Servant Leadership: The missing community component

Research shows servant leadership has a strong positive impact on employees and the businesses they run. Over 300 peer-reviewed articles support the myriad benefits including increased profit, improved work climate, and enhanced employee wellbeing and productivity. Servant leaders are knowledgeable, ethical people who bring value to organizations and the people they serve by developing followers via prioritizing work needs, demonstrating concern for growth, empowering them, and showing sensitivity to personal concerns. Through this, servant leaders encourage followers to contribute to organizational goals, develop a sense of belonging, and grow in confidence in their work and leadership skills leading to increased happiness, health, and productivity. Servant leadership also uniquely involves a concern for the community. Our research shows that leaders have the least confidence in this most distinguishing aspect of servant leadership. We offer 32 practical ideas on implementing servant leadership with special attention to the community component to assist readers in developing this valuable leadership style.