Servant Leadership at the United Way Organization

Introduction

When it comes to running a business, adopting an effective leadership model is one of the most critical factors. Employees’ needs and empowerment are at the heart of the servant leadership paradigm, and it has become increasingly popular in recent years. Instead of the authoritarian structure of most businesses, the model favours business owners who are concerned about their employee’s well-being and their professional development. Delegating and providing continual support to team members is a manager’s responsibility in a management situation. United Way Canada is among the organizations that use servant leadership in their management. The service provided by United Way Canada helps people find local and specialized community and social benefits that meet their unique requirements. Using servant leadership, the firm impacts people’s lives within the organization and the employees. The paper discusses servant leadership, reasons for not following the approach, and its effects on the United Way organization

Background

Servant Leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf (Ganoe, 1996: 1). Ganoe states that though the term servant leadership appears to be an oxymoron as it’s not common to think of” servants as leaders or leaders as servants.” According to Daft, servant leadership is “upside down” as it aims to “transcend self-interest to serve the needs of others, help others grow and develop, and provide opportunity for others to gain materially and emotionally.” (2018: 178) Servant leaders ask questions like “what good can we do?” Greenleaf describes that there are many different types of people in the world and then there are ones he refers to as “spirit carriers” and “servant who nurture spirit are spirit carriers.” (Frick, Senge & Spears, 2004: 12) He goes on to say that these people “serve to connect those who do the work of the world, or who are being prepare for that role, with vision from both past and contemporary prophets.” This type of leadership style tends to be common in the non-for-profit sector (Howard, 2019: 6) “Servant leadership stresses personal integrity and serving others, including employees, customers, and communities.” (Liden et al, 2008, 161) Daft describes servant leadership as “leadership in which the leader transcends self-interest to serve the needs of others, help others grow, and provide opportunities for others to gain materially and emotionally.” (2018: 178)

Servant Leadership Principles and Models

First it is important to examine the four basic principles laid out by Greenleaf and understand the principles. Daft indicates that the first principle requires putting service before self-interest (2018: 179). This principle indicates that the organization survives “to provide meaningful work for the organization.” The second principle seeks to listen to affirm others. By this, Greenleaf means to say that a “servant leader’s greatest gifts to others is listening authentically.” The third principle states that the servant leader inspires trust by a way of being trustworthy themselves. Therefore, a servant leader “build[s] trust by doing what they will do, being honest with others, and focusing on the well-being of others.” The final principle seeks to “[n]ourish others and help them become whole. Servant leaders care about followers and believe in the unique potential of each person to have a positive impact on the world.” These four principles are the backbone of Greenleaf’s theory around servant leadership.

The first principle aims to place “service before self-interest”. This principle discusses how there is a natural disposition to serve others (Howard, 2019: 5). The second principle seeks to listen to affirm others (Daft, 2018: 179) by putting the followers needs first (Howard, 2019: 34). The third principle states that the servant leader inspires trust by a way of being trustworthy themselves. Therefore, a servant leader “build[s] trust by doing what they will do, being honest with others, and focusing on the well-being of others.” Finally, the fourth principle seeks to “[n]ourish others and help them become whole. Servant leaders care about followers and believe in the unique potential of each person to have a positive impact on the world.”

“Leaders can play a critical role in helping employees to realize their potential.” (Liden R. et al, 2008, 161) The servant leadership approach aims to “focus on developing employees to their fullest potential in the areas of task effectiveness, community stewardship, self-motivation, and future leadership capabilities.” (162) This type of leadership style focuses on bringing “out the best in their followers, leaders rely on one-on-one communication to understand the abilities, needs, desires, goals, and potential of those individuals.” (162) According to Liden et al, there are nine dimensions to servant leadership:

1. Emotional healing—the act of showing sensitivity to others’ personal concerns
2. Creating value for the community—a conscious, genuine concern for helping the community
3. Conceptual skills—possessing the knowledge of the organization and tasks at hand so as to be in a position to effectively support and assist others, especially immediate followers
4. Empowering—encouraging and facilitating others, especially immediate followers, in identifying and solving problems, as well as determining when and how to complete work tasks
5. Helping subordinates grow and succeed—demonstrating genuine concern for others’ career growth and development by providing support and mentoring
6. Putting subordinates first—using actions and words to make it clear to others (especially immediate followers) that satisfying their work needs is a priority (Supervisors who practice this principle will often break from their own work to assist subordinates with problems they are facing with their assigned duties.)
7. Behaving ethically—interacting openly, fairly, and honestly with others
8. Relationships—the act of making a genuine effort to know, understand, and support others in the organization, with an emphasis on building long-term relationships with immediate followers
9. Servanthood—a way of being marked by one’s self-categorization and desire to be characterized by others as someone who serves others first, even when self-sacrifice is required (162).

