“To be a servant leader, you can’t be afraid to help clean the toilets.” I heard this statement from a speaker presenting on leadership some years ago. At the time, it strongly appealed to me – the implied humility, the ‘elbow-greasy-get-down-in-the-trenches’ feel of it.

Reflecting on that presentation, I now realize that the speaker was missing it. In his mind – Servant Leadership was about being willing to do small, dirty or menial tasks. The ideal Servant Leader would never ask someone to do something he or she wouldn’t do herself. And that was all there was to know about servant leadership.

I’ve experienced that kind of leader. The leader that was so willing to ‘get down in the trenches’ that they lost sight of the big picture. They were unable to move the organization, as a whole, forward; and, because of the belief that “I must be willing to do it myself”, they were overwhelmed in their actual responsibility to lead.

A servant-leader isn’t uncomfortable or apologetic about leading. In research recorded in his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins found that superior companies were led by individuals who were driven by a unique combination of personal humility combined with intense group ambition. Their drive was for their company, their organization, or their team. As a result, the company, organization or team flourished.  

Robert Greenleaf, who coined the term Servant Leader, framed it this way:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then, conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…”

The idea is that, for the servant leader, leadership presents itself as the best tool or option for serving others. Perhaps that leadership is thrust upon them. Perhaps they see a need; and are willing to lead the charge to address it. However it is arrived at, leadership isn’t pursued merely because of personal ambition for status, power or reward.

Four Questions to Explore Your Own Servant Leadership:

• In what ways are the people closest to me growing professionally and personally? How important is this to me?

• How do I support my team to independently make decisions and solve problems well?

• To what degree are the people around me, particularly those that have worked with me longest, also motivated to grow and develop others?

• How do I, as well as my team and organization, relate to the weakest and most vulnerable people in our teams or in the community? Have they benefitted, or at least not been harmed, by us?

Effective servant leadership is about doing. It’s about leading strongly in the direction that will provide the greatest benefit and growth to the people around you. It’s about using our careers to build people – not about using people to build our careers.

If that sentiment feels too ‘fuzzy’ or soft for the real world – consider the tremendous body of research demonstrating the value of this approach. The popular work done by Kouzes & Posner, Collins, Goleman, Maxwell and Blanchard all stress the same thing: People work best for servant-minded leaders. 

On a personal level, chances are, the leaders who have had the greatest impact on your life were demonstrating servant leadership. They were willing to lead for the benefit of others.

Servant Leadership makes good sense for your bottom line – whether that line is financial, social or spiritual. It’s about growing people and releasing them to be the best that they can be. That’s an investment that pays dividends in any economy.