Buzzword Breakdown: Servant Leadership

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.

Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.

Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: \ Hello and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen.

Mike: I'm Mike.

Kristen: And here we are. Dun,

Mike: Dun, dun, dun. No wrong.

Kristen: Yeah, that's your go-to,

Mike: wrong. Yeah. Well,

Kristen: sound effect. But you know,

Mike: and order thing. Bump em.

Kristen: So we currently record after our son's bedtime at this. At this point, so if we're a little punchy,

Mike: don't punch us.

Kristen: Sure. 

Mike: Come on.

I'm working on my dad jokes.

Kristen: God, it's,

Mike: That was not great. But,

Kristen: was, yeah. It was not,

Mike: you gotta, I gotta work out my material.

Kristen: Yeah. Gotta Yeah, but, sorry, listeners.So we are doing a Buzzword Breakdown episode today on servant leadership.

Mike: Interesting.

Kristen: So we're going to similar to the previous one we did of these, and we're gonna do several of these, probably in the near term, but the,

Mike: Because they're shorter and don't then don't

Kristen: They're a little easier to

Mike: read a book.The books are my favorite, but it's like there's a whole lot of work that goes into it.

Kristen: I love the

Mike: I love the

Kristen: we're, yeah, we, we will still do book episodes.

We're just in

Mike: a, we've done a lot of leadership books at this point, like

Kristen: crazy season right

Mike: now. Yeah.

Kristen: But yeah. So we'll talk about what it is, some of the common like myths and criticisms and practices.But before we jump into that, Mike, what are your thoughts about servant leadership? 

Mike: I make set up here. I don't like the term at all. I actually hate it. It makes me it's cringey for me. Yeah. and I think that it's not the concepts. I don't know exactly what it is.

I don't know. it just, I think it may be it's appropriated by people who also, you know,have a strong religious perspective, which is fine, but I prefer my leadership non-denominational.and grounded in nature rather than, any specific doctrine. So sometimes things have good ideas, but if they're appropriated in, in, they take on a certain, I will say, flavor, and I don't care for that flavor.

Kristen: Yeah, that is an interesting take. yeah, I don't, and I don't

Mike: Well, and Greenleaf was. The coined by Robert k Greenleaf in 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader. He was very much inspired by Herman Hess's, journey to the

Kristen: Yes. Which is interesting.

Mike: And there's a lot of problems that I just, I don't know that we're gonna hash out on this podcast, that's the dude with the seven years in Tibet.

that's a very complicated. Situation, I'll say that. 

Okay, soyour dislike of, of servant leadership is because 

well 

Kristen: often used in like a

religious, 

I don't dislike servant leadership as a

Mike: as a practice. As a practice is a term, but I just, the term is I think misappropriated and used in ways that, that I just don't. I don't know. The people I've met that espouse it are also kind of lazy.

They're like, we're gonna set you up for success. But that means like,I don't know, but there's a particular leader who shall remain nameless, who you may know.and that was, she loved that. She loved that term. We're servant leaders.

leaders, but at the end of the day,She kind of like detached herself from the result.she was like, I got them all the things they needed. And, but you didn't really coach them. You didn't really, it wasn't a real mentorship. It was just like, Hey, I'm gonna buy you all the things that I think you need, or, buy you one book 

and that was enough, right? That was, but for me, leadership is something you have to exhibit every moment of every day. And it's a lifelong kind of relationship with people and I, and that's a more of a maybe a mentor approach. 'cause I've had so many great mentors that have, bent over backwards when I didn't deserve it to like straighten me up and set me on the path and help me.

and, you know, the only way I can repay them, I feel is to,try and do that for other

Yeah. Pay it forward. Yeah. It's another term I don't love. I'm gonna be honest.

Okay. WellI just, these things enter, this, the lexicon of conventional usage and they take on, I, I don't know how to explain it, but it's almost like too much energy, you know, I.

But the concept's good. Yeah. Put other people first. Yeah. that's obvious. 

Kristen: Yeah.

I think some of your, like your criticisms I think lead into a lot of the ones I highlighted, that we'll get into. But yeah, it, it is a phrase that's thrown around a lot.