This type of leadership “place[s] the needs of their subordinates before their own needs and center their efforts on helping subordinates grow to reach their maximum potential and achieve optimal organizational and career success.” (163) They are motivated in accomplishing the nine dimensions by a need to ‘want their subordinates to improve for their own good, and view the development of followers as an end, in and of itself, not merely a means to reach the leader’s or organization’s goals’ (163) These nine qualities “manifest themselves through the behavior of a servant leader include ethical behavior and a high level of conceptual ability.” (163) Trust develops in the relationship because of the subordinate finding the leader’s judgments and actions to be thoughtful, dependable, and moral. They place emphasis on “a quality relationship.” (163) furthermore, they assist “‘subordinates to grow, servant leaders attend to the affective and emotional needs of subordinates’ offering support that extends beyond the formal employment contract.” (163)

Dierendonck describes servant leadership dimensions as empowerment, accountability, standing back, humility, authenticity, courage, interpersonal acceptance, and stewardship (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011: 251-252). In his framework, empowerment focuses “on enabling people and encouraging person development.” (251) Accountability focuses on “holding people accountable for performance they can control.” (251) Standing back refers to “the extent to which a leader gives priority to the interest of others first and gives them the necessary support and credits”, which is related to “authenticity, empowerment, humility, and stewardship.” (252)

Humility is another dimension of this model, and it places emphasis on “the ability to put one’s own accomplishments and talents in a proper perspective” by “proper understanding of one’s strong and weak points.” (252) Therefore, as a servant leader, one would “acknowledge their limitations” and “actively seek the contributions of others” to “overcome those limitations.” (252) This model considers authenticity, which is fundamentally about being “true to oneself”, both in private and publicly. Courage refers to risk taking, which relies on “values and convictions that govern one’s actions”. (252) Interpersonal acceptance refers to the ability to understand where other people are coming from and the ability to let go of perceived wrongdoings by not carrying a grudge. This dimension is about showing empathy and therefore, this component focuses on the ability to build trust. The final dimension highlights stewardship, where one takes “responsibility for the larger institution and go for service instead of control and self-interest.” (252)

Society’s perceptions of leadership conduct and style are evolving. Considering the prevailing need for higher morale and person-centric management, servant leadership theory-inspired leadership is what firms need. In recent years, many theories have been posited to explain servant leadership. This approach encourages people to share their thoughts on how to improve the organization. Thus, it enables workers to express their views on the organization, giving them the feeling that they can be themselves at work and impact organizational operations. The essay focuses on Van Dierendonck’s and Liden’s servant leadership models. Comparing both leadership models reveals that management research has significantly shifted from a heavy emphasis on transformational leadership. Currently, leadership research is tilted toward a greater focus on a collective, interactional, and global viewpoint, where the cooperation between followers and leaders is increasingly essential.

The servant leadership paradigm reverses the conventional concept of authority and power by leading from a place of service. Van Dierendonck’s model of servant leadership is based on the idea that servant leaders incentivize and develop individuals and simultaneously hold them responsible for the results of their tasks (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Liden’s model alludes that the servant leader’s capacity is to “articulate community citizenship, in-role performance, and organizational commit” (Liden et al., 2008, p.174). Accordingly, instead of relying primarily on measurements, the models assert that a servant leader emphasizes the importance of dedication and devotion.

The Servant Leadership model by Van Dierendonck comprises 30 questions representing the eight aspects. These are forgiveness, standing back, empowerment, courage, authenticity, accountability, stewardship, and humility (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Unlike the past two versions, it is broader and contains an excellent theory that accounts for the contrast between the ‘servant’ and ‘leader’ sides of this leadership style (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). According to Van Dierendonck, servant leaders operate with a humble disposition exemplified by an openness to learn and a readiness to accept failures, adhere to their inherent beliefs, and prioritize the benefit of the group (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). The earliest research paper demonstrated the validity of its concept. A simplified variant, consisting of 18 questions, was recently developed to illustrate cross-cultural factorial robustness (Van Dierendonck et al., 2017). Consistent with the broad state of leadership theories, metrics of servant leadership emphasize the top-down leader-follower relationship.

