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Transformational And Servant Leadership
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Introduction
Leadership is vital in directing and managing an organization’s resources, including human capital, to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, effective leaders must motivate, guide, and manage the organization to achieve its mission and vision. Leaders use various leadership styles to achieve shared organizational or group goals. These styles depend on various internal and external factors; the latter refers to the leader’s extrinsic factors, like their followers’ skills and organizational needs, whereas the former includes the leader’s intrinsic factors, such as their strengths, personalities, and principles. Leadership styles also depend on emerging trends and knowledge about effective leadership traits. Transformational and servant leadership are among the most popular leadership styles due to their effectiveness in achieving shared objectives.
Transformational Leadership
Leaders should be able to change their organizations, including the work culture, systems, processes, and environment. This factor defines transformational leadership. According to Mengel (2021), transformational leadership is a management approach that induces organizational changes by defining a vision and inspiring followers to align their interests and work toward them. James McGregor Burns first developed this leadership theory in 1978; Bernard Bass developed it further in 1985. Transformational leaders work toward revolutionizing their organizations or teams based on internal or external needs and drivers (Mengel, 2021). They include all stakeholders, including followers, in this change process, guaranteeing effectiveness and efficiency in following the new vision and achieving common goals. Additionally, transformational leadership inspires and encourages employees to change their processes and mindsets based on the organization’s change drivers.
Transformational leaders have various traits that foster their effectiveness. First, the primary trait of transformational leaders is that they are visionary. On this note, transformational leaders create the vision and model for change in their organizations to stimulate continuous development in the organization and its employees (Mengel, 2021). Therefore, White (2018) elucidates that transformational leaders must be able to motivate and inspire their followers to develop themselves. Their visionary trait is the primary motivation or inspiration for employees’ positive development. Transformational leaders can cultivate this trait by continually evaluating their environments to identify emerging trends or disruptors that necessitate change and development in the firm, its culture, and employees.
Transformational leaders must also foster an ethical work environment to motivate change among employees. As noted above, transformational leaders engage multiple stakeholders, including employees, to achieve change objectives in their firm. As a result, they must adopt various ethical principles like transparency, authenticity, cooperation, and open communication to appeal to these stakeholders (Mengel, 2021). These ethical principles prompt employees to trust the leader and cooperate in working toward the identified vision and shared organizational objectives (Mengel, 2021; White, 2018). In addition to that, fostering these ethical principles in the workplace creates a conducive working environment where employees can flourish and develop as they work toward the organization’s change vision.
These traits demonstrate the strengths and effectiveness of transformational leadership. Mengel (2021) notes that transformational leadership is highly effective because of its focus on organizational improvement. Transformational leaders constantly evaluate their organizations and industries to find improvement areas. They then coordinate with their followers to implement these improvements (White, 2018). Moreover, transformational leadership helps modify organizational systems, processes, and environments based on emerging trends and disruptions (Mengel, 2021). As a result, organizations with transformational leaders will likely be more competitive or successful in their sectors. However, transformational leadership has several weaknesses. Particularly, this leadership style can create internal organizational conflicts among change-averse stakeholders (White, 2018). This weakness is especially significant if these stakeholders are among the firm’s managers.
Servant Leadership
Leaders should develop good professional relationships with their followers to achieve shared objectives. Servant leadership is highly effective in achieving this objective. Blanchard & Broadwell (2018) define servant leadership as a management model that encourages leaders to serve others instead of accruing and exercising power or control. This leadership style postulates that serving others makes leaders more effective and efficient, especially in encouraging their followers to align their interests with the team’s objectives. Robert K. Greenleaf developed this leadership concept in his 1970 essay “The Servant as a Leader” (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Greenleaf argued that servant leadership refutes the misconception that only power and control define leadership (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Therefore, this theory offers a new leadership strategy.
Servant leaders have several characteristics that illustrate this new leadership approach. First, servant leaders focus on their followers. Witt (2018) notes that servant leadership emphasizes valuing people based on who they are rather than their external contributions to the organization. Thus, servant leaders commit to understanding, valuing, and developing their followers (Witt, 2018). Furthermore, servant leaders exercise empathy and humility in their leadership styles. A critical requirement for understanding, valuing, and developing employees is being empathetic. Empathy entails understanding people from their perspectives without inducing one’s subjectivity or biases (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Thus, servant leaders must detach themselves from their biases and perceptions to understand their followers. These traits help servant leaders build good relationships with their followers.
