Driving Business Success Through Servant Leadership

Create a positive and collaborative work environment through servant leadership

Since the 1970s, when Robert K. Greenleaf first coined the term servant leadership, it has evolved as an effective model to drive measurable results by focusing on employees rather than the company. While the traditional leadership approach centers on strengthening a company’s position in the market, servant leaders prioritize the growth and well-being of their employees. As a result, they are uniquely equipped to improve their organizations and communities. The servant leadership approach enables companies to build a work culture where employees feel respected, appreciated, and valued, from the C-suite to individual contributors. So, how do corporations achieve greater success and improve profits in a challenging economic environment? They hire or develop servant leaders to lead their people with empathy, trust, collaboration, and respect.

How Servant Leadership Differs from Other Leadership Practices

The servant leadership approach shifts from enforcing the power of authority toward a more synergistic relationship based on serving and supporting others. Servant leaders put employees’ needs first, helping them to evolve and perform to their highest potential. This method creates an innovative and collaborative environment where employees are empowered, and teams thrive. Servant leadership also develops leadership qualities. This leadership style requires leaders to show continuous empathy, listen, follow stewardship principles (caring for the team, organization, and society as a whole), and establish a strong commitment to the personal growth of others.

On the other hand, traditional business leaders believe in authority and hierarchy by giving orders to staff. They focus mainly on organizational goals and results and control the decision-making from the top down.

Servant leaders believe that when employees feel personally and professionally fulfilled, they can and will deliver long-term results. Servant leaders typically approach this by listening to team members' concerns, finding meaningful solutions, offering employees the support required to achieve company goals, and mentoring employees for professional development to create a supportive and positive culture.

Benefits of Servant Leadership

Most of the United States (approximately 80 percent) is a service economy. Servant leadership can significantly benefit individual employees and help a company pursue its strategic plans and goals.

A servant-led organization will attain benefits including:
 

• Increased trust and autonomy across the organization as servant leaders lead by infusing trust among their staff.
• Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty as leaders and employees serve the organization above and beyond their needs.
• Higher employee engagement and productivity that occur as servant leaders focus on serving and supporting their team members, resulting in a positive and supportive work environment.
• Better employee retention and growth that come from servant leaders who lead effectively and foster transparency and collaboration.’

Bill Marriott, founder of Marriott International, instilled a culture of service at the center of his company. The motivation to serve moved the company to great success. “It’s always been a major belief of our company, take good care of your people, they’ll take good care of the customer, and the customer will come back,” Marriott said to Forbes in an interview. Marriott also believes that celebrating, training, teaching, and providing opportunities for all employees has been instrumental to the company’s success.

The Container Store is another company that has succeeded with a servant-leadership philosophy. CEO Kip Tindell believes that maximizing shareholder returns is not the only core business focus. He believes a flourishing community is critical to business success. According to Tindell, “We’re an employee-first culture. Yes, we love our customers, but we believe that if we put our employees first, then they’ll take better care of the customers.” This philosophy is supported by offering employees better wages and additional training opportunities.

The Core Principles of Servant Leadership

Servant leaders possess a natural desire to serve first and lead second. These unique individuals want to meet others’ needs to build their growth and development. Servant leadership focuses on a shared vision, direction, and goals. Some of the core principles that define a servant leadership philosophy include

1. Listening skills: Servant leaders listen to employees’ views, ideas, and perspectives rather than delivering commands. When leaders listen, ideas are contributed freely, and mutual respect and understanding of different opinions will help organizations grow.

2. Persuasive power. A servant leader guides and influences a team toward a corporate vision, explains the best approach, and empowers employees to work together toward common goals.

3. Empathy. Servant leaders demonstrate support and understanding by showing they care enough to give someone else’s issue or perspective a high level of respect and attention.

4. Learning opportunities. Giving employees positive feedback regularly and providing ways to develop professionally increase skills and productivity.

5. Development of other leaders. Leaders who work hard to develop strong teams also recognize the importance of nurturing the new generation of leaders. Strong servant leaders produce a diverse group of leaders from different backgrounds.

6. Teamwork and employee participation. Servant leaders make their employees feel that their voices and thoughts are heard, respected, and valued. The servant leader shows appreciation for various views and opinions regarding the organization’s growth and success when a team is encouraged to collaborate and suggest new ideas to help improve the organization. Employee retention is higher by 50 percent under servant leadership.

7. A trusting environment. Trust is crucial in any organization. A leader builds a culture of trust by demonstrating the values employees must uphold and being transparent about the company’s vision and goals. 

What Behaviors Do People with This Mindset Exhibit?

1. Serving first and leading second
2. Empathy, selflessness, and humility
3. Listening skills

Overcoming Challenges

While the benefits of servant leadership are clear, there are several challenges servant leaders will need to overcome including:
 

1. Senior leadership needs to buy into the servant leadership approach. To be successful, all organizational leaders must understand and accept the new vision of servant leadership. Once buy-in is achieved, it’s easier to shift from a traditional leadership philosophy to a servant leadership culture.
2. A servant leadership approach may decrease the authority of leadership and management. When employees see a manager in more of a support role, they are less likely to view the manager as an authoritative figure. Servant leaders must work harder to evaluate employee challenges, empower and engage employees, and foster a strong company vision.
3. Retraining of executives and staff is required. To incorporate a servant leadership mentality, organizations need to spend time and money retraining personnel. The investment will pay off exponentially when leaders encourage employees to grow and develop professional and servant leadership skills.

Building a Future for Individuals and Organizations

When organizations build a culture of servant leadership, employee confidence, engagement, collaboration, growth, and creativity thrive. This culture of positivity and support extends to customers, suppliers, the community, and other stakeholders. Servant leadership offers a practical approach for companies to foster a culture of resilience and adaptability in a marketplace fraught with chaos and unpredictability. Positively impacting people and building a people-first business culture create a compounding effect in circles of influence.

Khushman Hans is the Senior Director of Operations at Chewy. He has many years of experience leading operations across multiple fulfillment centers in North America, as well as experience in employee engagement, leadership development and engineering.