Particular leader attributes serve as the main difference between the two leadership models. In contrast to Van Dierendonck, Liden et al. (2008), identified seven essential servant leadership traits including ethical behavior, helping followers develop and prosper, empowering, conceptual skills, emotional healing, and contributing to the community’s well-being. These were based on constructing a seven-dimensional scale with 28 elements (Liden et al., 2008). Within the context of this paradigm, each of the seven categories is represented by four different items. Liden’s model provides three antecedent prerequisites for servant leadership. Antecedent circumstances consider the issue on a personal level, and they are comprised of three elements: leader characteristics, follower receptivity, and context and culture (Liden et al., 2008). The first two antecedent conditions explain the leader’s personal characteristics or features, while the third describes the leadership situation. Van Dierendonck’s model does not have similar antecedent conditions as fundamental for effective servant leadership.

Independent testing of the approaches with other leadership measures revealed that it is critical to consider all leadership attributes to quantify servant leadership on its whole in both models. In this context, the Van Dierendonck methodology used the Rafferty and Griffin (2004) scale to assess transformative leadership. This instrument is divided into five subscales of three items: inspirational communication, vision, supportive leadership, intellectual stimulation, and personal recognition (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Their findings show that the transformational leadership tenets and the eight aspects of the servant leadership style exhibit substantial relationships with humility, empowerment, and stewardship, accompanied by equally robust associations with authenticity and standing back (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). In contrast, Liden et al. (2008) assessed transformational leadership using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire’s (MLQ) 20-item transformational leadership scale (Van Jaarsveld et al., 2019). According to the findings, all seven qualities of servant leadership are associated modestly,.43, to highly,.79, with transformative leadership (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). These findings imply that servant leadership qualities are not incompatible with transformative leadership.

Another key difference between the two models is that Van Dierendonck compares servant leadership with transactional leadership, whereas Liden et al. do not. There was a moderate to low correlation between servant leadership and punishment in the former model. Instead, a greater emphasis was placed on a service-oriented mindset and meeting the followers’ needs under servant leadership. Similarly, the model compares servant leadership with charismatic leadership and the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership which have comparable results with transformational leadership. Although Liden’s model compares LMX with servant leadership, the lack of a direct comparison between the transactional leadership model limits its validity. Such a comparison would help to identify which leadership factors of servant leadership style correlate with transactional leadership. More importantly, it would have provided a good starting point to compare the validity of Van Dierendonck’s outcomes.

Characteristics and Critical Behaviors of a Servant Leader

To determine if the United Way follows the principles of servant leadership, it must be determined if they are displaying the characteristics and critical behaviors of this leadership model. To become a servant leader, you must have a vision. If the leader does not have a vision, the team does not have a goal to work toward (Boone & Makhani, 2012). The United Way has multiple divisions across North America, each with a slightly different vision. Generally they are all working to create opportunities for people in their communities to have a better life (About United Way, 2022). Therefore they do have a collective goal to guide them and their teams.

Investing time into scouting out talent is an integral part of servant leadership (Boone & Makhani, 2012). Research has shown that servant leaders are more likely to flourish in non-profit organizations, as people who are part of them engage, not for the monetary rewards, but in some cases primarily for the intrinsic rewards of giving to others (Kiker, et al., 2019). The servant leader must find the best talent for their company who commit to the success of their organization and are also satisfied with non-monetary rewards. United Way is a non-profit organization and hires its own staff as well as working with external community builders. In order to support this, internally, they search for talent who are also committed to serving their community and offer competitive compensation and benefits to attract talent (About United Way, 2022).

