Introduction
Servant leaders believe it is their responsibility to build enduring relationships with people and listen to their followers. This enables leaders to comprehend the skills, requirements, and objectives of followers, enabling those followers to realize their greatest potential. Servant leadership has grown in popularity since it was initially proposed in the 1970s, among management and organizational behavior specialists in particular (Dye & Lock, 2018). When compared to transformational leadership, servant leadership emphasizes servicing followers rather than influencing them to support and participate in business goals.
Because it emphasizes the importance of serving others, the idea of servant leadership is crucial for healthcare facilities. The population is essentially served by the healthcare industry. As a result, its executives must uphold the same objective by serving the demands of their companies and clients. Servant leadership is a management approach that reinforces the organizational structure, boosts morale, and develops support for leaders (Dye & Lock, 2018). This chapter aims to describe how to put this concept into practice and what procedures and rules must be followed to succeed as a servant leader.
Key Concepts
To accomplish the goal and ideal of servant leadership, twelve important concepts and imperatives are laid forth in this chapter. Changes in business culture and managerial attitudes are at the center of all of them. For instance, shifting the emphasis of performance analysis and building relationships with the workforce make it apparent that all employees, not just management, need to improve the company culture. Servant leaders should concentrate on future outcomes rather than on mistakes or lost opportunities from the past (Dye & Lock, 2018). They need to establish contacts, which may be done by visiting offices or going to company functions.
The study for this chapter focuses heavily on power dynamics, transparency, and development. The main point is that the servant leader should not be inclined to abuse newly gained information to influence events for his benefit. In healthcare organizations, it should be standard practice to encourage the delegation of power because duties and responsibilities are sometimes too complicated for one individual to perform alone (Dye & Lock, 2018). To develop the staff’s abilities and make it more competitive in the job market, the servant leader must be willing to and actively encourage ongoing education. Servant leaders give coaching in this area in addition to allocating organizational finances to support staff education sessions.
Overall, the chapter focuses on the healthcare professionals and facilities’ leadership who are keen to explore practices of this particular leadership style. Its purpose is reflected in providing key essentials of servant type of leadership with potential implications for the primary audience – healthcare professionals. The concepts and ideas discussed are important for this particular type of leadership and crucial for comprehending healthcare management.
Conclusion
In summary, this chapter emphasizes the ideal leadership vision for a medical institution. Achieving this aim will lead to better patient care, which will increase the organization’s competitive edge. The majority of the ideas presented have both practical and theoretical benefits, and they are mainly well-discussed and stressed. Most crucially, the majority of the concepts and advances mentioned in this chapter have prospective consequences. Most of the recommendations are idealistic and realistically impractical under most current circumstances, which is the weak side. Although they emphasize that their vision is utopian, the writers themselves are aware of this. While some of the guiding principles are applicable now, this chapter gives a theoretically ideal vision of leadership for the future of healthcare.
Recommendations
This chapter offers implications for strengthening present leadership techniques, and its ideas are broadly applicable across enterprises and healthcare settings. The authors’ points about the division of powers, staff networking, and mentorship will undoubtedly have an impact on my future practice. My opinions on leadership in a medical setting have evolved and altered in this regard. On the other hand, the authors’ theoretical objective is largely formulated by the absence of concrete instances of the connections between various ideas, which makes them almost difficult to apply in a chain.
Reference
Dye, C. F., & Lock, J. D. (2018). Leadership in healthcare: Essential values and skills. Third edition. ACHE Management Series