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At first glance, most leaders will push back on this idea of servant leadership meaning to “Serve Up” to our bosses, versus serving our employees. Before you take a stand, and reactively closing your mind- I ask you to seek to understand and be open to considering an alternate approach. In leadership, much like in life, when something is different than what we have been told, read or have said for the past 20 years- our first response is to push back or reject it. Let’s clarify one thing right away: don’t confuse sucking up with serving up. Sucking up is not serving your boss, sucking up is about misleading your boss and others to make oneself look better or to get a head. Serving up is selfless and is about helping others look good and helping others achieve success, in turn you look good and achieve success. Let’s focus on two key points to start changing our style to servant leadership for the future.
Point 1: As leaders our goals is to guide and help those we lead. Most leaders want their employees to believe in them, and if asked they would most likely say their goal is help their employees succeed and have their employee’s best interest in mind. Agreed? Serving up is about believing in our boss the way we want our employees to believe in us. For us to give the belief we hope others have in us to our bosses. When a leader does not believe in their boss or organization, then their employees, ultimately, won’t totally believe in them. We as leaders have the right intentions, but we have been taught the wrong mindset and actions. Like children, kids do what their parents do, not what they say. Employees do what their leaders do, not what they say. Serving up is about belief and trust. As leaders we want our employees and customers to believe and trust in us, and as a follower to our leaders- we must believe in our leaders and organization the same.
Point 2: If a leaders wants to really serve their employees- then coach them, don’t serve them. Don’t make your employee’s life easier or remove obstacles for them- make them stronger, so they can pick up their own obstacles and throw them out of their own way. Coaching a person means not leaving them alone and not only being there if needed. Great leaders coach their employees with the goal to help them grow, get promoted, achieve more success or get to their next goal no matter how it effects the leader themselves.
Important note on this: many leaders say they love their employees but resent the employees leaving or getting promoted outside the organization, they see this growth as a betrayal even, in some cases. It is not betrayal- it is growth, and as leaders we should strive to be a part of that growth by coaching and not serving! Like parents, we don’t want our children to grow up and leave us and have a family of their own, only because we will miss them and we don’t want to lose them. Our job as a parent is to put our selfish feelings aside and make sure we coach/raise them to be the best person, parent, spouse, boss, employee and human they can be. Like a loving and proud parent we are hard on our kids because we love them, great leaders are hard on their employees and coach their employees because the care about them.
Short summary: when leaders serve up and coach down everybody wins! Bosses are taken care of, the company is taken care of, employees are challenged and developed- and everyone is on the right path to success.