And I think a lot of people don't necessarily know what it really means or fully. fully embodying it. I think also a lot of people will confuse it with being passive or conflict avoidant or overly self-sacrificing. And then there's another side too, where it's something where people will talk about it without actually following it up with the actions around it.

The background of it, so it, as you mentioned, it was coined by Robert Kay Greenleaf, 1970. His essay, The Servant is Leader. And part of one quote from that is the servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. And it's core idea is that the best leaders measure success not by how much power they hold, but by how much growth, autonomy, and wellbeing they inspire in others.

So this is an answer to the traditional, like top of the pyramid type of hierarchical leadership that I think especially if you go back to the seventies, that was the most common. 

Mike: So I'm gonna unpack this a little bit more too, because as you're speaking, I feel uncomfortable with the word servant.

Kristen: Yeah. And that is actually, yes.

Mike: And that's part,this is what I wanna say. there is a history uhhuh that is hidden in our language that, even what did we, remember we came up, there was that Greek word, it was one of our more recent ones, and I looked it up and it was like, character

Kristen: and,

Mike: the, oh, the, the, the root of the word

Kristen: feels like a y

Mike: Yeah, no, it was, it was pre-baby.

Right. But the root, the Greek word of the root of the word character was, like a grave and stamp that you would like I don't remember, but it was like. It. It's you know what's carved into you, right? So the root of servant comes from a middle English word servant, which was a noun used of the present particip of old French verb sve.

To serve this verb comes from the Latin Sri Veri meaning to be a slave.

Mm-hmm.And is related to the Latin service, meaning slave. So there's a history there.

Kristen: Oh, for sure.

Mike: Makes me uncomfortable.

Kristen: And I think that's important to call out, right?

Mike: I think it is. I love the concept of lowering yourself and, being humble.

It's not just about what you do every day. It's really like. You have to put the mission first. You have to put your team first. 

Kristen: Mm-hmm.

Mike: And

you really, honestly, you have to put, generally you have to put the mission ahead of your team. But generally, those are generally those are gonna be aligned.

The best interest of your team will generally be the best interest of the mission. Not always, but you know, we're not slaves. We're all free individual. We should be free individuals. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: by a common goal.

Kristen: Yeah. No, and I think that's an important criticism is like even if the overall concept is good, the language at this point in the associations with slavery, like indentured servitude is not great.

cannot rewrite history. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's, no, I'm not sorry. Like we should out everything, turn it out into the daylight. Accept it, face it,And then change so that, the evil that we've done as individuals and as, societies doesn't happen anymore. There's no other way to, to move forward,Yeah. 

Mike: the truth will come out.

Kristen: come out. So I don't have a great alternative name for this,

Mike: I'm, yeah. You probably didn't know that this was gonna happen when you. When you went for this, but

Kristen: I think it's important to, to note like the word servant itselfhas a lot of

Mike: really heavy

Kristen: Yeah. Historical negative connotation. And it's, yeah.

Mike: just think about that. there are people even today that think it's okay to own another human being.

Kristen: Yeah. One of the fundamental problems

Mike: like that. That's okay right now, 

Kristen: now. Yes.

Mike: And I'm, I'm sorry, 

I've been vegetarian for a long time. there's the very extreme side of vegetarians are like animal liberation, Then I don't even want you to have pets at all because it's like you own, I don't feel like I own these cats. Right. They kind of own me. Yeah. Um, but you know, there, there're people that really, they see children like that too.

Like, you belong to don't, think that's her.you're just. You're supposed to take care. Like you're, you have a position in a way, it's beneath your cat and your child. You have a responsibility to take care of them. Not a position to Lord over, So I just, I believe all beings are equal.

All beings. 

Kristen: Yeah.

No, I agreed. Yeah. I think we need an alternative language for this for sure. my general

Mike: sorry. 

Kristen: no. I

Mike: such, I'm fun at parties.

Kristen: No, I think it's very true. Well,let's focus on the 

Mike: Yes. let's do that. That's a great idea. These are all great concepts.

