Behavior – Leader As Servant

Servant Leaders Remove Obstacles

Today, I’ve been ruminating on the topic of obstacles.

The natural way to think about obstacles is, of course, barriers that are placed on us from the outside. External obstacles that some face:

Lack of clear goals – not knowing where we are going
Insufficient resources – not having enough to sustain the journey
Inadequate communication – not having enough direction from leadership
Ineffective team dynamics – negative workplace culture
Lack of autonomy – mistrust showing up as enfeebling

This list cuts deeply into a servant leader, because teams experiencing any of these obstacles is discouraged, needing listening, empathy, and healing to even engage in some level of trust, even before the application of other characteristics.

However, obstacles also can be internal to the one served, and these are as devilish, even to the point of creating the external obstacles:

Lack of focus – too many ways of direction or distraction
Poor self-awareness – Intentional or non-intentional gaps in self-assessment
Fear of change or loss – Doubt, even to the point of paralysis, of being able to move in a new perceived direction

When encountering these internal obstacles, an application of further servant leader characteristics such as awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, and foresight give those led not only the space to build trust, but give them encouraging directions to be more wise, experience freedom, engage autonomy, and pick up the mantle of serving others; this truly is the measure of a servant leader.

“Acceleration is felt, velocity is ignored”

I was reading this post by Seth Godin, and it brought me to how Servant Leaders both keep velocity, and accelerate.

For groups (and individuals), velocity takes shape in what they are currently capable of handling, and the productivity or achievement ongoing. Servant Leaders, tending their garden with listening, empathy, stewardship, and community give freedom to those led, space to see progress, and satisfaction of well-executed planning. Such things, over time, are taken as givens, and are routinely ignored, unless reflective constructs are employed.

However, Servant Leaders provoke acceleration through healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, and growth — giving fuel to push forward, tension to push higher, strength to reach out. Being a catalyst for change, increasing to higher velocity, moving beyond the humdrum gives energy towards the group (or individual), and the Servant Leader.

In fact, sometimes it’s hard to determine which is being used at the moment with a Servant Leader, since the carry bag of the Servant Leader includes both velocity and acceleration tools — they are bright and sharp from constant, repeated use.

Servant Leaders Make Tough Decisions

Often I’ve asked myself the question, “If a servant leader is focused on the group, and a difficult decision needs to be made, doesn’t this bring up a natural dichotomy?” Or, more to the point, isn’t a servant leader supposed to use gentle methods to foster healing and growth?

Wisdom from the Founder

Gentleness, in itself, is not always kindness. The act may seem hard and unreasonable to the recipient at the time, but it may be the most constructive kindness … The point is that seemingly harsh actions … produce a level of constructive tension in some cases without which it is unlikely that the individuals involved will surmount their own life problems
Robert K. Greenleaf, The Requirements of Responsibility

Robert correctly identifies the forcing of “constructive tension” into a person can honestly change the direction of their life.

While it would be easy to retreat into a simple analogy such as making children eat despised vegetables for their own health, there is a more profound element to a servant leader’s dilemma – the exercise of foresight.

Included in all of us — areas where we haven’t considered, general biases from past experiences, latent unhelpful ways, direct challenges — these all move toward spots in which we either ignorantly or willfully press on. Outside views, wisely accepted, can countervail and move us past these gaps. Finding solid servant leaders, giving them license to advise, allows us to move past or accelerate over these blocks.

Sometimes you even make enemies

However, sometimes as a servant leader, we are forced to intervene in situations where we are not invited. This corrective stance, though skillfully deployed, has the potential to hurt feelings and damage relationships.

It is deeply disappointing to the servant leader when these come about, and no amount of reflection can assuage the guilt inherent.

However, wisdom from Proverbs intervenes, putting us back on the balance:

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;

profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
Proverbs 27:6 (ESV)

Intentional wounding, with the counterbalance of healing, defines the activity of servant leadership; those without the fortitude will only compliment.

Summing it Up

Using all the skills of Servant Leadership (including Listening and Empathy), and focusing on the growth of the person will allow these tough decisions to be made, conceptualizing a future in which the person can move forward, unencumbered and free.