10 Characteristics of Servant Leadership
| 10 Characteristics of Servant Leadership | Does Colleen Barrett (former CEO of Southwest Airlines) demonstrate the characteristics of Servant Leadership? Why or why not? |
| Listening | One of the characteristics displayed by Barret as a servant leader is that she spent over 85% of her time as the president dealing with employee-related issues to ensure that they remain motivated and happy. |
| Empathy | Empathy is portrayed through her willingness to solve employees’ and customer’s problems and readiness to make people feel good despite their situation. |
| Healing | Her nature in trying to make people feel good and optimistic despite the dilemma plays a significant role in bringing out her healing characteristics. |
| Awareness | Barret is aware of her community and acknowledges that she is not perfect, which leads her to treat customers and employees equally. |
| Persuasion | Barret changed Southwest’s position in the airline industry by persuading people that they can do somethings differently, reassuring their customers to rely on their services despite the presence of crisis. |
| Commitment to the Growth of People | Barret demonstrates a commitment to growth through the prioritization of employee and customer satisfaction. |
| Foresight
| She predicted a future where Southwest will be the leading airline in offering excellent customer services; she wanted the company to be a productive, secure, and safe place for the employees. |
| Stewardship
| As a servant leader, Barret portrays stewardship through her ability to improve Southwest and maintain its status as it was expected of her by the former president Herb Kelleher. |
| Building community
| Barret inspires community building by encouraging the overall team’s performance, which she acknowledges to be more important than individual collaboration. |
| Conceptualization
| Barret views herself as a noble achiever, which helped her in the conceptualization of the airline’s vision into offering incredible services. |
| Is Colleen Barrett a Servant Leader? Why or why not? | Colleen Barret is a servant leader who, according to the video, adapted an upside-down hierarchy that prioritizes on the employees, passengers, and then shareholders. On the 11th minute, Barret refers to herself “as good as a follower as he is as a leader (if I am one).” Servant leaders do not praise themselves and do not identify as stereotypical. |
| 10 Characteristics of Servant Leadership | Does Marissa Mayer (former CEO of Yahoo!) demonstrate the characteristics of Servant Leadership? Why or why not? |
| Listening | This characteristic is not well-portrayed by Mayer because most of the decisions she made employees were not involved. For example, the policy to eliminate virtual offices left employees dissatisfied. |
| Empathy | Mayer lacks empathy, which explains why she turned on a blind eye to the employees’ dissatisfaction. |
| Healing | Mayer often made the employees feel about themselves; she was not a consoler and expected everyone to be at their best performance. |
| Awareness | She lacks awareness of when people are in need of a different type of leadership and the need for interaction to improve productivity and innovation. |
| Persuasion | Mayer is unable to convince employees successfully. Although she aims at bringing transformation, Mayer fails in her communication skills. |
| Commitment to the Growth of People | Mayer was not committed to the growth of the people; she focused on making Yahoo look more like Google without consideration of the demands and needs of the employees. |
| Foresight
| Her future for the company is to make it an innovator and raise it from the low market position. |
| Stewardship
| Mayer partly shows stewardship through her attempts to improve Yahoo’s status, but the constant disapproval from the employees indicates a failure in some aspects. |
| Building community
| Mayer fails in her ability to building Yahoo’s community because she made most of the decisions independently, which negatively impacted the performance of the group. |
| Conceptualization
| Mayer remained positive and conceptualized that by introducing reforms in the work policy and fostering collaborative culture through face-to-face interaction would help improve the business. |
| Is Marissa Meyer a Servant Leader? Why or why not? | Marissa Mayer is more of an autocratic leader than a servant leader; although she played a significant role in increasing Yahoo’s stock in 2008, Mayer’sform of leadership exempted all other parties and expected them to be followers of her words. |