Servant Leadership Styles

KN Simon

Servant Leadership Styles

Being in Star of Hope in Houston as a volunteer, it was my greatest opportunity to exercise the knowledge learned in class on servant leadership. The experience I gained from the institution enhanced my perspective on management. I was able to use many of the principles of servant leadership all through the volunteer period until I became competent and skillful. Star of Hope is the best place to volunteer since one can integrate with diverse groups of individuals who have good interpersonal skills and leaders who are ready to serve and guide others without a sense of selfishness. The institution is a community-based Christian organization that focuses on helping the needy homeless members of the society. The organization aims at improving the life of economically incapacitated persons in the society. The facility offers various programs to the needy groups including shelter, education, jobs, drug abuse rehabilitation, food, spiritual enhancement, and life management plan (Star of Hope). The organization aims in transforming the society by meeting immediate and long-term needs of the homeless individuals (Star of Hope). In the organization, I exercised my skills with a dedicated team of staffs and volunteers who were compassionate in distributing food not only to the homeless but also to those in need. I learned a lot from the team about being a competent and compassionate servant leader.

As a volunteer, I was able to apply many of the principles of the servant leadership every day. The most common servant leadership principles I applied were listening, empathy, healing, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, commitment, and community building (Greenleaf & Spears, 2002). Listening was fundamental all through my volunteering period. Moreover, paying attention helped seeks information and identifies what is in mind of other individuals. In various occasions, I used effective listening skills by paying attention to opinion and suggestion of our team leaders, fellow team members, and the needy. After listening attentively, I was able to identify the problem and come up with a logic solution that impressed everyone. For example, I come up with a suggestion of giving to those in needs and not only to the homeless. This was after listening to the majority of homeless persons who confirmed that they abandoned their homes due to lack of food. Many people we were serving though they had low esteem, so I used the skills of empathy, healing, and persuasion to help them improve their morale. I realized that I was a good example to my teammate since they imitated my skills in serving the needy. In most cases, I strived in understanding and recognized the special and unique spirit to my teammates and the needy. I tried to strengthen and encouraged those who have lost hope or embarrassed and convince them the best way to accept decisions that bring positive change in life. Conceptualization and foresight principles enable me to focus on future affairs on career development. I focused more on enhancing my career and become prominent team leaders. Therefore, I highly regard everything I learned as a volunteer in servant leadership. As much I was in the organization, I was also committed enhancing the growth of the people and community. Many time I guided my fellow teammates on the best way to be the better servants, I guided the new members who joined our team on the things that we do and mobilized the community to help us on food donations.

It was not until I was given an opportunity as servant leadership volunteer in Star Hope than I realized that the power of giving could make an individual a strong servant leader. Boyd (2003) indicates that volunteers need guidance and help from the servant leaders since they cannot improve the community alone. I was very keen on paying attention of my servant leader’s guidance as preparation to be a servant leader. At the end of my volunteer opportunity, I had already acquired enough skill and knowledge to be competent and dedicated servant leaders. As servant leaders, I was humble and morally upright and used servant leaders powers to serve others. I was able to establish a healthy relationship between leaders and my fellow teammates. Lastly, I established compassionate and encouraging working environment to my team as well as the organization. As a servant leadership volunteer in Star Hope, I noted that as a dedicated servant leader one could be able to influence others, leading to a positive impact on the achievement of an organization. As a servant leader, I found that most of the activities I initiated motivated my teammates, who eventually worked hard to the attainment of those initiatives. I initiated a program of distributing food not only to the homeless but also to the needy like the aged, orphans, poor, physically challenged, and refugees. My teammate embraced the idea, and when I proposed to the management accepted it. The main challenged was to get more food to feed the increased number of beneficiaries. As the servant leader, together with my teammates, we were able to mobilize the community through various means such as social media, mass media, walk, meeting potential donors to contribute and donate food. Consequently, we were able to get more food than needed to feed the needy.

After completing my volunteer opportunity, I discovered that I had outstanding personal skills and leadership styles that were very vital for the growth of the organization and encourage teamwork. I was able to be attentive of my strength and weakness that enable me to relate well with my teammates. I discovered that I had extraordinary communication skills, which enabled me to communicate with my fellow teammates and my seniors effectively. My leadership styles were awesome since I met my objective by listening to the decision of other before coming up with the conclusion. Regardless of my status of experience, my servant leadership principles will be very vital in my workplace, organization and my personal life. The principles guide me to be a good listener, compassionate, dedicated, committed, innovative, optimist and helping the community (Greenleaf & Spears, 2002). Following the principle of servant leadership, I will be able to relate to others well make them happy as well help the organization meet its objective because of my stewardship. The servant principles will enable me to meet my goals in life.

References

Boyd, B. L. (2003). Identifying competencies for volunteer administrators for the coming decade: A national Delphi study. Journal of Agricultural Education, 44(4), 47-56.

Greenleaf, R. K., & Spears, L. C. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.

Star of Hope. (n.d.). Programs and services at Star of Hope Mission. Retrieved from http://www.sohmission.org/our-services/services/

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