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Transcript
In this episode, we’re going to talk about a different perspective, or view, on serving, and in a way, servant leadership. But before we dive into that, I do want to say that in general, personally, I’m not a big fan of the term servant leadership, mainly just because of the misconceptions and misunderstandings about it, because often when people think of servant leadership, they think of someone who’s weak, a pushover, someone just about relationships, not results, things like that.
I’ve heard someone talk about one perspective is like, you’re either leading from the front or side or behind. And if you’re behind and that’s servant leadership. I’ve heard people say it’s overrated or that it’s yesterday. And there’s just so many misunderstandings about it that that’s one reason I don’t like to use it, but it also affects people’s perspective of what service is or what leaders should do.
In fact, in Good to Great Jim Collins, I’ve read in a couple of sources, that when they were looking for the term for the leader, because they call them level five leaders in the book, but one of the propositions that they had was to call them servant leaders. But it ended up being voted down because of the misconceptions about servant leadership or the image that servant leadership often has from people.
The perspective
So there is a certain perspective that I want you to think about when it comes to serving and servant leadership, because as a leader, you are serving someone no matter what.
Think about that.
As a leader, no matter whether you consider yourself a servant leader, no matter what your thoughts on that, you are serving someone, you are either serving yourself or you’re serving your team, your organization, the mission.
Even if you’re just doing what the boss says, you’re serving someone, either serving yourself because you want to help your career in that, or maybe you’re serving the organization or you’re serving someone, yourself or others.
Serving yourself
If you are about yourself and you’re about your career, because sometimes when you’re serving, sometimes people become leaders because they want their career to grow. Now, sometimes that’s the only way up. So they become in a leadership position for their career, for their job.
Maybe it’s because they want the respect, the money. Maybe they can… the perks that get out of it, the rewards, no, things of that nature.
Sometimes it’s because of ego. And so they’re serving themselves, they’re serving the ego because they think so highly. Sometimes it’s covering insecurities.
Whatever it may be, you’re serving you. And when you’re serving you, then you’re gonna make choices that what? Benefit you. You do the things that are comfortable, that you’re comfortable with, that you like, that make you look good, that help your career, whatever it may be, because it’s about you.
The results you get
And what kind of results will you get when you have that mentality of serving you? Well, you’re not going to get as good results you could otherwise. Because if you are about serving you, then you’re going to do the things that are either comfortable or again that just benefit you. Not necessarily what’s needed.
And your whole focus of what you’re doing is not on what’s needed, not on growing the mission, not on others or all of that. It’s on you. So the actions you take won’t always line up. So it will affect the impact you have and the results you get.
In fact, a good book on this topic is Patrick Lencioni’s The Motive. And he kind of… his story in that gives this example of someone whose motive was wrong and the impact and effect it had versus someone who had the right motive.
Serving outside yourself
However, if you are about serving others, if you’re about the team, the organization, the goal, the mission that you’re pursuing, if you’re about that and you put that over your own personal agenda, whatever it may be, then the wonders that can happen when you do that.
Because when you choose to serve the team, when you choose to serve the mission, the goal, what will happen is, is that you will do the hard work to make it happen. You will do what’s needed, not what’s convenient or comfortable.
You will have the hard conversations. You will do the actions that push you toward the mission. You’re doing again, what’s needed.
The results you get
The results you can get when you’re serving correctly are great. I already mentioned his book, The Motive, but his other books, Patrick Lencioni’s other books, often talk about this.
And Jim Collins in Good to Great, when you look at the leader he was talking about, that’s the kind of leader he’s talking about because they put the good of the organization over themselves. They even say they’re okay with people not knowing that they are the cause of the success because their focus is just on the good of the organization and growing it.
And it’s interesting to see in him and his study, and I’ve seen other studies as well or another book that talked about studies they had, that those with the leaders with the right mentality have the companies that get the best results or get greater results.
Servant leaders are weak??
And it’s also funny that servant leadership is seen as weak because servant leadership, if done right, if you have the right mentality about it, is anything but weak. It’s those who are self-serving who are the weak leaders because they don’t want to do the things that are uncomfortable or that are needed because they’re focusing on benefiting them, or again, just whatever’s comfortable.
Those who are serving are the ones who do the hard work, who have those hard conversations, who do what’s needed because they’re putting others over themselves. They’re putting the mission, their team over themselves.
So they aren’t weak. They are the strong ones.
It’s just unfortunately that term makes people often think weak.
The question you need to ask
My question then for you is who are you serving?
Because again, you are serving someone, whether yourself or the team, the mission, the organization, you are serving someone.
The question then is who?
Something to think about. See you next time.
