Servant leadership revolves around empowering and developing people and the leader has the responsibility of showing humility, being authentic, accepting people for who they are, and providing direction. The element that seems most natural in servant leadership is humility. Humility is the ability to put one’s talents and accomplishments in the right perspective. In servant leadership, this characteristic manifests in the extent to which leaders put the interest of others first, which in turn facilitates their performance by providing the necessary support. In humility, a sense of responsibility allows the leader to be in charge and retreat to the background when the task has been successfully accomplished.
The element of servant leadership that seem hardest is interpersonal acceptance. The characteristic requires the ability to experience and understand other people’s feelings and where they originate from. Letting go of other’s wrongdoings is challenging since in so doing it might cause recurrence of similar acts. While empathy is supposed to come naturally, letting go of others’ wrongdoings might be taken for granted and be used as a reason for similar mistakes in the future. While to some that might be by mistake, others do that out of spite.
The major weakness with servant leadership is that it takes time before the needed level of trust is built between leaders and their employees. With this, understanding who employees are and their level of engagement becomes a long process that might interfere with effective performance of an organization. The other drawbacks are it’s not applicable in every organization and there are high possibilities of losing sight of goals. My three personal leadership philosophies are that treating every employee fairly to enhance productivity. Loyalty comes second since it allows me to adhere to the protocols of an organization. Lastly, empowering employees through training and education is critical since it contributes to personal and organizational growth.