Servant leaders are attentive to the growth and development of those they work with, including partners, employees, and customers. Here’s how you can join their ranks.
No business owner sets out to mistreat employees or customers. But not every entrepreneur puts an equal amount of thought into whether their employees are growing and being challenged or whether their customers need anything above and beyond what’s already being provided to them.
Servant leadership is a pretty intuitive concept; in fact you might be practicing it already unawares. However, it also clashes with many of the values instilled by modern American culture.
“I think the simplest way to explain it would be to say that servant leaders focus on identifying and meeting the needs of others rather than trying to acquire power, wealth, and fame for themselves,”says Kent Keith, CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, a Westfield, Indiana-based non-profit that promotes education about and implementation of servant leadership.