Servant leaders must also be comfortable giving away power (Boone & Makhani, 2012). In this sense, United Way must understand that once their funds have been allocated to the various organizations, they do not have complete power over them. United Way Canada has published reports for its various community organizations on community agreements or contracts and how to manage the funds that are allocated to each organization (About United Way, 2022). Although this appears contrary to the characterization of giving away power, according to Kiker, et al, (2019) the power of the servant leader is persuasion. Persuasion should be used to better both the organization and the greater community that you are serving (Kiker, et al., 2019). Therefore, when potentially allocating millions of dollars to funding community organizations, United Way is using their power of persuasion to address how the funding may be used and continues to abide by the definition of a servant leader.

Finally, servant leaders must be a community builder (Boone & Makhani, 2012). Considering this is the vision of the United Way they are displaying this characteristic. United Way has been a vocal supporter of building communities for well over a century, under multiple previous names. (About United Way, 2022). Since each community organization is its own entity under the United Way umbrella, they each have a unique sense of what their community needs are and how to best achieve them (About United Way, 2022).

Servant Leadership as It Relates to Ethical Altruism

Servant leadership and organizational culture demonstrate altruism as a concern for growth and development without an additional objective for one’s gain. Servant leadership refers to leaders who put people and their organization first (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). United Way firm ensures that there are no personal motives for such drive but rather a desire to help the company and its employees flourish first and foremost. People’s minds crave a sense of belonging to a tribe, but United Way Company often does not provide it. Servant leadership fills the void by fostering a feeling of social identity in their followers and forming teams that are more comparable to the kinship found in the communities served by the organization (Pawar et al., 2020). A leadership model based on servant leadership may be able to meet the demands of today’s workplace while satisfying the primal need for a sense of community. Since most firms are increasingly adopting servant leadership methods, this could be the reason why a study on servant leadership continues to grow.

United Way serves as an example for others at the top that emphasizes the growth and expansion of followers in many ways. First and foremost, the leadership aims to cultivate followers founded on their leaders’ humane and moral dispositions. People are more involved and creative in their work when the well-being and advancement of their colleagues are given top priority (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). In the eyes of servant leaders, they are custodians of the organization’s resources, both financial and non-financial. Although they emphasize their followers’ personal development, they do not neglect performance demands (Saleem et al., 2020). Rather than focusing on short-term gains at the expense of society’s long-duration health and well-being, servant leadership emphasizes the importance of long-term health and wellness.

Organizational Culture and Servant Leadership

The servant leadership model must have all principles in use to instill trust in the leader and in turn the organization. Leaders who do not have the trust of their team members may not be comfortable passing power or building autonomy in their subordinates. In turn this may cause the team to feel resentful of the organization. The United Way has to consider that they must build trust in three separate categories, the internal staff members who work for the organization, their external community partners and finally the public who donate funds to the United Way.

More and more, people are asking companies and organizations to lead with ethical business practices (Kiker, et al., 2019). In the recent past, criticism came to United Way as it was revealed that various executive team members were earning a high income. Questions regarding how funds were allocated to community groups versus organization salaries arose. It was not helpful that while learning of these high executive wages, reports of accounting fraud were also taking place (Cohen, 2007).

The United Way is an organization with multiple divisions. Each division functions independently, with their own team members and board of directors (About United Way, 2022). While the organization is being true to the servant leadership definition that you must build autonomy in the team, it is not able to account for the various, potentially harmful behaviors of the individual division. We have learned that only a few divisions were using their money in improper ways but because the organization name is used for all divisions, public trust was lost in all United Way divisions when this information was disclosed (Cohen, 2007). The United Way’s vision of building community cannot be realized if their structure continues to support unethical business practices. If the United Way continues to fail ethically in multiple communities, both employees and the public will no longer support their cause.

In order to begin to build back this trust, United Way has encouraged the public to question where their funds are allocated and are transparent with their accounting (About United Way, 2022). They must continue along this path of honesty in order to continue on their journey to completing their vision of building self-sustainable communities.

Reasons for Followers not Supporting Servant Leadership Approach

Among the most apparent restrictions of servant leadership is the need for leaders to be ready to surrender the total regulation of their organizations. Traditionally, CEOs make all choices, convey those verdicts to their assistants, and are gifted when the rank-and-file adopt those decisions. This is in direct contrast to United Way firm’s new leadership model (Saleem et al., 2020). When it comes to servant leadership, leaders have to surrender their egos to help others succeed. To be a servant leader, one must give credit to the people for them to go above and beyond expectations (Bauer et al., 2019). Therefore, the disadvantages of servant leadership are that it is complex for business owners ready to behave selflessly in their mission for success.