Servant leadership also takes a different management approach. Blanchard and Broadwell (2018) define this approach as “serve now; lead later.” Therefore, this leadership model requires leaders to be stewards of their organizations and followers. Stewardship means taking responsibility for the team’s performance and accountability for followers’ improvement and behaviors. As indicated above, servant leaders do not aim to take control or exercise power over their followers; instead, they focus on service and diligence (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Thus, they are accountable for their teams and take responsibility for all outcomes, regardless of whether positive or negative.
This leadership approach is different because leaders are usually accustomed to exercising their power over followers. For instance, most leaders utilize the concept of delegation, where they pass work and responsibilities to their followers. Thus, for most leaders, leadership and management are about “directing” resource use and employee role in an organization rather than being a part of their followers. However, servant leadership proposes a different approach where leaders take responsibility for their teams and followers. Instead of being served by followers, they serve them and help them grow by understanding their needs, strengths, and weaknesses (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Thus, they serve first and then lead, enhancing their leadership effectiveness.
Servant leadership has various merits and demerits based on its strategies and characteristics. First, it creates a positive working environment that nurtures and values employees (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Servant leaders focus on their employees’ improvement and well-being based on their inherent value rather than their material contribution to the firm. Second, servant leadership fosters harmony among employees and leaders, making the firm more efficient and productive. Servant leaders build good relationships with their employees, ensuring harmony and promptly resolving underlying sources of conflict. However, servant leadership can be ineffective because leaders must include their followers in all decision-making processes. Thus, different interests can cripple effective and prompt decision-making.
Wangari Maathai Leadership Style
Wangari Maathai embodied both a transformational and servant leader. Wangari Maathai was best known for her environmental conservation efforts. She founded the Green Belt Movement (GBM), an environmental conservation organization that works with community members, especially women, to conserve ecosystems and improve livelihoods, in 1977 as part of these efforts (The Green Belt Movement, 2022). GBM also seeks to address the socio-economic needs of rural Kenyan women who face challenges like unpredictable water supply, famine, and poverty due to environmental degradation (The Green Belt Movement, 2022). Wangari Maathai’s environmental conservation work led to her 2004 Nobel Peace Prize award. She was also a human and environmental rights activist and author, focusing largely on ecosystem sustainability.
Wangari Maathai’s works demonstrated various characteristics of transformational leadership. Firstly, she was a visionary; she understood the importance of conserving the environment for the world’s future and led others in prompting a change in how people interact with their environments. Mengel (2021) explains that transformational leaders are visionary because they evaluate past and emerging issues to develop effective solutions for long-term sustainability. Wangari Maathai demonstrates this factor; she identified challenges in how women in rural Kenya suffered due to environmental degradation and created a feasible solution (Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2011). Additionally, transformational leaders motivate others to improve themselves. Wangari Maathai helped women in rural Kenya and other persons to develop themselves and contribute to environmental sustainability.
Wangari Maathai also illustrated critical traits of servant leadership. In particular, she served others while leading them; Wangari Maathai joined other people who advocated for environmental conservation. For instance, in 1992, Wangari Maathai led a hunger strike in Kenya to protest the government’s abuse of its power in privatizing Karura Forest (CIFOR, 2011). Wangari Maathai did not merely accrue power or control over these demonstrations. Instead, she joined her followers in the protests and experienced their pain and concerns. Therefore, Wangari Maathai was also empathetic. She understood other people’s suffering and developed effective strategies to help them, particularly through GBM. For instance, Wangari Maathai empathized with rural Kenyan women who faced starvation and water scarcity due to environmental degradation.
This analysis also demonstrates the integration of servant and transformational leadership concepts. Although these leadership concepts have different principles, they share some commonalities, as Wangari Maathai’s leadership approach depicted. For instance, building good relationships with followers is an essential characteristic of both transformational and servant leadership. Transformational leaders build good relationships with their followers by adhering to ethical principles like authenticity, transparency, and cooperation (Mengel, 2021). On the other hand, servant leaders build good relationships with their followers through service, humility, and empathy (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Nonetheless, both approaches achieve the same objective. For example, Wangari Maathai used both approaches to create relationships that furthered her conservation efforts.
