Servant Leadership: Costs & Remedies
I’m sitting in what feels like my 100th interview looking to hire a new manager, when I hear the candidate say, “I’m a servant leader”. This is not the first time I’ve heard this spoken today. Servant leadership has many benefits, but I’m not hearing from these candidates the real pain points that arise with this leadership style and how they actively address them…. this has me worried. If you’re interested in getting real with yourself and learning how to identify and remedy the potential costs of servant leadership, this is the article for you!
But First, What is Servant Leadership?
In 1970, Robert Greenleaf published an essay called “The Servant as Leader,” leading to a widely known philosophy and approach that frames the leader as a servant to their team. This approach focuses on the leader’s role in empowering others, which promotes the success of the team and the individual. Servant leadership requires a commitment to the development of each team member, as well as a sense of humility and empathy. Servant leadership has been widely adopted and developed, recognizing that this approach contributes to prioritizing team needs, well-being, and growth, leading to more functional and thriving workplaces.
Benefits of Servant Leadership
The benefits of servant leadership to an organization and its employees are many. These include, but are not limited to,
enhanced employee satisfaction,
improved team collaboration,
employee development,
increased employee retention and
contributions to an inclusive culture of belonging.
The servant leaders themselves also benefit through
an authentic expression of one’s values and beliefs,
deeper connection with teammates, and
a sense of purpose and contribution to the betterment of others.
Potential Costs & Remedies
Still, while there are many organizational and individual benefits, I have observed that there can be a personal cost to a servant leader. Some of these costs might look familiar to you too.
1. Compassion Fatigue
Servant leaders often invest significant emotional energy in supporting and empathizing with their team members' challenges and concerns. Over time, this can lead to compassion fatigue, where they feel emotionally drained and overwhelmed.
Seeking support from a mental health professional to address compassion fatigue is a wise choice. However, there are actions you can take to help prevent compassion fatigue. These include consistent engagement in self-care, mindfulness activities (meditation, yoga, breathing techniques), seeking support from a trusted friend or colleague, debriefing following a challenging conversation or incident, taking breaks, and setting healthy boundaries.
2. Balancing Employee Needs with Organizational Needs
A unit leader within an organization faces the challenging predicament of balancing their employee/team needs with the greater needs of the organization, particularly when these needs might conflict. This conflict can significantly affect the servant leader who sees themselves as responsible for serving their team.
Deepening your servant leadership philosophy beyond the team to include the whole organization and all of its employees is a critical strategy for ensuring success as a servant leader. When the organization’s needs conflict with the team or individual employee’s needs, you should take some time to reflect on what emotions or reactions are coming up for you before taking action. Attending to your feelings and the conflicts within is critical grounding. Engaging with empathy and holding space for the reactions of others can be challenging, especially when you are experiencing reactions yourself. Journal about your feelings and reactions, and consider what you might need to resolve any internal conflicts between your commitment to your team and the organization. It might also be wise to consult with your supervisor, mentor, or another supportive leader about navigating the complex terrain of balancing team and organizational needs.
3. Self-Criticism
In my experience supporting leaders, servant leaders hold themselves to a high standard of service. This high standard can be challenging to achieve given the bureaucracy of organizations, the complexity of the demands they face, and the humanness of everyone around them. If a servant leader perceives that they haven’t done enough to support their team or an individual, or if they need to make decisions that might negatively impact employees, they may experience guilt or self-criticism. Over time, this can take a toll on an individual, and I have seen moments of self-criticism turn to ongoing negative self-talk that could evolve into confidence or mental health concerns.
If you see these signs in yourself, it is helpful to identify the specific expectations you hold for yourself and question whether these expectations are reasonable in the given context. Sometimes, surfacing your expectations is enough to recognize that some are unreasonable. It may also be helpful for you to consider the messages received in childhood and identify if they have come to life in adulthood in no longer functional ways. Our primary caregivers play a critical role in forming our patterns throughout our lifetime. Consider the implicit or explicit messages your caregivers communicated through their words or actions about your responsibility to serve others. Have any of these messages been internalized in a way that might be perpetuating self-criticism or guilt related to your role as a servant leader? Understanding the origin of your patterns and how they link back to modeling and messaging from your parents will help you uncover how to shift your patterns to be authentic to you at your core.
4. Boundary Issues
Servant leaders can pressure themselves to accommodate others to the point of overly accommodating and loosening necessary boundaries. Failing to understand that there is a limit to the support they can provide can lead to overexerting oneself and can trigger stress, burnout, or other mental health concerns. In addition, while it is rare, there might also be cases where employees exploit their willingness to serve and take advantage of the servant leader. These employees are not ill-intentioned; they are likely feeling helpless, and it’s easy to turn to a servant leader with an expectation that they remove their uneasiness or discomfort. Still, this can take a tremendous toll on the servant leader.
