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Transcript
Last time we talked about how that no matter what, as a leader, you are serving someone. That you’re either serving yourself and what you can get out of the position or whatever it is, or you’re serving your team, the mission, the organization. But either way, you are serving someone.
I also mentioned to you that I’m often not a big fan of the term servant leadership because of often the misconceptions people have about servant leadership. And that’s part of how we got into the, you’re serving someone, one of the kind of misconceptions about it.
Today, I thought we would talk about some of the misconceptions that people have about servant leadership so that you can see those and have the right perspective about serving and servant leadership if you want to use that term.
Misconception #1
The first misconception I think a lot of people have is that servant leadership is an optional style. They think that there’s a list of styles that you can follow as a leader and servant leadership is one of them.
And so if you like it, then you can pick it to be your style as a leader. And there’s a lot of issues with that, going back to what we talked about last time that you’re serving someone no matter what, but one of the other big issues is something I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about before is that it’s not about what your style is as a leader: It’s about doing what’s effective. It’s about doing what’s needed, not what you like.
If I’m a soccer player and I love to run backwards and so all I do is run backwards, because that’s my style, I can do that if I want. I’m just not going to be an effective player and I probably won’t be put into the game very often. It’s not about what you like. It’s not about your “style.” It’s about doing what’s needed and doing what’s effective.
And as we talked about, servant leadership or serving isn’t an option. It’s just what you do. Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Motive, says, I don’t remember the exact term. Either frustrated or annoyed or something like that. When people use the term “servant leadership” or saying, “Hey, that person’s a good servant leader because…” he’s like, “like there’s any other option to be an effective leader.”
You serve your team, the mission, the organization, not yourself if you want to be effective.
So it’s not an optional style. It’s just something you do.
Misconception #2
Another misconception that some people have is that servant leadership is about relationships and not results. They think that the people who embody that term, they are just about building relationships with people and getting along with them. When really that’s not true.
Well, let me say that that’s halfway true because yes, if you’re serving them, you care about them. If you want to be effective as a leader, you care about people and you build those relationships. But you’re also about results. It’s not one or the other. It’s both. And if you’re serving the team organization, you’re doing what’s needed to help them accomplish the mission because you’re about them. You’re about the mission and making sure it happens. So it’s not just about relationships. It’s about results as well. It’s about both.
Misconception #3
Another misconception is that servant leaders, they don’t hold people accountable. That they just let them do whatever that they just meek and hold back. And we’ll talk about some of that in the next one, but they don’t hold people accountable.
And of course, when I’m talking about accountability is that you are helping your team meet the expectations and goals. It’s not all the bureaucracy and things of that nature. But sometimes people don’t think you hold them accountable if you are a servant leader.
But really, if you are serving people and you’re serving the mission, you’re serving the team, you are going to hold them accountable because you’re about making the mission happen. It’s those who serve themselves who are less likely to because it’s uncomfortable.
But if you’re truly serving them and others, then you’re going to have the conversations. You’re going to help them get to the next level. People aren’t meeting expectations, you’re going to talk to them and whatever needs to be done because you care, because you’re serving, because you’re putting the mission, the organization first over your own personal agenda. You’re going to do the hard work.
Misconception #4
Relatedly, a misconception is that servant leaders are weak and pushovers and subservient. They think that if you’re serving, then you’re this little wussy little person who gets pushed over by everything, that you’re subservient, you let everybody just wail on you or whatever.
Whatever that is, that’s the impression that often people have about servant leadership, and they think there’s this push over and yes, people may be insecure at times and allow people to push over on them, but that’s not related to servant leadership or related to serving others.
If you’re serving others, you aren’t weak, you’re strong. It takes a strong person to put other people over themselves or put the mission over their own agenda. Servant leaders aren’t weak, they’re strong.
Misconception #5
Another misconception is that you can’t lead and serve at the same time. They think those things are different, but really they go together, they intertwine. You can’t really lead effectively if you’re not serving.
Because you set the goal, you set the vision, you set the direction, or you may grasp if you’re in an organization and you’re a supervisor, middle manager, whatever. Others may create the overarching goal, direction, mission of the organization, but you still can grab that and own it and lead your people to it. You can also create goals and create direction in your team toward those overarching goals.
So you, as a leader, you’re taking people somewhere, you’re pointing the direction, and then you’re serving and helping your people get there. That’s what you do. So you serve, so serving is just part of leadership. It’s not something that’s really separate.