I love these. 

Kristen: So yeah. So this was coined by Robert Greenleaf, and then in 1992, Larry Spears came up with the 10 characteristics of a servant leader. So the these 10 characteristics are listening, so truly hearing others and suspending your own agenda long enough to understand empathy, like valuing people as individuals, understanding their experiences and perspectives.

Healing, meaning really supporting people in overcoming challenges, helping teams to recover, trust or morale. Awareness. Oh, we've talked about a lot, being attuned to your own emotions, biases, and the broader organizational dynamics. Persuasion. So influencing others through logic and empathy rather than authority. Conceptualization, which is thinking long term and big picture, and holding the vision even while you're managing the day to day foresight. So anticipating future consequences of today's decisions, stewardship. Which is holding your role as a trust, managing people and resources responsibly. And the last two are commitment to the growth of people.

So prioritizing others', personal and professional development and building community. So creating belonging and shared purpose beyond just transactional relationships.

No, those are the 10 

Mike: I think stewardship is a better word servant.

Kristen: Yeah, I, I actually, that stuck out to me when I was going through these as well. I think stewardship is a, it's a trait within this concept, but I think it's also a better way.

Mike: So the etymology. is

from old English. Stig word. Stig means house or hall. And weird. I'm sorry, I'm not saying that old English means garter keeper. I think that's a way better,

like housekeeper, that's good house guard, right? Like, we're here to, to nurture and 

Kristen: Mm-hmm. 

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah. No, I term in aso some of the common myths around. Servant leadership as a concept. so one is that it means being a doormat. and that, that's like a very literal interpretation as interpreting like the word servant, taking as, or whatever we're using and replacement of it as putting everyone first, all the time, everyone else first, all the time.

And that's not leadership, right? That's more like martyrdom. So the, in this actual like core concept, servant leaders are serving the mission and the people, not every individual request, and they're still need to make tough decisions, hold boundaries, and often say no in services of the greater good as well. And then other common myth is that it's like, it's too soft for like high performance cultures. there's some solid research on servant leadership as a concept, and it associates it with higher performance because of building trust, motivation, and psychological safety.it does not work very well in cultures that reward more like hero leadership, where leaders are fundamentally measured by their own output, not their team's output And success.

Mike: Well, I was thinking as you said that, it's back to the stars model.

There's probably situations where you need quicker result. Like this is a long-term plan, right? If you have a real turnaround and you're hours away from closing the doors.This is not your, necessarily your first playbook. Yeah. Like you, you do want a leader like Lee Iacocca or General Patton who's I lead from the front.

We're going this way

Kristen: for sure. Yeah.

Mike: This is more like, Hey, I'm gonna grow a company for years.

Kristen: Yeah.yeah. And then the last on myths is that it blurs line of authority, assuming that this means that the leader should always defer to consensus.

Whereas, and this is getting into what you said, like IT leadership still requires direction and decision making authority and specific situations are gonna require more direct decision 

Mike: Yeah. Make 

Kristen: approach.I like this idea of thinking of it as where the leader is.

Instead of leader being at the top, the leader is in the center and they're like facilitating alignment and progress from there as opposed to being like at the top of a pyramid.

Mike: Yeah, sure.

Kristen: And then criticisms which are kind of related. I think the IT can lead to burnout among leaders is very valid.

Mike: how, I'm curious. it's how does that lead to 

Kristen: okay. You go into that 

Yeah, so this is like the, if you're going a little bit too hard on prioritizing the needs of others without the, ultimately taking care of yourself and prioritizing your own like health and self care.

And if there's like unhealthy cultures often, this type of leader can over-function and try to fill every gap themselves instead of driving the more systemic change that needs to happen.And a lot of it's just like creating bottlenecks, Things like becoming, like taking all of it on when there, there's a big gap and what needs to get done, taking it all on yourself instead of empowering 

Mike: Well, that's like the martyr, the victim.

You know, or the rescuer. What, what did, Michael Bungay Stanier talk about?

you have the three

Kristen: Oh, yeah. the victim.

