Servant Leadership in the Army
A servant leader is a person who puts the needs of the people he leads first, develops their subordinates, and shares power. Servant leadership calls for service, meaning that a servant leader serves first before being served, the hierarchy is flipped upside down. Listening skills play a significant role in servant leadership, especially in the army, because one has to listen to the soldiers, he/she leads before giving guidelines or orders on the way forward. This essay will discuss servant leadership in the army and provide examples of how army leaders exercised servant leadership.
For many years, the army has produced many successful servant leaders because, in the military, leaders are trained to put aside their ego and pride and seek to address others’ needs first to achieve objectives of a mission. Larry Spears outlined several characteristics of a servant leader, including building a community, commitment to the growth of the people he/she leads, stewardship, foresight, conceptualization, persuasion, awareness, healing, empathy, and listening. These are characteristics that are key in the army. The following subsections will discuss military leaders who demonstrated a high level of servant leadership.
General Colin Powel was a great listener and was a systematic and deliberate leader who sparked change in his leadership. Before implementing a policy or plan, Gen. Powel spent enormous time involving people, learning, and listening in the change process. Gen. Powel had the understanding that listening was an essential aspect of decision-making and communication. According to Harari (p.27), General Powel was an adaptive and agile leader who was always ready to address ill-structured issues because of his willingness to listen to team members. Spears emphasizes the importance of practical listening skills to determine the will and the direction that the team will take.
Lieutenant General Honore emerged from the Hurricane Katrina efforts in 2005 as a national hero. Honore showed empathy by providing a calming presence that the Gulf Coast region needed frantically. According to Ancelet, Fuadet, and Lindahl (p. 62), Honore was a compassionate grandfather and father who consoled a young mother with twins by letting his assistants care for her twins. His empathic nature was demonstrated through this act of compassion to the young mother. Spears (p. 27) stresses that a servant leader seeks to empathize with others and understand their problems and opinions. By demonstrating his empathy, Honore calmed and encouraged many people during a national crisis.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw demonstrated important servant leadership in the army, awareness. Col. Shaw led the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the most popular assault and one of the African American troops of the civil war (Assault of Battery Wagner). Initially, Col. Shaw took over the command to appease his mother, who was an abolitionist. Shaw developed a tremendous admiration for his soldiers as time passed. Upon learning that his black soldiers received less pay than white soldiers, Shaw led an 18-month boycott to end the army’s inequality. Shaw earned loyalty from his soldiers through his actions and awareness like the boycott. Although Shaw was killed while leading an attack of Fort Wagner, his soldiers upheld his belief that a soldier’s quality cannot be determined by skin color. Spears supports Shaw’s belief that servant leadership awareness helps a leader understand the issues involving values, power, and ethics. Shaw’s awareness placed him in history as a servant leader.
Lieutenant General Nadja West is the first African-American female lieutenant general and is currently the Army surgeon general (Siang). Her quote, “As a leader, you are a servant, so serve those you lead,” best describes her philosophy on servant leadership (Ferdinando). In one of the interviews, West said that she discovered the aspect of persuasion in leadership during her medical career. She developed the persuasion aspect through her experience when some of her patients were unwilling to pay attention to her instructions and had to find ways to make them adhere to her professional instructions (Bryant). Spears expounds on persuasion by stating that a servant leader should focus on convincing others rather than coercing them to comply. Through her commitment to her work, West demonstrated servant leadership in the army through her ability to persuade.
Sergeant Major David Davenport demonstrated the aspect of conceptualization when creating the NCO 2020 Strategy. The NCO strategy aimed at transitioning to a Noncommissioned officer Professional Development System (NCOPDS) from the Noncommissioned Officer Education System (NCOES). The team led by Maj. Davenport envisioned the broader picture and developed a plan to enhance the establishment of the NCO Corps (NCO 2020 Strategy). Spears explains the aspect of conceptualization in servant leadership by saying that servant leaders are expected to foster their skills to dream bigger dreams.
In summary, as illustrated by the above stories, servant leadership in the army has left a permanent mark in the history of servant leadership. Many servant leaders in the military demonstrated servant leadership characteristics as enlisted by Spears, including conceptualization, persuasion, awareness, empathy, listening, and many others. Servant leadership is the ability of a leader to show humility and prioritize others’ needs before their own. Army leaders who adopted servant leadership aspects motivated their organizations to more remarkable achievements, growth, and morale, enabling the respective army units to accomplish their missions with greater urgency and success.
Works Cited
“Assault Of Battery Wagner And Death Of Robert Gould Shaw”. HISTORY, 2020, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/assault-of-battery-wagner-and-death-of-robert-gould-shaw.
Bryant, A. “Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West on The Power Of Empathy”. Nytimes.Com, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/business/nadja-y-west-power-of-empathy.html.
Ferdinando, L. “Surgeon General Shares Secrets to Leadership Success.”. Army.Mil, 2016, https://www.army.mil/article/165149/surgeon_general_shares_secrets_to_leadership_success. Accessed 26 Aug 2020.
Harari, Oren. The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell. Mcgraw-Hill, 2003.
Lindahl, Carl et al. Second Line Rescue. University Press of Mississippi, 2013.
NCO 2020 strategy. “United States Army Training and Doctrine Command”. Https://Www.Tradoc.Army.Mil/, 2015, https://www.tradoc.army.mil/Portals/14/Documents/NCO2020.pdf. Accessed 26 Aug 2020.
Siang, Sanyin. “8 Leadership Lessons from The Military”. Forbes, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sanyinsiang/2019/03/31/8-leadership-lessons-from-the-military/#5ead22322108.
Spears, Larry. “Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics Of Effective, Caring Leaders.”. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, vol 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 25-30., Accessed 26 Aug 2020.