Servant Leadership Paper

In this reading, Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, and Melchar examine culture in corporate environments and how servant leadership has an impact. To begin, “the focus of Servant Leadership is on others rather than self and on the role of the leader as servant. The Servant Leader, according to Russell and Stone (2002), takes the position of servant to his/her fellow workers, and aims to fulfill the needs of others. The importance placed, in this theory, on the meaningful contributions of all workers, appears to be consistent with many of the values expressed as being important to today’s workers” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 21). In addition, servant leaders serve “others by working towards their development and well-being in order to meet goals for the common good. [Servant leaders]
“distanc[t] oneself from using power, influence and position to serve self, and instead gravitating to a position where these instruments are used to empower, enable and encourage those who are within one’s ‘circle of influence.’ [As well,] Servant Leaders trust followers to act in the best interests of the organization and focus on those followers rather than organizational” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 21). “When leaders focus on the interests of followers and the organization over their own personal interests, facilitate a mutual sharing of responsibility and power with followers, and include followers’ feedback in developing the vision, it is more likely followers will perceive the leader and culture as servant oriented.
This servant orientation is evidenced through valuing and developing people, building relational and authentic community, and providing and sharing leadership” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 22). Ten fundamental attributes of servant leaders are: “listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, growth of people, and community building” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 22). More importantly, “[the servant leader] model appears to be aligned with several of the emerging values of today’s workplace. Specifically, the emerging value of the importance of using a variety of inputs in decision making processes and the consideration of every employee as a source of knowledge resonate with the importance of communication and empowerment in [servant leadership]” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p.
22). In servant leadership, “the leadership role is seen as having concern for growth of people, providing encouragement, and teaching[, as well as,] helping subordinates grow and succeed” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 22). Through their study they conclude that “it is clear from these results that there are significant differences among nations with regard to national cultural values. The values measured in this study are those that have an important impact on the perception of characteristics of Servant Leadership in workplace culture. These differences influence the behaviors of workers (followers) and become ever more important as global interactions increase among organizations” (Rubio-Sanchez, Bosco, & Melchar, 2013, p. 24). In short, they found that having a culture that supported servant leadership greatly befitted an organization, as well as, its employees. This reading is important because it is crucial to know and understand that values of a culture determine how an organization functions. When a culture reflects servant leadership, an organization and its employees thrive because everyone is accepting of everyone’s role.