How servant leadership contributes to developing followers

Now that you are familiar with servant leadership and the characteristics of servant leaders, let’s look at how servant leaders contribute to the development of their followers.

Servant leadership requires leaders to be caring and deeply motivated to help others. However, leaders’ altruism and self-interest are a necessary but not sufficient condition as servant leadership can only succeed if followers are open and receptive to their leaders, trust them, and are predisposed to be empowered.

1. Acknowledgement of followers’ value:
   The leader recognizes the intrinsic value of the individual follower and gives them opportunity to them to realize their potential and learn new skills.
2. Influence and persuasion:
   Servant-leaders use persuasion and privilege influencing tactics and explanations over position authority to leverage followers’ voluntary adhesion.
3. Establishment of high-quality relationships:
   The leader shows humility and establish relations with followers based on mutual trust, respect and obligation to foster followers’ engagement.
4. Creation of a safe psychological climate:
   The leader empowers followers and fosters a culture that tolerates mistakes and encourages initiative and creativity.
5. Followers as servant leaders:
   Followers feel trusted and valued, adopt positive attitude and develop loyalty and group citizenship. This sustains the mutual positive relationship between leaders and followers.

Reflect & Reply

Please reflect upon the key question below and respond using the comments section below.

Consider how engaged and effective followers can benefit their leader.