Mike: there's the victim and then there's the rescuer, 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Is it the rescuer? I think

Kristen: so. 

like you always, you're gonna fix it always, Yeah. Yeah. That's for sure.but yeah, so like modeling, rest, boundaries and delegation as forms of service are important in this as well.Maybe it's just as simple as changing this to like service leadership instead 

Mike: Yeah. Service and servant are, for some reason the service like softens 

Kristen: Service doesn't have the same Yeah. Like historical, dark 

Mike: It

really does. in, in Unreasonable Hospitality we talk about service all the time.

Yeah. Service being a guilty pleasure and I, that I align with that much more. I love the, service industry. yeah,

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: always, we have some hard days because we're dealing with humans, but mostly it's a pleasure and a joy to serve others, 

Kristen: Yeah. I kind of like that also because I feel like servant is like an individual, right? Like it's kind of making it about the leader just in the terminology

Mike: Very Downton Abbey too. It's very like the servants. I don't know. It's very classist.

Kristen: Maybe we'll call it service leadership.

Mike: Service leadership.

I can get behind that. Yeah, I can get behind that.

Kristen: Cool. Yeah. And it, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't have 

Mike: Yeah. My servants.

Kristen: associations, which is not good.

Mike: Yeah.

Well this, you know, the, everything has some truth. It's like a question of balance. if you go too far one way,Sacrifice is probably good. You go too far and you're always, and then you get martyrdom, right? And you get no sacrifice. You go the other way. You get like egomania and narcissism. Right? So it's all a matter of being 

Kristen: The dichotomies of leadership

Mike: or the golden mean? Just in our own life too. It's good to be tidy and clean, but if you go too far it becomes obsessive and and, but if you go too far the other way. You're a slob, right? that's not healthy. Yeah. the middle way. 

Kristen: yep. 

Mike: Is the way, this is the way

Kristen: My fellow Mandalorians So the other two kind of criticisms I had for that, which also align with things you've said. So one is that it can be used manipulatively and

Mike: some leaders adopt the language of service. I'm just here for my people as a branding tool rather than a genuine practice snap.

Kristen: but you have an example that we're not gonna, we're not gonna, several example. Yeah. It's as do I Yeah. Like where this is

Mike: she's not involved in, enough self-growth that she would be listening to this podcast. don't worry.

she's already at the top of the pyramid. She doesn't need 

Kristen: yes. Again, we won't, we, we won't name names,

Mike: That's okay. We don't have to name 

Kristen: But we could say we both had experiences in our careers that, but show That's right. Yeah. Where it's a, it's some, it's great to talk about being a. Quote unquote servant leader without actually backing it 

Mike: up

Well, and to be fair, that's just my perspective. I guess if we were gonna have a real. Conversation. We should have the other person here to tell their side. That seems fair.

Kristen: Yeah. Yeah. 

but yeah. So I, we get into this like performative empathy, right?

Mike: Yeah. Performative. that's very 

Kristen: right? So yeah.

Leaders talk about. Like how, like being selfless, but they're really acting from a place of ego or 

Mike: yeah, almost worse. It's like, just be honest. just be honest. and I've worked for leaders with big egos that get a lot done, because they're not, I don't know, they have self, you can, you can have self-awareness in that as well.

Kristen: Well, I think people respond better to like, almost like a direct authoritarian approach than they do to somebody who's saying they're here for the people, but it's actually coming from that place of ego.

Mike: So Jocko, that Yeah.

There's a, it is a discrepancy with how you see yourself and how others are

Kristen: Yeah. You're not being authentic.

Mike: Jocko actually talked about that I probably on a podcast.

He said in his experience with military leaders, he found that it didn't matter whether you were like a nice guy. Or an asshole. Like as long as the, as long as the way you saw yourself and the way that if you asked the troops like, oh, this guy's an asshole, and he said, I'm also an asshole. That was fine, but if you thought you were a nice guy.

Kristen: And then you pulled the troops and they didn't agree. You were not gonna be an effective leader. So there, just be honest. Just be true to yourself. And if you're that type of, egocentric leader, make that work for you. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to others. People can, that people see right through you,Yep. Yeah. Agreed. It's definitely something that needs to be embodied and not performed. 

Mike: Yeah. Like your authenticity is key. Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah.

yeah. And then lastly, this also you had, alluded to like it, the criticism of it can undermine urgency and change. If you're overly focused on this and on focusing on harmony and not willing to. To deal with conflict or give difficult feedback, or you're prioritizing consensus in every place, then yeah, it's going to be ineffective there.

It's something that's better to be used to, build trust in a longer term basis so that when you have a crisis, you can act decisively and people will respect support you in that because you've already built that trust.

Mike: Yeah. Yes. And The real service to people is to help them encounter their shortcomings so that they can grow. And that's not always a fun position to be in, but a real mentor is A real coach is going to help you encounter your weaknesses Yeah. And to continually bring them to the forefront so you can work on them.

That's real service. That's real 

Kristen: Yeah. I agree. 

Mike: The mentors that I had. It was not smooth. It was not smooth because they kept like pushing me into, into the line of fire that was exposing my shortcomings as a person my lackings of my character and my temperament, and I didn't react well to that.

And they kept doing and they did it anyway. That's service. That's a thankless job.

Kristen: Yeah, So if you are listening to this and you want to integrate more of service leadership,

Mike: Service leadership, br it. Yes. Let's brand that.

Kristen: rebrand that. Yep.

Mike: Love and leadership. I don't know, how do we copyright something?

Do we just say copyright? I

think it's, I know that it's copyrighting, It's like Michael Scott, I declare bankruptcy. No, that's not how it works there. 

Kristen: Oh, yes.

Love an Office reference. but yeah, but if this is something that's resonating with you and you wanna integrate it more into your style, like some things to think about are like shifting your mindset to like, I fix things to, I create conditions for others to thrive.

it's, there's definitely some.

Ego, that kind of has to be set aside there in many cases. Leading conversations with curiosity, not with correction. Empowering others to make decisions instead of bottlenecking everything through you, which, oh my God, I think I've given the example before of which was a classic one that, like when Marissa Mayer was the CEO of Yahoo, which I, when I was, when I worked there.

Mike: Oh, we can name her though.

Kristen: She's a public

Mike: She's a public figure. She's a public figure.

Kristen: Absolutely. Yeah. not that that justifies the things that happened in the media, but this

Mike: I'm not up on that.

Kristen: this is a well known fact about her is like she, she would have to individually approve every 

Mike: Yeah. You mentioned

Kristen: For like a 10,000 person company.

talk about bottlenecks and it took forever. We got so backlogged in hiring because of that. um,not to overly shame Marissa Mayer, but I,

Mike: A little,

Kristen: But there are some things, there are some things that, that I feel okay calling out. yeah. Yeah. And

Mike: maybe she's learned from 

Kristen: Yeah. I don't know what she's doing these days.

No.

And then celebrate. we've talked about dcelebrate contributions and recognition publicly, coach privately. 

Mm-hmm.And.

model humility.

So admit your mistakes, learn from 'em, communicate et cetera.so if you want to try this out, just a few practices, I mean that these could fit into forms of leadership.

But in your next meeting's kind of asking people, what's one thing I can do to make your job easier this week? And then following through on it. Within, 24 hours or whatever,asking yourself before you're making a major decision, like who will this decision serve and how, yeah. And then you can also take one of those 10 characteristics from Spears that we talked about, and I will include a link to that paper in the show notes. them in more wanna reference them. but picking out one of those and. Just consciously focusing it on it for a week and just

Mike: II love, the reduced complexity learning.

Kristen: Mm-hmm. Like one, yeah. One thing at a time. Yeah. Yep. So

Mike: That's very good. I do have a, if you want to go down a rabbit hole of what I think the essence of this type of leadership is, and you will never read this book.

It's like the most military, colonel, Colonel David Hackworth is very famous, very famous colonel during the Vietnam War. And his book About Face, is really worth a read. Um.Vietnam was, obviously a very complicated war, but there was a lot of agendas that, that didn't involve,winning the war or caring for the troops, and Hackworth being there on the ground with his men really started to change his perspective on, on, I mean, everything.

