Servant Leadership solution

Servant Leadership solution

Introduction

Greenleaf describes servant leaders as those individuals who go beyond their own self-interest to serve his followers by enabling them to grow in a professional and personal way (Spears, 2005). He further offers that a servant leader is that one who is a servant first and that it all starts with the feeling that the one just wants to serve and that is their major priority before anything else. Thereafter, the leader will develop the conscious choice which will make him want to lead (Ebener & David, 2010). The actual difference lies in the care that the leader takes which is in making sure that the highest priority of other people is fully taken care of (Allen et al, 2016). This kind of leadership is tested along the premise of whether those people who are served grow as persons and achieve their utmost happiness and if the persons leading are able to become servants themselves. This discussion looks at servant leadership as exhibited by Henry Ford.

Henry Ford exhibits many servant leadership qualities which made him to achieve success at the helm of his company. In this paper there are those qualities that stand out to make servant leadership a reality in him. For instance, his values of emotional intelligence, value of employees and belief in equality do set him apart from the other leaders who ever led the company. These three leadership qualities made him to change the direction of his place of work.

Summary of servant leadership principles he exhibited

Listening is one of the servant leadership principles Henry Ford exhibited. Servant leaders are valued by their followers for the decision-making and communication skills that they show while handling their workers (Spears, 2005). Much as these two are also important skills for a servant leader, they should be reinforced by some deep commitment of listening to followers. By doing so, the leader shows his followers that he actually values them. The second principle he exhibited is empathy towards his followers which actually boils down to equality. A servant leader always strives to be empathetic and understanding to his followers. This is because people always want to be accepted and also recognized for the unique spirits that they have. By harboring empathy, a leader will automatically assume the right intentions of their followers and will not merely reject them as people even when he rejects or accepts their level of performance (Spears, 2005). The last principle is to have foresight which bring about emotional intelligence. This attribute is closely linked to conceptualization which is concerned with the ability of foreseeing how a given situation will end. This is one unique quality that is just seen in a leader after the outcome of their actions.

Specific examples to illustrate the principles

Henry Ford believed in equality because of the mere fact that his business decisions in the course of diversity led to the growth of equality in his place of work. He gave positions of employment to women, disabled people and African Americans long before other people saw it necessary to do so (Farnaz, 2014). In 1916, for example, he did employ people who represented 62 different countries. During this time, the company also employed more than 900 individuals with disability and over the years he set standards that were against inequality.

He also set one of the most important examples of how people are valued at their place of work. Much as it shocked Wall Street he is on record for increasing the wages of workers to five dollars for a daily payment and put in place an eight-hour duration within which one would work in a day. He did this for the mere fact that it would help in motivating workers and also help in retaining them (Farnaz, 2014). Lastly, he was emotionally intelligent. This is denoted in the fact that he understood that saving money for clients would make them feel valued. Further, he was sensitive to the needs of the economy at the time and hence he employed actions that showed customers that he actually cared for them.

The unique way that he inspires followership

Henry Ford was in tune with the financial as well as work life balance of his employees. Since he endeavored to show his appreciation and understanding to them, he put in place positive wage and shift changes (Farnaz, 2014). He is even on record for saying that the secret to success lies in the ability of getting the point of view of the person one is dealing with. Through such efforts he was able to inspire followership.

What should be emulated

This selfless act of servant leadership should actually be emulated in order to achieve company growth. The fact that servant leaders have the belief that individuals do have some inept value beyond the contributions that they make as workers (Spears, 2005). Due to this, the servant leader should be committed to the growth of every individual in the company. The result of this is that the worker will be endeared to the company and hence better results.