

In business, a leadership style called
"transformational leadership" is often the most effective approach to
use. Transformational leaders have integrity, they inspire people with a shared
vision of the future, they set clear goals and motivate people towards them,
they manage delivery, and they communicate well with their teams. (You can find
out more about transformational leadership at the end of this article.)

  However, leadership
is not "one size fits all" thing; often, you must adapt your style to
fit a situation or a specific group. This is why it's useful to gain a thorough
understanding of other leadership styles; after all, the more approaches you're
familiar with, the more tools you'll be able to use to lead effectively.

  Let's take a deeper
look at Servant Leadership style.

Servant leadership

 This term, created by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s,
describes a leader often not formally recognized as such. When someone at any
level within an organization leads simply by meeting the needs of the team, he
or she can be described as a "servant leader."

 Servant leaders often lead by example. They have high
integrity and lead with generosity.

  In many ways, servant
leadership is a form of democratic leadership because the whole team tends to
be involved in decision making. However, servant leaders often "lead from
behind," preferring to stay out of the limelight and letting their team
accept recognition for their hard work.

  Supporters of the
servant leadership model suggest that it's a good way to move ahead in a world
where values are increasingly important, and where servant leaders can achieve
power because of their values, ideals, and ethics. This is an approach that can
help to create a positive corporate culture and can lead to high morale among
team members.

  However, other people
believe that in competitive leadership situations, people who practice servant
leadership can find themselves left behind by leaders using other leadership
styles. This leadership style also takes time to apply correctly: it's
ill-suited in situations where you have to make quick decisions or meet tight
deadlines.

  Although you can use
servant leadership in many situations, it's often most practical in politics,
or in positions where leaders are elected to serve a team, committee,
organization, or community.

 http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm