Strengths and Weaknesses of Servant Leadership PDF

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Analysis of my Clifton Strengths and Leadership Style Theory

Analysis of my Clifton Strengths and Leadership Style Theory Gary Redden Western Governors University

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Analysis of my Clifton Strengths and Leadership Style Theory

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Analysis of my CliftonStrengths and Leadership Style Theory As I was preparing to start this my paper regarding my leadership strengths and theory it brought back nostalgic memories from my past education. As a youth and young adult, I remember being inspired by speeches given by great civil and world leaders during times of civil unrest and world war. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream,” speech, Winston Churchill’s Parliament “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” speech, and Theodore Roosevelts “Walk softly and carry a big stick: you will go Far,” quote that encouraged millions to make a change or take action in a time where a voice and leader was needed. They made an impact by observing a need for action and, by example, they inspired others to follow. As I reminisced of these past examples I to believe that an effective leader is someone that will do what is needed by leading by example, and through that example, a person can inspire others to do the same. With this philosophy in mind, I began accessing my own leadership strengths by doing assessments and researching various leadership theories. Through my studies I feel that I strongly relate to the Servant Leadership philosophy, which is based on sharing power and putting the needs of others first. this approach inspires others to perform at a higher standard. In this essay I will guide you through three different sections of how I concluded about my leadership style. In section one, you will find my reflections of the CliftonStrengths assessment that provided me with five different signature themes that assisted me in choosing the Servant Leadership theory with which I identify. The second section will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the servant leadership. The final section will include three personal actionable goals that will help me improve my effectiveness as a servant leader, which will include two specific SMART goals to help me focus and accomplish the action items I have set for myself.

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CliftonStrengths Assessments Empathy Linda Schubring’s description of The CliftonStrengths Signature Theme of Empathy best supports the definition of the CliftonStrength report and adds to its meaning by stating, “People with the strength of Empathy sense the emotion of people around them. It’s like they have a type of emotional satellite radar – a 360º, multi-dimensional perspective of the people and places around them. People with the strength of Empathy have the unique ability to feel into feelings of people around them, not only that, they can sometimes take on those feelings of others.” (Schubring, 2014). When reflecting on Empathy, and how it integrates into my chosen Servant Leadership theory, I agree completely with this CliftonStrength leadership theme that was assigned to me. I relate to this theme because I have been working for the past 19 years with non-profits as a Social Worker and Director of Social Services, as well as being a Youth Minister to elementary and high school-aged young adults. To be an effective leader in these emotionally tasking professions it requires a person to be a strong people-oriented leader who can relate to a person's successes in life, as well as one who is able to understand a person's personal crises that comes with various life complications and struggles. Relator The CliftonStrengths Insight guide describes a leader that has a theme assessed as a Relator as a person who is, “Driven by your talents, you routinely give your team everything you possibly can in terms of your talent, skill, energy, knowledge, or time. As a result, you probably have little left to offer people outside the workplace or study group. Because of your strengths, you

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may realize that everyone’s interests, background, motivations, desires, fears, and work style are different.” (CliftonStrengths Assessment, 2019). When reflecting on my role as a supervisor I see myself as a support for my staff so that I can try and make their jobs easier on a day to day basis. I use the skills I have developed to help create, coach, and make my team's jobs easier. This ranges from: creating complex databases or documents to improve processes, coaching my staff on working well with their subordinates, staff and guests, and encouraging their strengths, as well as helping them to improve upon their weaknesses to become effective employees, and leaders to their staff. To me, the most interesting and personally enlightening text that the CliftonStrengths Assessment stated was that a Relator will give all of themselves at work to help the team and when you leave you have little left to give to others outside of work. This is both an eye-opening and true statement for me. When leaving work, I find myself wanting to relax and not give much of myself when I get home. This is a major issue when you have a family you care for deeply. This is something that I personally need to change in order to become a more supportive husband, and father to my children. Our children are the next leaders of this Country and they are influenced daily by social media, friends, and others. They need strong leaders at home to help guide them in life. Developer When looking at the Strength Insights assessment-describing the Theme of Developer--I was taken back by one phrase. Affirmation of Others. It states in the

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CliftonStrengths Insights that a person who is a Developer focuses on a person's strengths. Focusing on one’s personal strengths will occasionally bring you peace in the knowledge that through your help and guidance one of your staff or guests may have benefited from your knowledge, experiences, or talents. As a supervisor and youth minister, I feel this is one of my core leadership styles. Being able to encourage and give guidance to others is what I strive to do every day. I feel honored and respected when my staff, guests, and youth trust me enough to openly seek advice and to be able to discuss their successes and struggles with me. Adaptability Adaptability is a leadership theme that takes many years of practice and mentorship to accomplish. CliftonStrengths Insight Assessment defines adaptability as a leader who can, “Cultivate your reputation as a calm and reassuring person when others become upset by daily events.” (CliftonStrengths Assessment, 2019).? Some of the best leaders that I have worked for are those who are able to adapt to any situation, remain calm, and de-escalate any issue that arises with events, guests, or staff. Working in social services, the Theme of adaptability is necessary for any social worker or supervisor on the first day of employment. As a leader in the social services field, I have learned that my workday to is going to be filled with distractions and/or unexpected circumstance that take me away from my planned schedule. Knowing this, I must model calmness, and offer reassurance to staff and guests as we work through the situation together.