And he just saw how, the upper echelon of the leadership just didn't care about the body count. They didn't care at all that their strategy was just leading to the deaths of so many men. They're like, this is just, it's a war of attrition and we're just, we don't care about the body count.

We just want to kill more people than we, and he. he kind of got run out of the army at some point too, but his book is amazing and you'll hear somebody who really puts his team first under the most like strenuous circumstances and at the threat of his own career, which he eventually loses.

He actually goes on to be a very rich, sheep farmer in Australia. It's a really crazy story, but, Jocko credits him as like his. One of his main like teachers as this is, like a foundation of his,leadership model is put your people first, and it's a very heartbreaking book, but it's worth a read if you fancy this type of, angle, military angle.

But, 

Kristen: well, I'll link to it on the show notes

Mike: Yeah. It's, um.it's one of those books that I'm so glad I read, and I just, I, even though it's an amazing story, I can't read it again, Which is odd because I'll read books many, many, many, many times. I've read Extreme Ownership, I don't know, like 10 times.

Like It's, Your Ship is like going on 12. I don't know. and it's it's just so you can't read it. it's pretty heartbreaking. At the lack of concern and care that like these generals and colonelsthe Pentagon and that they have for their service members.

It's like every life is precious. And if you don't know that, you should not be a military commander.

Kristen: Yeah, I will. I will probably never read

Mike: No, you'll never read it for sure.

Kristen: But,

Mike: for sure.

Kristen: But some of our listeners may,

Mike: Yeah. He really lowers himself and,you can see how much he cares about hishow heartbreaking it is for him, what's going Enough that he tanks his career. Yeah. And speaks out very publicly. But it was, truth to power

salute you, Colonel Hackworth, he passed Yeah. He went on to be a really successful like sheep farmer in Australia. How that happens. But it's like, it's super random, but like yeah. He was a great man.

Kristen: All right. Well, I think that's what we got for, sounds good. For this buzzword breakdown. And

Mike: thank you. That was probably way more painful than you expected. Sorry, sorry.

No, no. I think we, I think it was a good conversation. Rebranded hashtag service, 

Kristen: service. Yes. Service leadership.

Service leadership. What instead,

Mike: are we still hash, are we still hashtagging?

Kristen: Um.

Mike: no,

Kristen: It's like sort of still a thing. Depends on what platform you're talking about, but, yeah, so yeah.

Eight

Mike: and late. Oh God. Dad jokes. Come on,

Kristen: My God. The dad jokes are strong. Yeah. Dad jokes are strong. O yeah.So yeah, we will wrap up there. As we said, we're gonna. We're going to try for a biweekly schedule for now, 

Mike: Try 

Kristen: Eventually we'll be weekly again. 

Mike: sure. 

Kristen: Some point. Well, you know, our,our kids will sleep at some point, 

Mike: I mean, he sleeps at night. he sleeps at night. There's no reason we can't do weekly except we don't have time to read books.

Kristen: Yeah, that's, yes, that's the more challenging part, but,

Mike: We can talk about parenting as well. I think,parenting and leadership are the same thing.

Right. Like we're gonna, I think it's, right now we're, right now we're in the service leadership part where all we're doing is serving him. Here's your bottle, here's your diaper change again, okay, this is 300 today. But eventually we're, we're gonna be shaping his character and, hope, hopefully setting boundaries and helping him grow into, a very.

Kristen: Right now we're just riding, so

Mike: right now. We're just wiping his butt

Kristen: and we're riding high on the laughter,

Mike: riding. He, his laugh is amazing. It's amazing. His smile is amazing. It's very sweet. He's very sweet. He's very sweet.

Kristen: He's very

Mike: We're gonna try not to mess that up. Yes. Yeah,

Kristen: For sure. 

Mike: And someday he'll be on this podcast.

Kristen: Yeah. I think so. 

Mike: Okay. 

Kristen: All right. Thanks everyone for listening.

Mike: Thanks everyone. The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

Kristen: You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.