Discover why true leadership focuses on serving others rather than being the best. Learn servant leadership principles that drive engagement and performance.
Written by Laura Bouttell
Leadership is reaching an inflection point in 2025, with accelerating change, AI disruption, and rising expectations fundamentally reshaping what it takes to lead effectively. The traditional belief that leadership is about being the best—the smartest, fastest, or most accomplished—has proven to be not only outdated but counterproductive. True leadership begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first, then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.
This shift represents more than a philosophical change; it's backed by compelling research. Studies demonstrate that servant leadership positively affects work engagement, with organisations implementing servant leadership approaches seeing significantly higher employee commitment and performance. The most effective leaders understand that their role is not to be the star of the show, but to create conditions where others can shine.
Perfectionism is not a leadership trait. The pursuit of perfection is one of the great adversaries of speed, performance, and execution. When leaders obsess over being the best, they often fall into what psychologists term "toxic perfectionism"—a relentless pursuit of flawlessness that actually undermines the very outcomes they seek to achieve.
Characteristics of "being the best" leadership include:
Perfectionists are driven by a relentless pursuit of flawlessness, while high achievers are driven by a relentless pursuit of excellence. This distinction is crucial—excellence motivates and inspires, while perfectionism paralyses and demoralises.
Research from leading business schools reveals startling insights about perfectionist leaders. Perfectionism rarely helps leaders engage their followers positively or builds strong personal relationships based on mutual trust, kindness and collaboration. The costs extend far beyond individual performance:
The most profound insight about leadership comes from understanding what Robert Greenleaf termed the "leadership paradox." The servant-leader is servant first… The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served.
Consider the analogy of a conductor leading an orchestra. The conductor's role is not to play every instrument better than the musicians—it's to bring out the best performance from each musician and create harmony among the whole ensemble. Similarly, effective leaders orchestrate success rather than monopolise it.
Authenticity means being genuine, transparent, and true to yourself. It means admitting mistakes, owning up to shortcomings, and showing vulnerability. When leaders strive for perfection, they inadvertently create cultures of fear and mistrust. Employees feel they cannot be themselves, must hide their mistakes, and will be punished for any misstep.
The authenticity framework includes:
Servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritises the growth, well-being, and empowerment of employees. Rather than the traditional top-down command structure, servant leadership inverts the pyramid, placing employees at the top of the organisational hierarchy in terms of priority and focus.
Servant leadership is a transformational leadership approach that centres on serving team members rather than seeking personal recognition or authority. This leadership philosophy emphasises humility, collaboration, and a commitment to empowering others.
Based on Robert Greenleaf's foundational work and expanded by Larry Spears, servant leadership operates on ten core principles:
Listening - Servant leaders view leadership as an opportunity to serve others, so they'll focus on listening and understanding their teammates versus speaking to and commanding things from them.
Empathy - Servant leaders seek not only to understand where their employees are coming from, but also seek to empathise with them to better serve them.
Healing - Creating environments that support emotional and mental well-being
Awareness - Maintaining self-awareness and understanding of team dynamics
Persuasion - Relying on influence rather than authority to guide decisions
Conceptualisation - Thinking beyond day-to-day operations to see the bigger picture
Foresight - Anticipating future consequences and opportunities
Stewardship - Taking accountability without control or compliance, where every member does their best to serve the needs of others.
Commitment to Growth - Investing in people's development and potential
Building Community - Fostering genuine connections and collaboration
| Traditional Leadership | Servant Leadership |
|---|---|
| Power accumulation | Power sharing |
| Command and control | Influence and persuasion |
| Results-focused | People-focused |
| Competition-driven | Collaboration-oriented |
| Risk aversion | Learning from failure |
| Hierarchical communication | Open dialogue |
The biggest difference between traditional and servant leaders is where their motivation lies. While traditional leaders care mostly about their own advancement, servant leaders want to see their whole team grow and succeed.
The empirical evidence for servant leadership's effectiveness is compelling. Research findings indicate that servant leadership positively affects work engagement, with the relationship mediated by employee resilience and organisational support.
Key performance indicators show:
Psychological safety is defined as the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Servant leaders excel at creating this critical condition for high performance.
When employees feel psychologically safe, they:
Research demonstrates that servant leadership affects employee task performance through the mediating role of employee promotive voice and the moderating role of leader-leader exchange. This creates a virtuous cycle where engaged employees perform better, which improves organisational outcomes, which in turn creates more resources for employee development.
Leaders increasingly consider emotional intelligence a critical competency for themselves and their employees. Emotional intelligence is the quintessential leadership skill and may be the number one indicator of organisation success.
The four domains of emotional intelligence include:
Contrary to popular belief, vulnerability is not weakness in leadership—it's courage. Servant leaders are authentic. They are genuine; they do not pretend concern for others. Their actions are consistent with their values.
Authentic leaders demonstrate vulnerability by:
Trust forms the bedrock of authentic leadership. The trust equation can be expressed as:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation
The journey begins with honest self-reflection. Having more self-compassion and expecting less perfection from yourself can have several benefits on your team including improved productivity, increased motivation, and reduced stress.