Identifying your boundaries and practicing setting boundaries compassionately is integral to self-care and wellness. In addition, it is facilitative for those around you because you will be much more able to engage wholeheartedly in your work when you’re honoring and attending to your boundaries and needs.
5. Conflict Avoidance
Some servant leaders find it challenging to step into conflict and facilitate resolution because they wish to maintain harmony in their teams. This avoidance can impact the leader’s effectiveness in making decisions when the team cannot reach a consensus. They may also struggle with intervening when team members are in conflict, facilitating dialogues where multiple perspectives are shared, or addressing unresolved issues. There are numerous costs to avoiding conflict in the workplace.
Taking some time to engage in professional development around conflict management and to self-reflect on (and appropriately challenge) the messages you tell yourself about conflict is essential.
6. Time Pressures
Being a servant leader can be time-consuming because leaders ascribing to this approach typically invest considerable time in supporting and mentoring their team members. This workload is on top of an entire portfolio of other duties associated with their role. These time pressures can cause the servant leader to feel overwhelmed by all that is on their plate and can potentially compromise the leader’s capacity to handle other necessary responsibilities. Servant leaders often want to be directly involved in helping their team members, which might create difficulty in delegating tasks. This behavior will result in excessive workload and additional stress.
Make sure that you are clear on your priorities and that those priorities align with the expectations of your supervisor. A conversation with your supervisor to clarify those expectations will likely be necessary. Consider what you can delegate to your team to remain available to them in more meaningful ways. Finally, it will also be essential to self-reflect on the origins of your busyness. If you’re interested in learning more about this, this article on busyness might be helpful to explore these time pressures in more detail.
7. Employee-Care Over Self-Care
Servant leaders may feel a responsibility for the well-being of team members. This heightened sense of duty may lead them to prioritize the welfare of others over their self-care. Neglecting self-care has tremendous physical and psychological consequences, significantly diminishing your capacity to serve others.
If you see yourself engaging in this pattern, you’ll need to schedule protected time for self-care. Make sure that you hold boundaries around this time and allow yourself the opportunity to do the things that fill your cup. If you struggle to let go and put energy into yourself, you can reflect on what is holding you back from caring for yourself. Is it related to your feelings of self-worth, messages you’ve received in childhood about what self-care is and is not, or is it that slowing down for self-care might bring up big emotions you don’t feel prepared to process? No matter the cause, please show yourself grace if you struggle with a self-care routine. Seeking support from or reviewing resources developed by a qualified mental health professional is always an option for anyone wishing to shift behaviors or increase awareness of patterns.
8. Misunderstanding & Lack of Support or Recognition
Many organizations ascribe to hierarchical and traditional leadership cultures. The servant leader may face resistance, skepticism, or lack of support and recognition if they are in a more traditional leadership culture. This dynamic can impact one’s well-being as they don’t experience a sense of belonging or appreciation from their supervisors or colleagues.
If you’re encountering this in your workplace, first know that your style and approach are incredibly valuable, and your presence is impactful, especially to those employees who crave authentic connections. It will be vital for you to seek mentorship from someone within or beyond your organization. A trusted source who will support you in learning how to cope with the mismatch between your style and the organizational culture can be helpful. However, there might be a time when you realize that the mismatch is a sign that you are destined to work in another context. These can be hard decisions. Showing yourself the empathy and compassion you offer others through these difficult times will be critical to identifying a path forward.
From Self-Reflection to Resolution
Reflecting on the potential costs to your leadership style sets the foundation for taking relevant and purposeful action that moves you towards resolution and the most effective leadership. Prioritizing self-care, seeking support and mentorship from highly effective leaders, establishing compassionate boundaries, and taking action to maintain your mental health are crucial. Investing in yourself as a leader is the most impactful thing you can do to be your best version of a servant leader.
ABOUT ME
Hello! I’m Karen, a psychologist specializing in supporting leaders to care for their mental health and improve their heart-centered leadership through a journey of self-discovery in therapy. I write blog posts like this to indulge my passion for writing and provide information to those interested in self-development. This blog is for information purposes only and is not a form of or replacement for psychological service or treatment. If you live in Oregon and are interested in working with me, please consider checking out my website to learn more about me and my services.
Reference
Greenleaf, R.K. (1970). The Servant as Leader. The Robert K. Greenleaf Center.
