The Servant Leadership Model

This Christmas season, I'm sure many of us are enjoying or preparing to enjoy some fun holiday traditions. One ritual I always enjoy is the yearly viewing of one of my all-time favorite movies: It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, it is very much a traditional feel-good movie, but this classic also presents some valuable lessons that we can apply to our lives and workplaces, most notably the example of servant leadership.

What is servant leadership? It is a model of leadership that centers around inspiring others to action through example and acts of service. The terminology was first published by Robert Greenleaf in his 1970 essay "The Servant as Leader", and was expanded in 1972 to involve institutions (companies, schools, etc.) in his essay "The Institution as Servant". But while the model didn't always have a name, it has been applied throughout time, and first documented in the Holy Scriptures in the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.

While we live in an economy that is in some ways powered by self-interest, the servant leadership model instead recognizes that service can be a great motivator. Those who choose to serve their coworkers and staff provide them with a tangible example of the impact of putting the needs of a person (or the team or the company) above their own. Servant leaders have the power to show others that they have value, that they are worth investing in. This kind of message can be empowering in a way that fear and punishment based management cannot, a way that equips those who receive service to go and do likewise, paying it forward to others.

In It's A Wonderful Life, the main character George Bailey is the perfect example of a servant leader. Though he has his own dreams and desires in life, he constantly chooses to set those aside for the good of a small town bank called The Building and Loan, and the people it served. For example, at one point in the movie George chooses to give up his honeymoon savings to keep the bank from going under in a moment of crisis. Over the course of his life, George impacts many people's lives (both personally and through work at Building and Loan), to the point where at the end of the movie, all of them come back to help George at a time when he needs it most.

While we may not all be called to give up our dreams, desires, or our personal savings in service to others, It's a Wonderful Life shows us some practical ways we can choose to model servant leadership in our workplaces. Some examples include: speaking truthfully to others (including when we don't know the answer), encouraging and helping others live up to their potential, standing up for others and being a dependable worker, and choosing to believe in the power of small acts of kindness. Should we choose not to believe that self-interest makes the world go-round, these are the characteristics that will make a difference in our workplaces.

I certainly have felt the impact of servant leaders through managers in my current and previous employers, and their example has helped motivate me to pay it forward in my workplace. If you or your workplace has not shared or thought about the servant leadership model, I can't think of a better resolution going into this New Year.