Leading by Serving: Redefining the Roles of Leaders and Followers in Today’s Workplace

Abstract

As US corporations are eagerly pursuing re-engineering and reorganization, leadership functions are changing to champion these efforts. Traditionally, organizations have had a ‘top-down’ management approach; however, there is a gradual shift to other leadership models. Servant leadership is being successfully implemented in many settings. Servant leadership, first popularized by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, puts serving others as the number one priority. Ten characteristics of a servant leader include: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community. Both servant leadership and the chaos theory have in common the central tenet of relationships. Since the USA is now approximately 80% a ‘service economy’, servant leadership can greatly benefit the individual employees, as well as help to facilitate the organization's pursuit of its changing strategic plans. © 1999, The Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd. All rights reserved.