I think sometimes people, I’ve seen them separate the parts in the sense they see leadership as the vision part and then serving as the other part. But really that’s partly a misconception because leadership isn’t just the vision part itself. That’s just part of leading.
Misconception #6
Another misconception is that servant leaders work for their employees and they give up their authority. And we’ve kind of talked about this a little bit through the other parts.
And the fact that’s just not true because, well, let me just read this quote from Ken Blanchard in one of his articles. And he’s written The One Minute Manager and certain type of books. He’s written a lot of different books, but here is his quote.
He said, “Their assumption is that it means managers should be working for their employees, who in turn would decide what to do, when to do it, where to do it, and how to do it. If that’s what servant leadership is all about, it doesn’t sound like leadership to them at all. It sounds more like inmates running to prison are managers trying to please everyone.”
So no, you’re not working for your employees. You cast that direction and you serve and help them to get there, you do empower your team, you do push decision making to the people closest to the problem, things of that nature, but you’re still leading people.
Misconception #7
Another misconception, servant leadership is about being nice or pleasing everyone. And I think we’ve kind of covered this in the stuff above that we’ve talked about, but no, it’s not about being nice or pleasing everyone. It’s about accomplishing the mission.
And part of that is you care about people. That is you invest in people, but it’s not about “being nice” or whatever.
Misconception #8
Servant leaders avoid making tough decisions, always get consensus or focus on making group decisions. Again, no.
And sometimes they think that because they see servant leaders as weak. And so they try to get consensus or they’re the pushovers. So they just let everyone else decide because they’re “serving” and that whatever definition they’re giving serving.
But that’s not the case because again, I know I’m being very repetitive. You point the direction, you help your people get there. It’s about doing what’s needed, not what feels good, et cetera.
So sometimes you just make the decision. Other times you push the decision, make decisions down to the people who are closest to it and you empower, you know, decentralized command.
You show the direction, you make sure everybody understands the context and you allow people or you enable people to make the decisions within their area to accomplish the goal.
So sometimes you… that there may be times to get consensus. I know sometimes that seems like the golden standard, but it’s really not. Because I think sometimes people do it because it protects them if the decision goes wrong or they feel like it’s they’re “style,” I don’t know.
But it’s not effective long-term, especially if that’s all you do. Yes, there may be times to do that, but I’m pretty sure we covered this in the previous episode if you want to learn more about why consensus can hurt.
But yeah, it’s not the golden standard. So it’s about, again, doing what’s needed, making the decisions how they need to be needed at the situa- that the situation calls, not just a certain thing.
Misconception #9
Servant leadership means doing the work for others. Nope. No, we’ve talked about, you help people accomplish their work. It’s not doing the work for them. You, you don’t solve the problems for them. You help them, enable them to solve their own problems and to make good decisions and so on.
Misconception #10
Servant leadership is only useful in nonprofit or volunteer settings. Or only works in certain circumstances. And we’ve talked about this, that no servant leadership or serving, I should say, is what you do as a leader.
It’s not just something that fits certain circumstances.
Misconception #11
Companies with servant leaders get less results. False, wrong.
There’s different books that have talked about this in studies. One was, I believe it was the Seven Pillars of Effective or Servant Leadership, and they had different studies where they talked about how those with servant leaders were more effective. And then there was Good to Great.
with Jim Collins, very well-known book. And if you look at the book, when he talks about the leader, what you often see in that is in many ways, what people would consider a servant leader. They actually thought about using that term at first, but they didn’t because of the misconceptions about servant leadership, like we’re talking about here.
But you kind of know that that person is more about serving because, you know, I’ll just read what Jim Collins says. He says:
A key trait of level five leaders, ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one’s own riches and personal renown. Level five leaders want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts. In contrast, the comparison leader concerned more with their own reputation for personal greatness often failed to set the company up for success in the next generation. After all, what better testament to your own personal greatness than that the place falls apart after you leave?”
As you can see, Jim Collins points out that the servant leaders, those great leaders level five were put the company first over their own personal agendas. They were okay with them not knowing it was them that raised it up or that they were leading during that time.
That says something. So great companies have the leaders who serve.
Those were some of the misconceptions about servant leadership. I hope that now you have a better perspective of what servant leadership is. I know there’s different things and I’ve read different articles about, you know, servant leadership is something about authority versus this and I’m just like, whatever.
You’re serving your team to accomplish the mission. You’re putting the mission, the organization, your team over your own personal agenda are, you know, we talked about things in the last episode. And I hope through this, that you choose the right person or the right thing to serve. See you next time.
