Profile of a servant leader

In accordance with the vision on servant leadership we sketch the outlines of a servant leader below. Should you have the ambition to develop into a servant leader, this profile could help you clarify your development goals. Included in the text are links to pages discussing the various aspects of servant leadership in further detail.

As a servant leader you are focused on achieving synthesis, you have insight into the systemic laws of service and leadership, and know how to connect these insights within yourself to a powerful and compassionate leadership style. This allows you to help other people develop towards a disposition where the question “What is good, right and just for everyone?” also determines their behaviour, so that both their qualities and those of the greater whole are brought out more. You possess self-awareness and an ability to self-regulate, enabling you to withstand the temptation of directive, compelling leadership on the one hand, and an overly pliant or uncertain attitude on the other. You act from a well-balanced, development-oriented basic disposition, which is characterized by your ability to subordinate your ego to the interests of the collective, without losing in strength or individuality. On the contrary; you experience an increase in both aspects.

In all of your actions priority lies with the creating synthesis by connecting people to collective goals, whereby you facilitate the creation of a dynamic concept everyone is convinced of, and in which all can and wish to participate equally. The common interest identified within this setting, will automatically serve everyone’s individual interest. Besides, you understand the art of standing among, in front and behind people, rather than above them. As a result, people experience support in their development towards greater autonomy, ownership, self-regulation and result-orientedness. A process that you guide, sometimes by coaching, sometimes by steering, sometimes by letting go, but always by being motivating and well-considered, by acting at the right moments and in the right amount. As such, you transform separation to unity, opponents to synthesis and stagnation into strength with the help of your social and communicative skills. And contribute to your own personal development, as well as to that of your colleague’s and your organisation.