Transformational Servant Leadership -- Forces

Forces
Having considered the foundation and facets of transformational servant leadership, let us now consider its forces (or strengths). Transformational servant leadership is really just a version of servant leadership that is transformational. That is, it imbibes the strengths of servant leadership while overcoming its weaknesses. Like servant leadership, it shares the following strengths:

o Both inspire others to follow.
o Both have high ethical standards.
o Both have a sense of egalitarianism.
o Both practice coaching/mentoring.
o Both have a concern for the needs of others.
o Both are effective in communicating expectations.
o Both engender trust. These forms of leadership require that leaders engage with followers as ‘whole’ people, rather than simply as an ‘employee’ for example.
o Both build confidence in those that work underneath them (SL – in how they are cared and treated; TL – as a foundation for accepting radical organizational change)

Transformational servant leadership also overcomes some of the weaknesses of servant leadership. This includes:

o Broadening and elevating (Bass, 1990b) the interests of their employees beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group.
o Providing more initiative/risk-taking to revitalize processes. The servant-leader model does not stress risk-taking behavior as an essential attribute of organizational success. In transformational leadership, on the other hand, the leader's initiative is strongly associated with risk taking as the necessary element of future success, as well as with the willingness to switch to the more effective practices and systems (or revitalizing organizational processes).
o Arouses and changes followers’ awareness of problems and their capacity to solve those problems (Bono & Judge, 2004; Kelly, 2003). Transformational leaders question assumptions and beliefs and encourage followers to be innovative and creative, approaching old problems in new ways (Barbuto, 2005). They empower followers by persuading them to propose new and controversial ideas without fear of punishment or ridicule (Stone, Russell & Patterson, 2003, p. 3). They impose their own ideas judiciously and certainly not at any cost (Simic, 2003, p. 52).
o Avoids slow consensus and leverages acquired trust to expedite required changes.
o Creates an “empowered dynamic culture” (whereas servant leadership leads to a “spiritual generative culture"). Under the Servant Leader model, the leader's motivation to lead arises from an underlying attitude of egalitarianism. In other words, the leader's belief system says he or she is no better than those who are led. All members of the organization have equal rights to vision, respect, and information. The leader's role is to facilitate the emergence of a community within the organization. In our opinion, the leader has a trustee role, one in which individual growth and development are goals in and of themselves. The key leader drivers, as shown in Figure 1, are valuing people, developing people, building community, displaying authenticity and sharing leadership. Possible impacts of these drivers could be: higher skilled people, more ethical people, better communicators, strong interpersonal relationships, creation of shared visions, and clear goals. It is argued here that these outcomes in conjunction with the leader initiatives that produce them create the spiritual generative culture. A spiritually generative culture is one in which members are focuses on the personal growth of themselves and others, and the organizational systems that facilitate that growth. It is further suggested that, while this culture is satisfying to organizational members, it results in followers who are passive to the external environment and unlikely to want to upset internal conditions which might require substantive changes in the status quo but is conducive to generating internal personal growth. The Transformational Leader emerges from a different motivation base. Where the servant leader has a sense of egalitarianism, the transformational leader is motivated by a sense of mission to recreate the organization to survive in a challenging external environment. The transformational leader's motivation base has a more macro focus. Individual growth and development are not unimportant but must be related to the organization's success in the external environment. Under the transformational leader model, as seen in Figure 1, the main leader initiatives are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. These initiatives lead to: role modeling, high ethical standards, concern for the needs of others, communication of expectations, shared visions, innovations, risk taking, and questioning of practices and systems. Together with the leader initiatives, this leader approach produces the empowered dynamic culture. Organizational members in this type of organization not only have high skills but also have high expectations placed upon them. The leader models high performance. A reading of the descriptions of servant leadership reveals no calls for risk taking and innovation, while this is a key element in a transformed organization. Clearly some of the outcomes of the transformational model are similar to the spiritual generative culture. For example, the call for high ethical standards and concern for the individual are apparent in both. It could be suggested, however, that in servant leadership one arises from a belief in human dignity as a primary organization goal; while in the transformational organization these virtues are valued because to be successful the organization