Personal Philosophy of Leadership

Blog > Personal Philosophy of Leadership 

This is a paper I originally wrote for the Royal Roads University Masters in Leadership program course called Critical Analysis in Leadership Perspectives.  I would love to hear about your personal philosophy of leadership.

Through this paper, I will explore how my personal leadership philosophy of servant leadership integrates with the concepts of intercultural leadership, intersectionality, and transformational leadership.  I aspire to be the type of leader who considers various perspectives and adjusts to changing circumstances.  I believe that servant leadership provides the vehicle by which a leader in the 21st century is able to lead individuals and groups whom the leader may not totally understand or appreciate because I see servant leadership as focusing on the intrinsic and inherent value of each individual.  In pulling away from superficial differences found in different cultures, the servant leader is able to truly inspire, appreciate, and transform their followers.  The leader’s focus on those whom they are serving is the vehicle for inspiration for their followers and the driving force behind potential achievement.

Servant leadership is “leading through serving” (Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009, p. 28).  I believe focusing on and amplifying the talents of others will be how I enact my servant leadership practices.  My favorite part of serving others is discovering where they truly excel.  I find it marvelous to see what other people enjoy doing and what they do well, especially if what they are good at is an area of growth for me.  It has been my personal experience that talents are fundamentally the same regardless of culture, even though the expression of that gift may change depending on the culture.  By focusing on unique talents of others within a team, I have found that the team is better able to creatively and holistically arrive at solutions to challenges (2009, p. 32).  My second favorite part of service is what Trompenaars and Voerman called “better rules through exceptions” (2009, p. 31).  I am a big believer in considering the “spirit of the law” because it allows me to respond to individuals and their individual circumstances.  It seems to me a fair and just way of honouring the expectations of behaviours but also considering pertinent circumstances and adapting my response to their individuality.  When a leader understands when to make an exception, they are practicing what Pless calls “responsible leadership” by recognizing how their decisions have a lasting impact on others (2007, p.?).  I trust that by focusing on talents, giving room for creative problem solving, and focusing on meeting people where they are at regardless of rules, I can better serve my team as a leader.  Most importantly, I believe the consequences of my actions will be that I am acknowledged as a leader by my team because I have demonstrated that I am a person interested in what they have to bring to the table.  My role is no longer imposed upon a group but is the natural consequence of my behaviour and relationship with people.

I believe that real power as a leader can only come from a group of people deciding that a particular person is the leader they have chosen to follow.  This role is not to be confused with who is in charge or who is assigned a task to complete, but a leader is a person to loyally follow into difficult or challenging circumstances.  Grint (2000) states that “leadership is an invention” (p. 13), a social construct created by societies.  As modern societies in the West become less homogenous, the invention of what it means to be a leader becomes less homogenous amongst followers.  The “invention” is constructed through the lens of multiple identity structures or “intersectionality” (Gobaldas, 2013).  The leader is left to navigate not only their own identity, but is challenged with defining what their identity looks like to each individual follower as well.  I believe servant leadership alleviates that challenge and undermines that social construct by focusing on developing personal relationships with their followers and meeting them where they are at.  By doing so, the focus shifts from the qualities of the leader to valuing the connection followers have to the leader and the leader becomes someone who is focused on transforming their followers.

A transformational leader is one who transforms the intrinsic attitudes, motivations, and behaviours of their followers (Jackson and Parry, 2011, p. 31).  They do this by stating what they want out of their followers, noticing when followers come through with the request, and then “amplifying” this positive behaviour (Bushe, 2005).  While Bushe calls this appreciative leadership, it is very closely tied to the qualities of servant leadership articulated above.  A servant leader is one who can articulate vision for the future that is not confined to the present reality (Trampenaars and Voerman, 2009, p. 36).  Instead a servant leader understands their people’s inspiration and motivation comes from having a clear vision of their goals (Trampenaars and Voerman, 2009, p. 34).  The imagination or strategic vision of the leader is what makes them worth following (Grint, 2000).  I love the concept of setting a clear vision and goals because I see it as a form of justice.  Followers will never have to waste their time and energy guessing what is expected of them and instead can focus on spending their time mustering their vast capabilities towards finding solutions.  This is particularly valuable when it comes to managing multi-cultural teams where assumptions and expectations made by all parties can lead to conflict.  As a servant leader I aspire to focus teams on how they can personally contribute to the larger vision with the hopes of inspiring unimaginable creativity.  When the power of building towards a shared vision is diffused amongst the entire group, as a leader, I will accomplish two things, firstly; I will never have to concern myself with holding that power.  Secondly the vision can remain in a state of forward momentum, even in the absence of a leader because the followers are just as invested in accomplishing the goal as the leader ever was (Jackson and Parry, 2011, p. 61).  This is crucial if the leader is to accomplish goals that require action from multiple systems (Taylor, 2013) where there is no way to push the goal to completion via power.

