Creating A Culture Of Servant Leadership

Three ways you can do it

With the influx of millennials into the workforce, expectations of leadership have shifted drastically. Just two decades ago, we used to see leadership coming from the top down - one person sat atop the pyramid (in a nice suit, no less) and passed his ideas down through twenty-something floors of divisions, departments and sadly, disconnection among them all.
 

In contrast, today’s leaders often rely on their team members’ motivation, natural curiosity and professional satisfaction to blaze the trail to innovation and growth in their companies. New, innovative startups are leading the way in developing team dynamics based on trust and autonomy. As Daniel Pink explains in his insightful book Drive: “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.”
 
Engagement isn’t the only benefit to this shift towards greater autonomy. In a study by Gallup, researchers found that business units with high engagement and autonomy experience 21% higher productivity. In this mindset, people are independent experts, to whom leadership embodies service, not the other way around.
 
While we may be optimistic in thinking today’s corporate world is shifting on its own, the crystalized vision of ‘leaders and subordinates’ is still real and in desperate need of changing. When leaders can shift their mindset and remember to provide trust and support first, they can unlock purpose and ingenuity in those around them. Below are three ways you can begin creating a genuine culture of servant leadership:
 
Encourage 1-on-1 meetings: Communication is the primary - and strongest - basis for trust; managers can establish stronger and more trustful connections by having more frequent, less formal 1-on-1 meetings with their team. Servant leaders actively listen to their people and develop this skill as an essential part of their leadership strategy. With just a few minor adjustments, managers can create a safe, recurrent space for their team to share both accomplishments and concerns.
 
Introduce leadership reviews: Leaders need confidence, tolerance, and compassion to handle feedback well. It’s an essential skill, which can only be developed with practice. By making it easy for team members to provide upward feedback, you can increase your capacity to build trust, develop the leadership competencies your team needs, and motivate each individual to be open to receiving feedback themselves.
 
Allow your people to cultivate purpose: In order to help teams embrace company purpose and values, managers need to help them feel empowered and motivated to do so. Finding a purpose in one’s work is perhaps the greatest driver of personal motivation. Purpose can translate into a lot of things: creativity, innovation or continued professional development in one’s field of work. By fostering a culture of continuous learning, reports and managers are each encouraged to grow their skills. This helps a team stay active and agile, and when people can observe their work through the lens of new information, it spurs creative ways to complete work or deliver a better product.
 
A modern leader will work to hold themselves, their team, and their goals accountable, and this takes time to prove. Instituting trust-positive leadership within your own organization begins with a greater reliance on performance check-ins and real-time feedback, and it ends with reduced costs, higher margins, and a more engaged workforce.

Author Bio

Bas Kohnke is the co-founder and CEO of Impraise -  a company that facilitates 360-degree feedback among team members in such a way that is actionable, supportive and motivating for everyone in an organization. Bas is an expert on the elements a company needs to create an engaging work culture and foster self-motivation. Connect Bas Kohnke Follow @baskohnke Visit www.impraise.com