I recently attended a talk on servant leadership by Geoff Guilfoy, Executive Professor at Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management. As I sat at Willamette U’s Portland Center, I realized that servant leadership aligns with sustainable marketing and its social bottom line.
Servant leadership centers on people and building healthy relationships with them. People are more valuable than what they do or make. A servant leader helps others get what they need to accomplish their tasks. She brings out the best in people by coaching them, encouraging self-expression, facilitating personal growth, and building community. “Leaders see things through the eyes of their followers,” Guilfoy said. Servant leaders trust people to make decisions by themselves, to do what they feel is right.
Organizations practicing servant leadership are values driven, not rules driven like hierarchical bureaucratic, command-and-control organizations. Guilfoy demonstrated the difference between managing and leading with the American sign language. To express “manage”, you tap your shoulders with both hands and stretch them forward as if to drive a vehicle. To say “lead” you pull your hand from your heart toward the other person.
Principles of servant leadership
- Respect and value people and relationships
- Influence others through your personal character and integrity, not power and control
- Recognize everyone has purpose and passion – tap into everyone’s unique experiences, gifts and abilities, and empower them to use it
- Create work environment and culture founded on trust – we (not me) atmosphere where people have meaningful roles and voice
- Bring change and innovation
- Model leadership and service to others
- Mentor potential successors
Servant leadership and sustainable marketing
The focus on people and relationships places servant leadership squarely in the sustainable marketing field. Respecting, valuing, and trusting employees challenges them to own their work and their company’s success. Creating a space for self-expression and service to others engages people, motivates them to excel and step beyond their self-interest, and provides for a more meaningful work experience. Servant leadership thus produces happy employees, and happy employees are the best brand ambassadors. With servant leadership, everybody wins: employees, employers, customers, and the community.