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Connectedness Through my research, the CliftonStrength Insight Theme of Connectedness is defined as a person who listens to others and can give counsel and advice to a person. The leader can encourage a colleague and guide them to an understanding of how they fit into the team and what their worth is to the team. As a leader, I am a strong believer in coaching and empowering others, and I feel that the Connectedness Theme falls into these two categories. It took me many years in leadership to develop a connectedness skill that works for me, amid some failed learning experiences. There is a fine line between being a fun, friend supervisor to being a respected, and approachable leader. I feel that I am a leader who can help guide and coach my staff towards accomplishing their goals and tasks. I believe that the five CliftonStrength categorical strengths, and being a servant leader, have always been how I lead my staff and those I work with at the Northside Church of Christ. As I conclude discussing my five categorical strengths, I will now transition into evaluating my chosen leadership theory of servant leadership and discuss three strengths and weaknesses of this chosen theory. The Servant leadership theory was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970’s when he published his first essay entitled, “The Servant Leader.” “Servant leaders are leaders who put other people’s needs, aspirations and interests above their own. The servant leader ’s deliberate choice is to serve others. In fact, the servant leader ’s chief motive is to serve first, as opposed to lead.” (Sendjaya, S. (2002). After reviewing my five CliftonStrengths Assessment strengths and researching all of

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leadership theories. I feel that a servant leader best fits my leadership style. I have always told my staff that I would not ask them to do anything that I am not willing to do myself. I back this statement up by doing the small things like cleaning up an accident in the lobby, creating a spreadsheet to make my staff’s job easier, and always having my door open to celebrate successes, listen to troubles, and coach towards solutions that deal with guest or workflow issues. As all leadership styles and theories, the servant leadership style comes with many strengths and weaknesses. As we continue discussing servant leadership, you will see three clear strengths that tie into servant leadership as well as three weakness that can be associated with this leadership style. Three Strengths of a Servant Leader The first strength I see as being a servant leader is that I model true transparency of my intentions as a leader. The people who serve alongside me clearly know that I look out for their best interests as a staff member, for the organization, and for the guests whom I am trying to lead and help. When researching strengths and weaknesses of a servant leader I found a quote that says, “One of the best features of servant leadership is that it can’t be faked. Power-hungry leaders will quickly show their true colors and their tactics will fail, resulting in a lack of trust, and as a result, lowering productivity.” (10 Servant Leadership Characteristics. (n.d.). I completely agree with this statement. A servant leader is always a person who is transparent with their requests. You will never find a hidden agenda when working side-by-side with this person. The second strength in being a servant leader is that, “While traditional leadership styles accumulate a great extent of power at the top rungs, servant leadership puts other people’s need first and shares power with them. A servant leader actively contributes to the personal development and performance of their team.” (10 Servant Leadership Characteristics. (n.d.). I

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feel that this statement truly expresses my philosophy as a leader. I am never one who wants recognition or to take credit for accomplishments, instead, I find myself deflecting the praise back to others. I feel that my job is to make my employees jobs easier, and in so doing I am sharing the power with them and giving them the freedom to make decisions and discuss them with me as a team. The final strength that I want to embody as a servant leader is to have the mentality that I want to serve first as opposed to leading first. Sen Sendjaya and James C Sarros say that, “This presupposition forms the mental model of the servant leader, that is the, "I serve," as opposed to the, "I lead," mentality. The primary reason why leaders exist is to serve first, not to lead first. To put it differently, the servant leader operates on the assumption that, "I am the leader, therefore I serve," rather than, "I am the leader, therefore I lead." (Sendjaya, S. (2002). I feel that I developed the service first philosophy due to having great leaders that modeled to me various ways of serving others in selfless ways. These men were able to show me how to successfully serve, and lead staff and volunteers in the Church, as well as how to successfully do these same things in positions outside of church. Three Weaknesses of a Servant Leader With every perceived strength of leadership comes an array of weaknesses that one must be aware of. Having chosen servant leadership as my philosophy, I clearly see three weaknesses in this theory. The first, is that a true servant leader is difficult to come by. In the Servant Leadership: The Cons of an otherwise ideal Leadership Theory, the author states that, “It is human nature to want to be successful and to receive rewards for great work, whether it is done by that person alone, or from subordinates. So, as we now know, one of the cons of servant leadership is that true servants are difficult to come by.” (Servant Leadership: The Cons of an otherwise ideal Leadership Theory. (2018, April 2). With my current employer, The Salvation

