Servant Leadership

Keep Focused on Your “Servant Heart”

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

No matter who you are, people can come at you daily with their egos blasting. Some egos come from false pride—where they think more of themselves than they should and want more credit for things. Others come from self-doubt and fear—where they think less of themselves than they should and are protecting themselves. How do you deal with these people?

Try to keep focused on leading with a servant’s heart.  It can be part of your daily habits, such as how you enter your day by reminding yourself of the difference you can make in the world. It’s a matter of making a habit of practicing a helpful attitude when you are interacting with people. The question you want to keep top of mind is, “How can I help?”

For instance, if someone comes to you and says, “I’m sick and tired that nobody seems to notice my contributions around here,” you could say to that person, “What I am hearing from you is that you don’t think your work is appreciated. I think you are doing a wonderful job on …” and then be very specific as to what that person is doing right.  After that, ask, “What can I do to help you get over this feeling of not being important enough? How can I help you through this?”

Or, if someone is coming from fear and saying, “I can’t believe it, I just got another project dumped on me and I don’t have time in my day to work on it,” let that person know you understand by saying something such as, “Wow, I can hear that you’re really overwhelmed right now. Is there a way I can help you with this? Is there anyone I can talk to that might be able to partner with you?”

A phrase I like is lead with your ears.  Really listen to the person you are interacting with and see if you can respond in a caring and heartfelt way. When you ask the question “How can I help?” you’ll be amazed at how quickly it can diffuse the frustration another person is feeling.  It can make an immediate difference to upset or fearful people just to know their concerns are being heard. By leading with your servant’s heart, you will set an example others can use to get away from their egos, move forward, and make a positive difference in someone else’s day.

What should leaders be doing to motivate their people in times of downsizing, salary cuts, or an uncertain economy?

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

With the challenging economy these days, where companies are losing money and people are being downsized, a very important question I get asked is, “How can I, as a leader, motivate my people in these tough times?”  I think there are three things you can do.

The first thing you need to do is to be a bearer of hope. That doesn’t mean you don’t talk about the truth of the present reality, but hope is so important. When our company was facing its toughest year, our CEO, Tom McKee, got out in front of all of the employees and told them the reality of the situation and how much we were down from the year before. But then he said, “I think we can come out of this. We’re going to do it.”  He was a bearer of hope.

The second thing you need to do is to involve your people as your business partners. After Tom spoke, the next day we had a massive brainstorming session that involved all 300 of our employees in small groups, coming up with ideas of how to cut costs and increase revenues. Your people have knowledge—make them your business partners and tap into that resource.

The final thing you need to do is to always remember to be a servant leader. I so believe in that. This is not the time as a leader to be self-centered and worried about yourself or your own job. It’s a time to reach out to your people and encourage them, serve them, and be with them. So be bearers of hope, involve your people as your business partners, and be ready to serve—not to be served—as a leader.

I try to be a leader but it seems no one is listening to me

/ Ken Blanchard / 1 Comment

This is a tough question that especially haunts younger leaders…

If you think you’re a leader and you turn around and nobody’s following, you know what? There’s probably some feedback there that you can learn from. Why aren’t they following?  Because your leadership might be all about you. People want to follow someone who appreciates and cares about them, who thinks they are important. Are you involving your people? That’s what they want. They want to work with somebody who wants to work with them. If nobody’s following you, stop looking in the mirror and thinking that leadership is all about you. No—it’s out there. It’s with them. It’s encouraging them and supporting them and helping them and involving them. People love to follow leaders who share the responsibility of accomplishing goals.  So look out there at your people. That’s where the action is. And if you take care of them, you know what? Next time you turn around, there might be a crowd.

Understanding Servant Leadership

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

As part of a new series, I’m introducing today’s leadership concept via a segment extracted from my latest book, Lead with LUV, coauthored by former Southwest Airlines president Colleen Barrett.

 

Understanding Servant Leadership

For those of you who may not be clear on the concept of servant leadership, read this excerpt from Lead with LUV where Colleen and I discuss why servant leadership is the very best way to lead.

Colleen: Ken, it makes me sad when people hear the term servant leadership and, as you have said, they think you’re talking about la-la land where the inmates are running the prison or trying to please everyone.

Ken: The problem is that they don’t understand leadership or, more importantly, servant leadership. They think you can’t lead and serve at the same time. Yet you can, if you understand that there are two kinds of leadership involved in servant leadership: strategic leadership and operational leadership. Strategic leadership has to do with vision/direction. It’s the leadership part of servant leadership. The focus for strategic leadership is the “what” that ensures everyone is going in the same direction. This is all important because:

Leadership is about going somewhere—

If you and your people don’t know where you are going,

Your leadership doesn’t matter

Alice learned this lesson in Alice in Wonderland when she was searching for a way out of Wonderland and came to a fork in the road. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” she asked the Cheshire Cat. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” the cat said. Alice replied that she really did not much care. The smiling cat told her in no uncertain terms, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Colleen: At Southwest, we’ve always tried to make sure everyone knows where we are heading. Then, of course, we had to make it all happen.

Ken: In essence, that’s what operational leadership is about:  implementation—the “how” of the organization. This is the servant part of servant leadership. It’s what leaders focus on after everyone is clear on where they are going. It includes policies, procedures, systems, and leader behaviors that cascade from senior management to frontline employees and make it possible for the organization to live according to its vision and values and accomplish short-term goals and initiatives. These management practices create the environment that employees and customers interact with and respond to on a daily basis.

I hope you all believe, as I do, that effective leadership starts on the inside. Servant leadership is not just another management technique. It is a way of life for those with a servant’s heart.  The byproducts are better leadership, better service, a higher performing organization, and more success and significance. Stop and think about this:  Are you a servant leader?