Servant leadership in diverse contexts 1 PDF

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Servant Leadership in Buddhism

NAME Grand Canyon University MGT-410 10/17/2020

In this paper, the diverse context of servant leadership in the Buddhist religion will be explained with the understanding of culture and religious viewpoints related to servant leadership. Buddhism is a primary religion in the Asian part of the world and practiced in China, Japan, Thailand and many more. Buddhism is considered a nontheistic religion because they pose virtues and beliefs that will guide the people in their practice. The virtues practiced amongst the people are based on love, joy, compassion, and calmness. In the Buddhist culture they believe in self-sufficiency, meditation, collectivism, respect for elders, and have a strong belief in karma. In the Buddhism religion they believe in respecting all living things and have an appreciation for everything. In Buddhism they are believed to have prophets in the religion and that all are prophets because of their sharing of knowledge amongst each other. Servant leadership throughout the Buddhism religion is the aspect of all the people that practice Buddhism is a prophet and therefore a servant leader sharing their knowledge among the people. Buddhism is related to Christianity in the way that they believe in prophets and in Christianity there were Elijah, Jerimiah, John and many other prophets named in the bible. In both of these worldly religions they have a main person that they follow and in Christianity it is Jesus Christ, and the Christians use him as someone to look up to and idolize and in Buddhism they idolize Siddhartha Gautama for his wise knowledge and spiritual guidance. These two religions both have a similar structure to how they are laid out with having their spiritual leaders always accepting of disciples and taught their followers and their enemies through parables. The differences that these religions hold are the separation of meditation and prayer because Buddhist believe in the process of healing and calmness through mediation and Christians it is believed to worship God through prayer. In believing in a higher being Christians have a strong believe in God and Buddhist don’t

talk about a God or believe in a higher power but the teachings of buddha. The biggest difference between the two is the belief in reincarnation or the afterlife, in Christianity they belief in only having one life and after death you will go to heaven and Buddhist believe that after death you are reincarnated as another living thing and a cycle of life. The population in Asian countries are very collectivist and like to accomplish goals in a group rather than achieve the goal individually. For example, places like China and Japan love to use collectivism in business surrounding when making a business plan and conquering it as a team and most of the time the business is very successful. Asian cultures are very long-term oriented, authoritarian orientated, and performance orientated when it comes to leadership. Asian cultures are described to be long-term oriented when it comes to goals and making projects happen and making them last a long period of time because it is very important to their culture. Authoritarian orientated in their culture when it comes to leadership because they believe in one person or persons taking charge and working as a group to accomplish a goal and especially in business this is very common. Performance orientated is a very common thing in Asian culture because they are always competing with each other and trying to be the best so the best performance from a person is most likely to be a part of a greater project then someone that does perform well. In Asian cultures they believe in collectivism and working to accomplish goal as a team. In servant leadership the whole goal is to work towards a greater purpose as a team and that is what the Asian countries have in common with the characteristics of servant leadership. Collectivism is one of the greatest trails when compared to servant leadership because it is achieving goals as a team and individualistic communities will have harder time when trying to get a team to work together and follow one person. Asian cultures also believe in discipline and the focus of getting a task done and servant leadership characteristic are to be motivated and

strive for improvement. The Asian culture is very collectivist and they strive to perform the best and achieve the most when in group and lead by a leader. The difference between the culture values and servant leadership is that the people in the Asian countries believe that all the people are prophets and are leaders and in servant leadership there is one servant leader that shows the way to a group of people that are in need of guidance. The Asian culture is very straight forward when it comes to working in a group and how that would differ from servant leadership is the lack of empathy for others and abilities to do their tasks and their effectiveness. In many Asian culture the boss is perceived to be a one-way minded individual that does not take any feedback that takes away from the focus of the original goal for the team and in servant leadership the characteristics of a servant leader is understanding, trustworthy, and community building. Having a one-way minded leader is different from a servant leader because it takes away the building of a team and the trust that is necessary to grow the group and get goals completed. The similarities between Buddhism and servant leadership is the characteristics they share in their passion of caring for others, humility, empathy, and healing. Buddhist value love, knowledge, joy, compassion, and calmness and it is similar to leadership characteristics because it is very important for a leader to value the same ideals. Buddhists and servant leaders believe in community building and trusting one another to obtain guidance to be successful when practicing their religion or working in a team. The characteristics that servant leaders should have is wisdom, empowerment, and humility and in the Buddhist religion these are key characteristics within the religion and with those three specific ones the Buddhist thrive from. Servant leaders and Buddhist are not that different at all and they show the same following in characteristics that make servant leaders and Buddhist almost indistinguishable.

Buddhist believe that the prophesies are instilled in them with the religion and with servant leadership it is something that needs to be improved on every day to become a better leader. Buddhist believe that they all are equal in leading and can learn from each other and expand on the teachings and in servant leadership it one leader trying to develop and improve their skills to because a leader that can take charge of a group.

Reference Parboteeah, K. P., Paik, Y., & Cullen, J. B. (2009). Religious Groups and Work Values: A Focus on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 9(1), 51–67. Wallace, Randall. “Servant Leadership: A Worldview Perspective.” American Psychological Association 5th Edition 1, 2007. Kemavuthanon, Suvaroj, and Joanne Duberley. “A Buddhist View of Leadership: the Case of the OTOP Project.” Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 30, no. 8, 2009, pp. 737–758., doi:10.1108/01437730911003902.

Freeman, GT. “Spirituality and Servant Leadership: A Conceptual Model and Research Proposal.” Emerging Leadership Journeys, vol. 4, no. 1, 2011. Spears, L. (2010). Servant Leadership development and theory. In D.van Dierendock, & Patterson, K (Eds.), Servant leadership and Robert K Greenleaf’s legacy (pp.11-24). Palgrave. doi.10.1057/9780230299184...