Servant Leadership is Hard, But Helps Team Performance

Servant leadership requires a deeper level of humility than many of us possess. Servant leaders "persevere to be 'servant first' rather than 'leader first' and put their subordinates' 'highest priority needs' before their own," according to scientists Jia Hu and Robert Liden. They were quoting Robert Greenleaf, who coined the concept in the 1960s.

Can you do it? If you are or become a team leader, can you take all your desires for a promotion, better pay, greater recognition, and more, and make them lower priorities than your employees' desires? Can you make their raises more important than your raises? Their career paths more important than your own?

These are ideals we associate more with religion than with business. Zen Buddhist master Dogen-zengi said in 1240 that someone has wandered off the religious path if they think, "I am a business officer of the temple, so I need not bow to other monks."

In the Koran, Mohammed records, "give us full measure and be charitable to us; surely Allah rewards the charitable."

Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," and "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

Many of us speak of humility, charity, and mercy in our religious institutions, but find them hard to live back at the job site. In many companies, those who do not draw attention to themselves, who give away all the credit, and are kind instead of punitive are doomed to obscurity. I struggle with finding the right balance. It is not in my nature or my religion to stand on a corner and proclaim my beliefs. Yet if I do not set myself apart in the business world, I starve.

Why, then, would anyone perform servant leadership? Those who already do it surely would speak of the internal rewards. Those of us who struggle with our competing interests perhaps could use a more tangible reason. Hu and Liden, of the Dept. of Managerial Studies at the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago,.may have found one.

Previous research has shown that a team's belief in its ability ("team potency") affects its performance. How to create that belief should be an important question for a team leader or member who wants their team to win. A study by Hu and Liden of 304 employees in 71 teams in five Chinese banks suggests that servant leadership is one answer.

They surveyed the employees on the following concepts, each shown with a sample statement from the scale:

• Goal clarity—The "degree of clarity felt about my duties and responsibilities."
• Process clarity—Belief that "the procedures I use to do my job are correct and proper."
• Team potency—"The team I work with has above average ability."
• Servant leadership—"My manager seems to care more about my success than his/her own."

Hu and Liden then asked two upper managers of each team to rate:

• Team performance—The "overall level of performance that you observe for this team."
• Team-level organizational citizenship behaviors—"In general, the team members help others who have been absent."

Notice the team leaders were not involved. Multiple employees rated each leader's style, and multiple bosses of each leader rated the teams.

Teams had higher helping and performance ratings when they had "a clear view of their goals, paths to the goals, and the connection between their own work and the team's goal," the study says. Hu and Liden explain, "This serves to reduce possible conflicts between team members regarding their responsibilities and reduces the possibility of social loafing problems."

But that's not all. The researchers conclude, "goal and process clarity contribute the most to the emergence of team potency when accompanied by servant leaders, whose employee-centered focus is beneficial for facilitating team confidence and effective team behaviors." Belief in the team related positively to better performance in their study. Without servant leadership, however, goal and process clarity had no relation to potency—or, in one correlation, a negative one.

Thus, Hu and Liden say, companies should provide training on servant leadership behaviors. These include, according to factor analysis of their related questions:

• "Behaving ethically"
• "Putting subordinates first"
• "Helping subordinates grow and succeed"
• "Emotional healing"
• "Empowering"
• "Conceptual skills"
• "Creating value for the community"

I suspect most managers believe and try to act on most of these. Behaving ethically is not always encouraged in the workplace, however, as shown by the fabric of lies in the housing and financial industries that led to our current economic conditions in the West. Most companies do not empower their teams to a fraction of the degree they should for maximum performance. Many managers don't want to hear the word "emotional," much less take responsibility for emotional healing.

But that second item, "Putting subordinates first," that's the real bugaboo. Even knowing it is the right thing to do by most religious and philosophical systems does not lead most of us to practice it completely. So I'm not sure the practical outcome of better team performance will make a difference. My argument to skeptics of team empowerment that "people will know your decision led to the team's success" has not proven persuasive over the years. There is a lot of pressure to put client needs over employees' needs despite data suggesting the latter approach is ultimately more profitable. I certainly have put my ego ahead of employee interests at times when I was a manager. Putting subordinates first is a toughie despite the internal and external rewards.

Can you do it?

Action Item: Write at least 250 words assessing how well you put subordinates first. Share it with someone you trust at work for their feedback.

Source: Hu, J., and R. Liden (2011), "Antecedents of Team Potency and Team Effectiveness: An Examination of Goal and Process Clarity and Servant Leadership," Journal of Applied Psychology 96(4):851.