Features of Leaders who Serve their Followers
Servant leadership is extensive in collective behaviors, deeds, and actions identified by over 100 characteristics. Servant leaders support innovation and individuality of expression, communication, and the diversity of their followers and workforce. The evidence of individual personal support is proven by unconditional acceptance of others and concern using servant and leader skills. Many models identify various characteristics with many overlapping attributes of what servant leadership is. We will discover many of these attributes as we journey together. According Focht and Ponton (2015) the collective behaviors, deeds, and actions can be reduced to primary 12 attributes of service.
12 Primary Characteristics of Servant Leadership
Caring. When servant leaders place themselves in the situation of the followers and display behaviors toward others of kindness, welfare, and protection, they are characterized as exhibiting caring .
Collaboration. Collaboration is typified when servant leaders use influence to reach goals involving group efforts and the corporation as a necessary means of well-organized task related achievement .
Empowering. Servant leaders are described as empowering followers when they provide guidance and resources for decision-making and accountability of the follower’s individual work efforts and processes .
Humility. Servant leaders demonstrate humility by promoting the growth and successes of followers by understanding the goals and promotion of the individual or group are greater than their own as a leader.
Integrity. Integrity is shown by servant leaders modeling and adhering to a set of principles with a commitment to those values in all personal and professional behavior (Bryant & Brown, 2015).
Learning. Learning is demonstrated by servant leaders seeking to learn to enlarge their knowledge, skill, and task capability for personal and professional improvement and service.
Listening. Listening involves servant leaders seeking to understand and learning to determine the condition of the environment, individual, operation, or group.
Love, unconditional love. Servant leaders show love and or unconditional love when they view people with value and obligation of acceptance, appreciation, trust, and stewardship .
Servant leader service. Servant leader service is the act of providing for the needs of followers above the desires of the leader, which may include the desires of the organization
Serving others. Serving others is defined as when servant leaders serve the needs of followers as the main goal of achieving group and organizational goals above self-seeking and corporate ambitions .
Trust. When servant leaders conduct themselves with competence, reliability, and accountability, and display confidence in new ways which encourage the same actions in others, trust is evident .
Valuing people. The valuing of people is evident when servant leaders show authentic commitment and worth of individuals as individuals first before their occupational or functional value .