On a further note, servant and transformational leadership induce change and development among followers and organizations. Servant leaders empathize with their followers to understand their needs and improvement areas (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). They also serve others to identify change areas and drivers in their organizations. Similarly, transformational leaders work with their followers to determine how they can help them develop themselves. They also analyze their organizations’ internal and external environments to identify change areas and develop a change vision (Mengel, 2021). Wangari Maathai illustrated these common characteristics of servant leadership and transformational leadership in her conservation efforts and GBM. She worked with marginalized and low-income populations to understand their needs and identify necessary developments to address them. In addition to that, she evaluated the factors affecting the environment and devised feasible solutions.
Inherently, servant and transformational leadership motivate and inspire followers to align their interests with shared objectives. Effective leaders help the organization achieve its objectives. Mostly, they rely on their followers to fulfill their responsibilities contributing to the pursuit of organizational objectives. Various leadership styles have different approaches to prompting employees to work toward these shared pursuits. Transformational and servant leadership are similar in this aspect because they motivate or inspire their employees rather than other common strategies like forcing them autocratically or coercing them in a transactional model. Transformational leaders develop the organization’s vision and rely on their personality to influence others to adopt it (Mengel, 2021). Similarly, servant leaders work with followers to develop common objectives, ensuring all persons invest in the change or development process (Blanchard & Broadwell, 2018). Wangari Maathai motivated and inspired her followers to adopt her vision of environmental conservation.
Wangari Maathai worked with rural communities in Kenya to inspire them to improve their lives by conserving the environment. She inspired these communities to be self-reliant in overcoming poverty and other socio-economic challenges (CIFOR, 2011). She achieved this goal by being a visionary leader who could share a vision of hope and prosperity with others. Additionally, Wangari Maathai worked with other human and environmental rights activists to grow a movement that shared the common vision of conserving the environment for sustainable development (PBS, 2011). She demonstrated service, humility, and empathy, inspiring more people to join her movement. This discussion shows that she combined her transformational and servant leadership traits to pursue her environment conservation goals.
Conclusion
Transformational and servant leadership are among the most popular leadership styles due to their effectiveness in contemporary organizations. This study has evaluated the principles of the transformational and servant leadership theories and analyzed how Wangari Maathai applied them in her environmental and community work. Transformational leadership entails creating a vision for change in an organization and inspiring followers to adopt it and pursue common objectives. On the other hand, servant leadership means leading others through service and humility to understand their value and promote cooperation. Wangari Maathai illustrated these leadership styles by creating a vision for environmental conservation and sustainability and working with and serving others to promote buy-in for this vision. Her leadership style made her effective in her conservation and socio-economic development pursuits, illustrating the reliability of transformational and servant leadership concepts.
References
Blanchard, K., & Broadwell, R. (2018). Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results (1st ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). (2011). Wangari Maathai Tribute Film [Video]. YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koMunNH1J3Y.
Mengel, T. (2021). Leadership for the Future: Lessons from the Past, Current Approaches, and Future Insights (1st ed.). Cambridge Scholars Publisher.
PBS. (2011). Wangari Maathai Sees the Forest for the Trees [Video]. PBS Independent Lens; https://www.pbs.org/video/independent-lens-wangari-maathai-sees-the-forest-for-the-trees/.
The Green Belt Movement. (2022). Who We Are | The Green Belt Movement. The Green Belt Movement. Retrieved 26 September 2022, from https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/who-we-are.
White, S. (2018). What is transformational leadership? A model for motivating innovation. CIO. Retrieved 26 September 2022, from https://www.cio.com/article/228465/what-is-transformational-leadership-a-model-for-motivating-innovation.html.
Witt, D. (2018). The Top 5 Characteristics of Servant Leaders. Blanchard LeaderChat. Retrieved 26 September 2022, from https://leaderchat.org/2018/10/25/research-the-top-5-characteristics-of-servant-leaders/.