In my role as an instructor of lean construction and facilitator, I often run into a lot of resistance and pushback while trying to impart lean principles and practices. The most commonly encountered argument is, “you don’t know how to do my job, and yet you’re here to teach me how to do it.” Another colorful version of this idea could include, “wait, this guy can’t even hang IKEA shelves in his house, and he’s here to teach me how to do my job?” My first reaction whenever I encounter this type of objection comes to mind: “ooh, this would be a great time to talk about Servant Leadership!”
So, I typically inquire: “Who knows how to make honey? Are they the bees or Beekeeper?” This simple question is always a source of interesting and lively discussion. It is easy to see the lighting bulbs exploding all over the room.
As a beekeeper who is not a professional, I feel like an employee. I do not teach pipefitters how to install pipes, and, most importantly, I do not instruct bees on how to make honey. Trust me when I say that the most important thing you do not would like to do is cause a disturbance to the 60,000… “coworkers”.
What I do as a “servant leader beekeeper” is increase my hive’s size, ensure they have plenty of water and food and strive to ensure that my bees are healthy and free of disease.
In essence, I work to create ideal conditions to allow my bees to perform what they do best, which is to complete their “bee job” at their highest. In essence, that’s what an effective leader does. We try to provide the most favorable conditions for our team members to shine. Even if we do not know how to carry out the work our team is completing. A “traditional” leader might provide vision, direction, and motivation to increase the performance of your business by focusing on key performance indicators (KPIs) like customer revenues, market share, revenue, etc. In terms of the traditional leader’s services are to the company.
However an effective servant leader concentrates on the growth of his employees and enhances various KPIs like learning, sharing knowledge as well as autonomy, and even the well-being of employees. A servant leader’s responsibility is to his or her employees. If your staff members are better-trained as well as more knowledgeable and driven, they will manage your business KPIs because they are more concerned.
There are many research papers and case studies about servant leadership. I suggest starting with this extensive 2022 research that examines more than 350 academic studies ( see link on PubMed).
The general consensus regarding the benefits of servant-leadership is that the majority of teams experience greater creativity in their employees and co-creation of value (Lean refers to value as we all know? ) and empowerment, as well as the ability to see clearly and perform. In the same way, stress levels in the workplace are reduced. Interestingly, another indicator known as WFC or “Work-to-Family-Conflict” has been measured, and results found that servant-led employees exhibited reduced work to family conflict and increased “Work to family positive spillover”, WFPS.
Okay, maybe you’re sure. How can you become an atypical and more an exemplary leader? Writer Larry C. Spears summarized the top ten traits of a servant leader in his paper of 2000 ” Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders“. These are:
- Listening. The ability to listen enables you to determine and clarify the needs and desires of your team.
- Empathy. Recognize the uniqueness of everyone. Did you remember the sitcom from the 1970s? “It takes diff’rent stroke to move the world”.
- Healing. Repair relationships, repair fences.
- Awareness. Learn to discern the news in the world around you.
- Persuasion. Learn to persuade rather than coerce, you must be authoritative and not an authoritarian.
- Conceptualisation. Think beyond the everyday operational goals to larger, longer-term ideas.
- Foresight. In close relation to conceptualisation. Learn to recognize the probable future outcomes of your current decisions.
- Stewardship. Make sure you take good care of your team as well as of your business by following this the best way you can.
- A commitment to the growth of your employees. Fujio Cho, who was the CEO of Toyota, famously said, “first we build people, then we build cars”.
- Building community. Give people the opportunity to connect and interact beyond their daily work.
That’s it. These actions will increase the power of your team, i.e., “the belief shared by team members that the group is effective at achieving assigned results.” This is an indicator of trust and confidence that is shared, as well as a clear goal.