as a whole depends on a strong "virtuous" foundation. In Figure 1, both models of leadership are included in a chain of relationships. Contextual forces and/or situational factors would define the leader's motivation in these relationships. As stated earlier, applications of the servant leadership concept include not-for-profit and community leadership organizations where the environment can be characterized by low dynamism and slow change processes, relative to many modern business environments that face global competition. In the low dynamism situation, a leader's motivation "to serve first" is effective. The "black box" of an organizational system will interpret the leader's philosophy and resulting initiatives into a culture that we would describe as generative and spiritual. This type of culture works on creation of a harmonized, cooperative internal environment where spiritual awareness and growth represent the core values of an organization. Such a culture is likely to be more passive in introducing changes and more persistent in preserving its status quo. Given the specifics of an appropriate external environment, an organization with servant leadership based culture will succeed. In the case of transformational leadership, the external environment is usually more dynamic and challenging, thus requiring quick decisions and correct reactions. Here a leader's motivation is to lead first, to get an organization into the shape necessary to adapt effectively to external requirements. Leader initiatives are designed to place strong emphasis on inspiration and intellectual stimulation of every member in organization. It is suggested the resulting organizational culture is the projection of a leader's behavior through organizational communication and reward systems, and is characterized as empowering and innovative, dynamic, and receptive to possible changes. We would argue that the servant leadership model works better in a more stable external environment and serves evolutionary development purposes, whereas transformational leadership is the model for organizations facing intense external pressure where revolutionary change is a necessity for survival. Here, the importance of the time factor comes into play. Servant leadership stresses collaboration and integrity, where communication and persuasion skills become extremely important. Decision-making processes involve most of the organizational members and generally results in consensus. The time factor is not considered crucial, which allows for groups to make mutually acceptable decisions. Transformational leadership, in contrast, gives the leader some initiative in decision making, for example, to take a certain risks or to drop obsolete practices. This, however, does not guarantee that the decision made will be completely accepted by followers, but the charismatic influence and inspirational power of a leader will support the faith in the correctness of a leader's actions. Thus, the time factor is accounted for in the transformational leadership model.
o Motivates individuals and organizations to, for example, follow a new idea. Transformational leaders make clear an appealing view of the future, offer followers the opportunity to see meaning in their work, and challenge them with high standards. They encourage followers to become part of the overall organizational culture and environment (Kelly, 2003; Stone, Russell & Patterson, 2003, p. 3). This might be achieved through motivational speeches and conversations and other public displays of optimism and enthusiasm, highlighting positive outcomes, and stimulating teamwork (Simic, 1998, p. 52). Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and US President John F. Kennedy’s vision of putting a man on the moon by 1970 stand out as exceptional examples of this characteristic (Yukl, 1989, p. 221). Through these sorts of means, transformational leaders encourage their followers to imagine and contribute to the development of attractive, alternative futures (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003, p. 208).
o Tying individual growth/development to organizational success.

Merging servant leadership with transformation leadership also overcomes some of the weaknesses of transformational leadership. For example, it:

o Avoids the possibility of dictatorial behavior by the leader. A key criticism of transformation leadership is it’s potential for the abuse of power (Hall, Johnson, Wysocki & Kepner, 2002). Transformational leaders can choose to motivate followers by appealing to strong emotions regardless of the ultimate effects on followers and do not necessarily attend to positive moral values. As Stone, Russell and Patterson (2003, p. 4) observe, transformational leaders can exert a very powerful influence over followers, who offer them trust and respect. Some leaders may have narcissistic tendencies, thriving on power and manipulation. Further, as Bass (1997) notes, transformational leadership lacks the checks and balances of countervailing interests, influences and power that might help to avoid dictatorship and oppression of a minority by a majority. In the absence of moral rectitude it is self-evident then that transformational leadership might be applied for less-than-desirable social ends.
o Lets us treat even difficult people with such respect that we help them feel worthwhile. People do not typically invest their trust in someone who makes them feel invisible or insignificant.
o Leaves us open to what others can teach us, no matter what their station in life. As a result we learn and develop wisdom more quickly, because we let everyone be our mentor.