Servant leadership demotivates employees, leading to subpar work outputs in the long run. (Liao et al., 2021) Employees are less motivated to work hard if a servant leader comes to their aid too frequently. Employees are more likely to take a back seat in their everyday activities if they believe their manager will step in to meet their requirements or settle any issues (Eva et al., 2019). Among the most significant drawbacks of the employer, leadership is decreased work motivation and output.

When discussing the drawbacks of servant leadership, it is essential to remember that prioritizing the needs of the employees first can reduce the absolute authority of the management team. Employees have low chances of perceiving their supervisors as authoritative figures when they see their managers go to extremes to meet their wants (Wu et al., 2021). Servant managers in United Way organization have difficulty taking on a more dominant role when senior management wants their subordinates to drive for improved performance. Businesses cannot just show empathy and understanding without attempting to develop authority that helps distinguish the boss from the employee.

Besides, servant leadership has various issues, including the reality that one size does not fit all. As a result, not every company is a good candidate for this approach. It takes time to shape an operative servant leadership scheme because it requires dedication to training the employees and fostering their professional and personal development (Liao et al., 2021). The lack of stability in a company’s work culture makes it difficult for managers to apply servant leadership, making it less effective. This is primarily true when goodhearted supervisors are more anxious about the feelings of their staff than their necessities. To avoid hurting an employee’s feelings, managers avoid making unpleasant decisions or critiquing their performance (Eva et al., 2019). The challenges of employer leadership must be weighed against the advantages for business owners, who must scrutinize their organizational structure.

Results of Servant Leadership on the Organization, Society, and Followers

Regulatory emphasis plays a controlling function in the impacts of servant leadership on groups’ helping and creative actions. Individuals are predisposed to one of two self-regulation mindsets, such as preventative and promotion emphasis (Khan et al., 2021). Regulatory focus theory emphasizes the need for safety and prompts people to take a more cautious approach to their behaviours, resulting in a prevention focus. On the other hand, requirements for advancement elicit promotion necessity and spur employees to greater levels of creativity and innovation. Promotion-focused persons focus on nurturing dreams and objectives and gains rather than losses more than those who focus on prevention. Despite the trait’s trait-like nature, situations might shift one’s attention from one attribute to another (Karatepe et al., 2019). Therefore, demonstrating which workplace cues might influence an employee’s attentiveness.

Another effect is that organizational commitment could be increased through servant leadership. Khan et al. (2021) depict that servant leadership boosts the confidence, faithfulness, and satisfaction of those led by it. Community support and outreach are fostered via Servant Leader Behaviors. Conceptualization is the first step in the process where it supports the leader look at the comprehensive picture and taking into account the current conditions. It is motionless able to conceive of a solution that observes the company’s values and ethics (Lemoine et al., 2019). It might easily lead to a surge in local support in the right circumstances. Considering a communal problem through United Way company and how it affects everyone in the community, one will realize what conceptualizing is all about (Karatepe et al., 2019). A servant leader would see this situation and feel compelled to assist solve it, or at the very least to get others involved.

A servant leader feels compelled to serve and give back to the community and must encourage others to do the same and educate them on the reputation of giving back and its benefits to the organization and the community. Wu et al. (2021) argue that it builds value for the community, and one will inspire others to do the same. This will help create a never-ending loop of people helping each other and receiving the help they need.

Because a good community leads to a good business, servant leaders highlight the need to serve the community. Leaders who put their followers first and allow them to take the reins, guiding them to make ethical and beneficial decisions for all parties concerned, create an environment where their followers can grow and improve (Lemoine et al., 2019). In the same way that parents raise their children, putting their own needs second to those of their children, servant leaders do the same with their followers. When people act this way, they create a never-ending loop of colonial building bricks that allow them to improve themselves and help the less fortunate (Karatepe et al., 2019). Therefore, servant leadership encourages people to get involved in their communities.

Conclusion

Servant leadership is essential in improving commitment at the personal and organizational levels. It is the type of leadership where people prioritize the needs of others while ignoring their own. Most followers do not consider it because it reduces the authority of the management team. However, servant leadership motivates people to improve their commitment to serving the community and their followers.

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