Modern goals require collaborative leadership that transcend beyond a single organization and instead require a network to accomplish (Taylor, 2013).  This network can, and in my experience often does require leadership to navigate various cultures.  According to Taylor, leaders in such circumstances recognize that their organization cannot achieve their vision alone and need to pursue fostering partnerships.  This is where active listening becomes critical because a leader is to serve the needs of their people and they can only do so when they understand what those needs are (Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009, p. 38).  Furthermore, active listening gives insight to the servant leader regarding changing circumstances; however this can only be done when a leader really gives attention to what is being said from the perspective of the speaker and not themselves (Trompenaars and Voerman, 2009, p. 38).  My experience in the homeless serving sector reflects this approach.  In instances where either I or my team have been successful in serving a person, it is because we took the time to truly listen and appreciate their other professional supports and vice versa.  I found this to be tremendously challenging when working alongside different groups with philosophies different from my industry but ultimately discovered that taking a breath and setting aside my own goals expedited a solution.  I want to abide in this kind of humility more seamlessly so that I can regularly see beyond myself and consider what other people may subtly tell me is coming up ahead.

In summary, I believe in embodying the servant leadership philosophy for the ultimate purpose of being connected to those I am leading.  I aspire to recognize individual talents and take those talents and various circumstances into consideration when making decisions because I know that my decisions have a lasting impact on those I am serving.  Creating a positive lasting impact will free up others from the tyranny of my own personal perspective on accomplishing goals, thereby giving space for others to creatively problem solve.  By amplifying what others bring, I am transcending specific social constructs and expectations of what it means to be a leader enabling me to better connect to everyone regardless of their perspective or “intersectionality (Gobaldas, 2013).  This openness to others gives me the opportunity to transform those I am serving by showing them how they can personally contribute to a clear vision for a collective future.  While engaging others in contributing to a shared vision, I can ensure the vision remains a lasting priority, even if I were to leave as the leader.  This skill will serve me well in working towards visions which cannot be realized by my team alone, but require the joint effort of many groups with their own cultures and values.  My leadership philosophy is about how serving others can accomplish something grand, fantastic, and seemingly unbelievable by focusing on the smallest component of that vision: the individual contributor whom I am serving.

References

• Bushe, G. (2005). Appreciative leadership. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(5), 699-700. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2005.03.016

• Jackson, B., & Parry, K. (2011).  A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

• Gopaldas, A. (2013). Intersectionality 101. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 32(Spring), 90–94. doi: 10.1509/jppm.12.044

• Grint, K. (2000). Chapter 1: Introduction. In The arts of leadership (pp.1-31). Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Retrieved from the Ebook Cental database.

• Pless, N. (2007). Understanding responsible leadership: Role identity and motivational drivers: The Case of Dame Anita Roddick, Founder of The Body Shop. Journal of Business Ethics, 74(4), 437-456. doi: 10.1007/s10551-007-9518-x

• Taylor, M. (2013). Leadership Worldviews and Orientations. Unpublished Occasional Paper. Royal Roads University. PDF

• Trompenaars, F., & Voerman, E. (2009).  Chapter 4:  Core qualities.  In Servant-leadership across cultures (pp. 27-42). Oxford, UK: Infinite Ideas Ltd. [Retrieved from Ebook Central e-book database]

Blog > Personal Philosophy of Leadership