Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership

Introduction

Leadership is widely discussed in management literature and popularly discussed for its theories and functions. A wide number of different theories and approaches have been used throughout decades which are used as development of many contemporary theories and concepts of leadership in different organizations and institutes (Russell, 2002). This paper explores servant leadership in context that it is compatible with other religions of world for instance Buddhism apart from Christianity. The paper also discusses characteristics, attributes and importance of self-awareness and emotional intelligence of servant leadership.

Discussion

Compatibility with Buddhism

I am fully in agreement of compatibility of servant leadership with religious theories and philosophies apart from its compatibility with Bible and Christianity. I would base my agreement on religious point of view on certain well-founded conceptualization and critical justification. The servant leadership theory was introduced by Robert Greenleaf in year 1964 (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002). According to him, a servant leader is someone who not only directs the group of people but also who subordinate their wishes, likes and preferences in order to bring welfare for them and welfare for the organization. It is also found that the way leader motivates and leads the group is directly linked with the performance and productivity. The history tells us that leaders are known for their integrity of purpose with burning desire to serve others. No one can deny the fact that leaders in every religion are influencers which wants to serve others before they serve themselves (Buchen, 1998).

According to various researchers, servant leadership many characteristics of Greenleaf are compatible with Buddhism's religious values. The foundation principles and values of Buddhists suggest that they have strong faith in virtues of their leader “Buddha” which guide them. This shows the listening characteristic of servant leadership as explained by Greenleaf (2003). These foundations have been based on inner states and external practices of Buddha which suggest the empathy characteristic of servant leadership which he shared with world in shape of empathy, love, joy, compassion and equanimity for the all creatures of the world (Kriger & Seng, 2005).

In addition, several researchers argued that compatibility of Buddhism with practicing and applying principles, values and virtues that are appropriate for day-to-day situations for healing makes compatibility with healing characteristics of servant leadership. This also suggest the contingency theory of leadership however researchers such as Kriger and Seng (2005) support that these values are consistent with servant ...