12 Jul Leading to serve – It’s not about you

I have heard it said that if serving is below you then leadership is beyond you, so I believe that one should want to serve others. You could think of it as a calling to put others before the self.

It’s a mindset best described by Ghandi, as he believed the best way to find your purpose was to lose yourself in the service of others. If others see your actions as authentic, it will build their belief that you are a leader seeking to serve.

Being a leader does not have to come with a title, just as having a title does not make you a leader. Successful leadership ultimately comes from influence as opposed to authority. Titles mean very little, as it’s the person with the servant’s heart that is the true leader.

Why are there new demands for servant leaders?

As organisations become more socially minded, they’re trying to identify what it is that their customers and communities need and how they can best serve them. For this to happen, businesses need leaders that understand what it means to put others first and why this approach has such an effect.

Previously, it’s a leadership style that would’ve been the sole domain of the not-for-profit sector, but the lines between these organisations and those that exist for profit are blurring, particularly in the case of leadership styles. There’s now a new wave of organisations that, while still corporate, are run for mission and purpose as much as they are to make money. It’s a good way to do business, and a business way to do good.

How to build the servant leader mindset

When a leader has a commanding sense for what is going on and is striving to make a positive difference, it helps to build belief in others.

A leader who serves must  earn the respect of their followers through inspiration and persuasion, rather than seeing it as a default condition of their title and reporting lines. Today, successful leadership is more about influence than authority.

Leading to serve means sacrificing self-interest for a group’s better interests. This is demonstrated more by what leaders fall for than what they claim to stand for. Others will believe that you want to hear their ideas and that you value them.  More importantly, people will believe you will show them empathy.

Knowing they are valued, people will believe you are not seeking to advance yourself at their expense, but that you are committed to helping them develop and grow. Harry S. Truman observed,

“it is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

It’s this thought that so accurately sums up what it means to be a servant leader in today’s environment.

When does servant leadership matter most?

There are too many fairweather leaders who fail to stand tall and measure up in times of challenge and controversy. When leading to serve, others have confidence in you to have the foresight to anticipate the future and be accountable for dealing with the consequences. After all, a true servant leader will be there when it matters most, even if it might come with significant challenges.

And when those challenging times inevitably arrive, leaders need to serve and be visible, available and approachable. This offers their community of followers comfort, reassurance and hope that they not only understand, but feel responsible to lead them to a better place and time.

Whilst a lot is said about the merits of visionary leadership, more often than not people need to believe in the leader before they engage with the vision. In part, this is because leadership is moving away from lineal processes, where everything flows in one direction from the leader, to a networked process. Networks only work when the leader is doing their bit and enabling everyone else in the organisation to connect and collaborate. Here, it’s not just the vision that matters, but the way it is communicated.

Leaders who aspire to become worthy of having more followers seek to build and nurture a sense of community whilst also engendering a feeling of belongingness among its people. Ultimately, it’s an approach that will unite both hearts and minds.

The world has been blessed with many who lead to serve. One of the greatest, Martin Luther King Jnr, still challenges us to this day:

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is – what are you doing for others?”

This article was originally published in LinkedIn Pulse on July 12, 2016.