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Servant Leadership Research Paper

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ABSTRACT Servant leadership is an ever expanding field that is gaining more attention from business leaders. It is similar to some earlier models in that it focuses on the leader and the behaviors of the leader; it deviates in that the leader puts the follower’s needs before their own. They do this by providing nurturing and support in hopes of developing the follower to realize their full potential. At the heart of servant leadership is the central idea of truly putting follower’s needs before those of the leader. The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the elements of Servant leadership. The goal is to explore the characteristics, theories, and models of servant leadership. The idea of servant leadership originated in the 1970’s …show more content…
In the beginning I worked with managers who took the old school approach of aggressive direction. They did not just walk up and talk to employees to see how they were doing, if they talked to you than yelling was probably next. Throughout this time I have learned what did work. I adjusted my style, experimented with different approaches, and learned from experiences. As I have grown my leadership skills have become more polish and defined. I have practiced many characteristics of servant leadership, but was not aware of it until this course. Servant leadership makes sense in today’s ever changing work …show more content…
Self-healing along with the healing of relationships is a great strength of servant leaders. Many people have suffered from a variety of emotional pain and may have a broken spirit. Servant leaders recognize that they have the power to help heal the individuals they come in contact with. They show support and genuinely care about the health of followers.
Awareness - General awareness, and especially self-awareness, may contribute to strengthen in the servant-leader. Understanding of issues involving ethics, power, and values are helped by awareness. Greenleaf (1977/2002) observed: “Awareness is not a giver of solace—it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace. They have their own inner serenity”.
Persuasion – Servant leaders lean on persuasion rather than positional authority when making organizational decisions. A servant leader does not coerce compliance; instead convince others to be compliant. This is one of the more profound distinctions between servant leadership and traditional authoritarian models. Servant leaders effectively builds consensus within the

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