Servant Leadership and Followership are roles inherently adopted by a combat leader. This essay will compare, contrast, and expound on both roles while analyzing how servant leadership and followership interact and ultimately compliment each other. In a military environment, a Soldier will nearly always be a leader as well as subordinate. As a combat leader, it is crucial to gain familiarity into how these roles function in unison in order to untangle complex problems that carry catastrophic consequences.
Servant Leadership Servant Leadership encompasses a leadership approach that involves placing the needs of the team above that of the leader. This approach encourages subordinate input in order to facilitate a sense of “buy-in” from their
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The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, defines followership as “being a follower of character and commitment acting to support the needs and goals of the team” (Followership, n.d.). Effective followers are independent and critical thinkers that take an active role in the team's approach to addressing challenges. Effective followers, while not placed in a directed leadership position within the team, take initiative to provide encouragement and facilitate community amongst their peers in order to support their leader and team as a whole. Lastly, it is important to note that while the study of followership has been largely neglected, the role of a follower is no less important than that of a leader. This role is to be a respected one as it is constantly adopted by a Soldier in his/her …show more content…
The leader also adopts the responsibility to steward the welfare of his subordinates, and if need be, to sacrifice personal safety for the welfare of his/her team. A leader is accountable for the team's actions whether that be in success or failure and is to credit the team for any success. The leader's role is a sacred one, but often comes with less recognition than that of the follower (Masson and Duran-Stanton, 2021).
In contrast to servant leadership, the follower must support the team by taking an active role in supporting the leader while trusting in the decisions of the appointed leader. A follower is also not directly charged with creating decisions for the team, but is to offer constructive input on decisions when the leader prompts input from the team. The follower most greatly varies from the role of a servant leader in that the follower carries less responsibilities in terms of being held accountable for accomplishment of the team's objectives. However, this is not to say that the follower is passive or inactive in team taskings and objectives (Masson and Duran-Stanton,
The basic principle of servant leadership is serving others and the community. The three principles of the servant-leadership are sharing the power, putting the needs of others first and helping people achieve their highest potential so that they may want to serve others. This creates an environment of trust, collaboration, teamwork and group improvement. Robert Greenleaf created the term, Servant Leader, and creating the idea of leading by serving with individuals and organizations. In one of his major essay’s, The Institution as Servant, Greenleaf (as cited in “What is Servant Leadership,” n.d.) expressed what was frequently called the “credo.”
If and when they achieve these standards, it helps instil pride in the team, as well as aiding their development through the learning process. Indeed the servant leader thrives on helping their subordinates perform to a high standard, it is this that enables them to nurture them. It also helps them to encourage confidence in the team. When recognising the strengths and weaknesses of the team, the servant leadership thrives in both empowering their subordinates to work to their strengths; but also in developing their weaknesses. By doing these, particularly developing the recognised weaknesses; they in effect serve their subordinates by helping to develop and better
In the words of Thomas Ricks’ in his war-time novel Making a Corps, this phenomenon is described as “Discipline […] the instant willing obedience to all orders, respect for authority, self-reliance and teamwork,” (Ricks 71). That is, only when soldiers are indoctrinated or disciplined into a particular “military ethos” can they conduct themselves in this uncomfortable, unusual, and at times inhumane manner. According to this assumption, that military ethos is applied to each soldier; however, I’d argue that although individualism is prominent in war, individuals tend to act out of collective motivation more so than individual motivation. Based on that premise, we can see that it is in fact more accurate to apply the concepts of a military ethos to a collective, rather than to individuals. In this paper, I will provide examples to demonstrate the validity of this
Servant leadership can be applied from the top of an organization to the lowest member because no one team member is more important than another. This is because each member is dependent upon the other to accomplish their job. This form of leadership provides a positive example of leadership for both junior to highest ranking members of the senior personnel, because of a single team member regardless of rank being attentive,supportive, and helpful to those members of staff below and above them. These
Running head: SERVANT LEADERSHIP ANALYSIS 1 Running head: SERVANT LEADERSHIP ANALYSIS 9 Servant Leadership Experience Analysis LDR-630 Servant Leadership Sylvia M. Bermudez February 28, 2018 Servant Leadership Experience Servant leaders understand the importance of building and supporting others and in helping nurture future servant leaders. Servant leaders “want to serve, to serve first,” (Greenleaf, 1970), they inspire and motivate followers through their actions and words and focus on the needs and desires of others, placing them over their own. The concept of servant leadership was first coined in the 1970s by Robert K. Greenleaf, in his essay, “Servant Leaders.” Greenleaf defines servant leadership, as “a philosophy and
The purpose of this essay is to explore the foundation of Army leadership through doctrine and history. We will explore the past in which the groundwork was laid, allowing us to understand the presence of Army leadership. We will assess how it all comes together to create a strong foundation necessary for a strong Army. Finally, we will understand how we use this foundation to achieve our mission. By understanding the foundation that has been pressed into Army culture, we can evaluate ourselves and implement the values and ethics laid down throughout the history of the Army.
