Serving leadership

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Servant leadership is an approach to leadership research and leadership theory. The term refers on the one hand as a translation to the concept of Servant Leadership by Robert K. Greenleaf, and on the other hand in the German-speaking area to a management model based on system theory .

description

According to the conventional understanding of leadership, the purpose of leadership is to influence people's behavior in order to achieve goals. This can, but does not have to be, a change in settings. Influence can be exercised in two ways: directly, through the presence of the manager, or indirectly through symbols, values, norms (values ​​that are adhered to through sanctions) and structures. This understanding of leadership tries to answer the question: "How can I lead people so that they do what I, the leader, ask them to do?" Regardless of the answer, it assumes an asymmetry between those who are led and those who lead, who regards the “leader” as a hierarchically superior subject who wants to achieve personal and organizational goals by exerting influence.

This approach has been criticized by some researchers as a downgrading of the led to objects. So warned z. For example, Peter Drucker sees companies as “human work”. Robert Greenleaf gradually developed his philosophy of Servant Leadership . For him, humility, personal courage, forgiveness and responsibility were the foundations of sustainable leadership success.

Greenleaf's philosophy of Servant Leadership developed over time in a direction that required a spiritual understanding of identity and mission, vision and the environment. This claim contains religious ambitions and is therefore often perceived in practice as aloof and indoctrinating .

Although the phrase Servant Leadership is commonly translated into German as "Dienendeführung", the concept as it is used in German-speaking countries differs from the American original because it is based on systems- theoretical approaches. Serving leadership in this sense asks how leadership can succeed as a social system of mutually dependent and interacting individuals. The management relationship is no longer considered hierarchical, but heterarchical . Leaders and led are thus the environment for one another. From the perspective of the leaders, the crucial question arises as follows: “How can I lead others so that they can develop themselves personally, develop their full potential in order to realize our common goals?” “Serving” takes on the meaning of in this context “Enable”, “result in something”, “effect”, “lead to a result”. These are functional connotations that tie the why of service back to the larger system of which the leader is part and which this type of leadership serves.

The concept of serving leadership comprises three strands: circularity, individualization and balancing. Dienes and guiding are in a control loop associated circular. In the control loop, negative feedback is used for system renewal and leads to system stabilization, which in turn serves or enables system control. The necessity of the individualization of leadership results from the still unbroken dynamic of values, the different motives of the people who are to be led and their equally differently developed abilities, wills, shoulds and mays. Balancing means turning towards a both / and (e.g. tightening and loosening, planning and improvising), whereby the conditions of high complexity, contingency and volatility can be better taken into account.

A prerequisite for the success of serving leadership is a highly open organizational culture . In very closed cultures, such as those found in the military or in authorities, the high density of regulations means that the necessary freedom is lacking. Servant leadership also reaches its limits where a culture of “overprotection” has developed in organizations.

literature

  • Hans Rudi Fischer; Heinz K. Stahl (2014): Leading as serving. On the dialectic of leadership. In: Conflict Dynamics, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 2nd year, issue 3, pp. 238–243.
  • Hans Rudi Fischer, Heinz K. Stahl, Peter Schettgen and Dr. Hans Schlipat (Ed.): Serving leadership: to a new balance between I and WE . Erich-Schmidt-Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-503-18791-1 .
  • Oswald Neuberger (1995): Leadership Dilemmas . In A. Kieser, G. Reber, R. Wunderer (Eds.), Concise Dictionary of Leadership. Schaeffer-Poeschel Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-7910-8028-8 , pp. 533-540.
  • Leonhard J. Schnorrenberg, Heinz K. Stahl, Hans H. Hinterhuber, Anna Maria Pircher-Friedrich (Eds.) (2014): Servant Leadership - Principles of serving leadership in companies , Erich Schmidt: Berlin, ISBN 978-3-503-15642 -9 .
  • Heinz K. Stahl; Hans Rudi Fischer (2013): Challenges in between. Balancing acts of new leadership . In: Conflict Dynamics, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, 2nd year, issue 2, pp. 96-105.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter F. Drucker: They're Not Employees, They're People . Harvard Business Review, 2002.
  2. ^ Leonhard J. Schnorrenberg: Servent Leadership - A neverending story about the art of leadership in the service of people . Ed .: Leonhard J. Schnorrenberg, Heinz K. Stahl, Hans H. Hinterhuber, Anna Maria Picher-Friedrich. Berlin 2014, p. 33 .
  3. ↑ Hans Rudi Fischer, Heinz K. Stahl: Leading as serving. On the dialectic of leadership. In: Conflict Dynamics . No. 3 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2014, p. 238-243 .