Self-awareness practices include:
High achievers operate with considerable resiliency. Driven by a growth mindset, high achievers see failures as temporary setbacks that they might overcome with greater effort.
Mindset shifts include:
Servant leaders create an environment of transparency and trust through active listening. They listen actively and ensure that they understand the needs of those they lead.
Active listening techniques:
Servant leaders demonstrate servant leadership principles through their actions. Model the values and behaviours you wish to see in your team members.
Empowerment strategies:
Engaging leadership results in greater team effectiveness through personal resources like optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility.
System building includes:
The research demonstrates clear business benefits of servant leadership approaches:
Employee Retention: When employees are satisfied and engaged, when they understand that their interests and concerns will be addressed, and when they feel supported, they will be more loyal and less likely to leave for other opportunities.
Innovation and Agility: In a servant leadership environment, organisations have the benefit of a wide range of inputs. Employees who know that their ideas and input will be seriously listened to and considered will offer more ideas which will spur greater innovation and agility.
Financial Performance: Engaged teams achieve 23% higher profitability and 18% greater productivity, reinforcing the critical role of employee engagement in organisational success.
Servant leaders function as "multipliers" within their organisations. Rather than being the bottleneck through which all decisions must flow, they create systems and cultures that enable distributed leadership and decision-making. This multiplier effect manifests in:
Culture both impacts and is impacted by leaders, who develop, shape, and influence an organisation's culture over time. Leaders impact culture more than any other factor.
The cultural benefits include:
In 2025, adaptability, collaboration, and authentic leadership are key for leadership success. Business leaders are facing the highest-ever levels of change and expect it to accelerate.
Current challenges include:
Human connection will be essential for building successful, resilient teams. The most important skill won't be technical prowess, but the ability to forge genuine human connections.
In an age of increasing automation and AI, the uniquely human capabilities that servant leaders embody become even more valuable:
The leader must first and foremost be a human before being a leader. Soft skills such as empathy, ethical awareness, open-mindedness, and emotional intelligence are becoming increasingly important.
As organisations navigate unprecedented change, servant leadership principles provide a stable foundation:
Absolutely not. Servant leaders build authority and influence through supporting and serving employees and do not engage in the potentially toxic, more controlling tactics employed in some leadership styles. Servant leadership requires tremendous strength—the courage to be vulnerable, the discipline to put others first, and the wisdom to know when to make difficult decisions.
Research has found that when leaders emphasise the importance of serving others in their approach to leadership, it enhances the performance of those they lead. Servant leaders drive results through engagement rather than coercion, creating sustainable high performance rather than short-term gains at the expense of long-term capability.
Start where you are. Servant leadership is guided by several core principles that serve as the foundation for creating a culture where leaders are "servant first" and prioritise a supportive, inclusive environment. You can begin implementing servant leadership principles within your own sphere of influence, gradually demonstrating their effectiveness and expanding outward.
Success can be measured through various metrics including employee engagement scores, retention rates, 360-degree feedback results, team performance indicators, innovation metrics, and customer satisfaction scores. Studies show measurable relationships between servant leadership and employee task performance through enhanced employee voice and engagement.
Yes, servant leadership can be particularly effective in competitive environments. When employees feel valued and understand that their manager supports them and is committed to serving their needs, the work environment is more positive, leading to higher employee engagement and reduced turnover. This creates sustainable competitive advantage through superior talent retention and performance.
The servant leadership approach takes time to build, as it requires strong interpersonal relationships engaging the emotional, relational and ethical dimension of followers. While you can begin implementing servant leadership principles immediately, building the trust and relationships that make this approach truly effective typically takes 6-18 months of consistent practice.
The primary challenges include overcoming ingrained competitive instincts, developing emotional intelligence capabilities, learning to be comfortable with vulnerability, shifting from control to influence mindsets, and maintaining performance standards while empowering others. The key is letting go of perfectionism, which will minimise disengagement, burnout, and high turnover rates.
The evidence is clear: leadership is not about being the best—it's about bringing out the best in others. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
As we navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly changing business environment, the leaders who will thrive are those who understand that their role is not to be the smartest person in the room, but to create rooms full of smart people who feel empowered to contribute their best work.
The transition from competitive to servant leadership requires courage, humility, and persistence. It means abandoning the familiar comfort of control for the uncertain terrain of influence. Yet for those willing to make this journey, the rewards—both personal and professional—are profound.
True leadership legacy is not measured by what you accomplished, but by what others accomplished because of your influence. In choosing to serve rather than to dominate, to empower rather than to control, and to inspire rather than to command, leaders create ripple effects that extend far beyond their immediate sphere of influence.
The choice is yours: Will you lead to be the best, or will you lead to bring out the best? The future belongs to those who choose the latter.
Ready to transform your leadership approach? Begin by identifying one team member whose growth you can invest in this week. Remember, servant leadership starts with a single act of service, multiplied over time through consistent practice and genuine care for others' success.