The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast followership leadership and servant leadership. This essay will consist of what followership and servant leadership is and how they serve a purpose in the military. In 1970, “A man named Robert K. Greenleaf created a way that the military looks and practices leadership in a different light” (1) (B112- R.b). That term is servant leadership meaning having a strong feeling to serve others by helping develop them or taking charge. Servant leaders are more of the ones that have a better understanding of awareness, equality and,are good at persuading.
In reading “Serve To Be Great’ written by Matt Tenney, I was introduced to a new perspective on leadership. Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world. Servant leadership is more a way of life than a management technique. Tenney believes that making your employee’s happiness the priority
Servant Leadership during Natural Disasters Servant leadership is a leader who displays ethical and caring behaviors. These leaders seek to enhance the growth of others while improving quality of life. The two main constructs of this leadership are ethical behavior and concern for subordinates. The characteristics embodied in this are stewardship, foresight, conceptualization, persuasion, building community, listening, empathy, awareness, commitment to growth of people and healing.
Influential leaders balance the long-term needs of the Army, the near-term and career needs of their subordinates, and the immediate needs of their unit's mission (1). The Army Leader Development Strategy states that "successful leaders recognize that continually developing their subordinate leaders is the key to the long-term health of the Army" (5). [1] The Army intends to develop its soldiers in the operational, institutional, and personal domains (2). These domains allow individual soldiers to control their career development with the guidance of their chain of command and the Army progressively and sequentially. The fundamental truth is that soldiers accomplish tasks because they do not want to let each other down (1).
Leaders steward the profession to maintain professional standards and effective capabilities. Leaders take care of the Army profession by applying a mindset that embodies cooperative planning and management of all resources, but especially providing for a strong Army team. Leaders actively engage in sustaining full military readiness and preventing the loss of effectiveness as far into the future as possible (AR 600-100, 8). Leaders should give the necessary influence to support their subordinates’ professional and personal growth, which works to improve the
Leadership is more important than followership for many reasons. Leaders are the foundation for the trust of followers to produce high quality results. Without establishing trust, followers may take matters into their own hands. “Trust is the glue that binds the leader to her/his followers and provides the capacity for organizational and leadership success. ”1
These are just a few of the army values and how they play an important part in an effective leader and follower’s day to day
Servant leadership believes one should provide priority to others interest. Leaders should server others to meet their desires, needs and aspiration. Leaders should service and develop their employees (Nahavandi, 2015) leaders do not encourage leaders to go over and beyond to meet the need of the individual problems. Servant leadership listens, persuades, and give empathy during times of crisis. Authentic leaders adapt their style to the situation.
Over the last few weeks, leadership class has succeeded in getting me to think deeply about my life, who I really am and who I hope to be. This is good because it helps me put proper measures in place that will help me accomplish those goals. A servant leader, as we have discussed in class is one who is servant-first. His main aim is to serve his people and do what is best for the people around him, whether he is in a leadership position or not.