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Army, we see new supervisors every three-to-four years. The Salvation Army employment structure is set up similarly to the US Military deployments structure, where supervisors get to move to new locations every three-to-four years. Ever change brings with it a new leadership style. One would think that in a Christian non-profit organization most of the leaders would have a servant leader mentality. This however is not the case, and at times it causes issues with those that aren’t able to adapt to different styles of leadership. The second negative I see in having a servant leadership style is that it takes time to put into place. I feel that you must be good at building professional relationships based on boundaries. Depending on the size of your organization and the number of employees you supervise this can take a long time to build. If you have a company that needs immediate results and quick turnovers will suffer because servant leadership is built on building teams, relationships with people, and developing a feeling of belonging in the workplace. The final weakness that I see in the servant leadership model is what happens when a leader must terminate a position, discipline a staff member, or decide to close a program. Mitch McCrimmon states that, “The Bottom-Line Managers who position themselves to their teams as their servants one day, then discipline or fire them the next invite cynicism and distrust.” (McCrimmon, M. (2010, August 16). It is true that it is very difficult to discipline or make hard decisions when it comes to employees and programs. When you serve and build relationships, it is hard to separate what needs to be done from the feelings you have attached to the difficult decision. I have experienced cynicism and distrust after correcting performance issues or closing a program due to funding issues. This is the major drawback from the servant leadership style. One must be careful and develop strong boundaries so your staff knows that they can trust you, while also knowing that your relationship is not based on being friends. After evaluating the

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strengths and weaknesses of servant leadership and looking at myself as I leader, I have developed three actionable items and two smart goals that can help improve my effectiveness as a leader. First Actionable Item to Improve my Personal Leadership The first actionable item I plan to implement, to improve my personal leadership, is to reevaluate what The Salvation Army is are currently doing to build a people’s sense of community while here at work. Greenleaf lamented the loss of community in modern society, calling it, “the lost knowledge of these times.” (Smith, C. (2005, December 4). I agree that modern society gets caught up in the moment and we have everything at our fingertips with smartphones and social media. At work, I sometimes get caught up in what I am doing so that promoting a sense of community is lost at times. I feel this action plan ties well into the Strength Insights assessment describing the Theme of Developer which is an affirmation of others. After spending time looking at The Salvation Army’s sense of community, I feel we are lacking in this area. For this action step I feel that, even though, I praise my team and their work I need to show it through serving them. By creating events that serves the entire campus, specific programs or individualized staff will increase my staff’s sense of community and will increase they feelings of value and sense of appreciation. These events will range from simple gestures of bringing in treats to thank the team, having more community celebrations like birthdays, potlucks or specialized meetings to celebrate successes. It can be as simple as taking my managers out for individualized meals to show my appreciation for their efforts. I feel so strongly about this action step that I was inspired to create a SMART goal about building a better sense of community, which you will see below. Second Actionable Item to Improve my Personal Leadership

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The second actionable item to improve my personal leadership skills is to slow down, coach, and share with my staff more of the decision-making process. A lot of times in social services we get caught up in the current crisis and a decision is needed right away. In most cases, I will offer a solution instead of using that moment to coach my staff to a decision. Carol Smith states in, “ Sharing of Power in Decision-Making., “Effective servant-leadership is best evidenced by the cultivation of servantleadership in others. By nurturing participatory, empowering environments, and encouraging the talents of followers, the servant-leader creates a more effective, motivated workforce and ultimately a more successful organization.” (Smith, C. (2005, December 4). This action step would help me strengthen my CliftonStrengths skill in the fields of connectedness and adaptability. It will allow me to be a part of the employee’s process of remaining calm and adaptable in situations and will provide us opportunities to connect and solve a problem as a team. Third Actionable Item to Improve my Personal Leadership The last actionable step that I can improve on to develop my personal leadership is to give my staff more of my time. I have an open-door policy and stop working any time someone needs to come and see or talk with me. So even though I am available my employee’s rarely use this time. I have been told that they feel this a nuisance and distraction to me. Because of this I am going to schedule weekly meetings with my program manager where I can sit down with them, show that I am here to support them and see how I can assist them. As a servant leader I feel that this is a needed component in which I can improve on. By giving my staff scheduled time they may use that as an example to give some of their time to me as well. They will think of it as time well spent, instead of as an inconvenience.

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First SMART Goal This First SMART goal is based on first action plan based on building a stronger community at The Salvation Army. I will build a better sense of community by creating more community events like birthday potlucks for all staff to attend, celebrations to recognize success, bring treats to programs to say thanks, and in addition I will take me employees who directly report to me out for coffee or me...