What Is Servant Leadership?

The question

What does servant leadership actually mean on an ordinary working day? The phrase can sound abstract, or even soft. In practice it is demanding. It is a leadership philosophy built on serving and developing your people rather than commanding them from a distance.

Tom’s answer: take care of your people

Dr. Tom DePaoli learned the idea from his Navy trainers, who put it in five words: take care of your people. In Servant Leadership Stories he shows what that looks like. In one story he becomes a “reverse apprentice,” asking a twenty-year technician to teach him the job and then doing a shift of it himself. In another he trusts the people closest to the work over the staff reports.

Servant leadership is not avoiding hard calls. Tom is clear that a leader should be positive but never sugarcoat a crisis, admit mistakes immediately, and accept the blame when it lands on their desk.

What to try this week

Keep your word on one promise, ideally a day early. Give each person on your team a clear training plan. Ask how each person prefers to communicate. Then follow Tom’s challenge: find one broken process to fix, one person to mentor, and one opportunity to lead from the front.

What to watch for

Servant leadership fails when it becomes a slogan. Visiting the floor without acting on what you hear erodes trust faster than staying away. The test is whether your people’s work gets easier because of what you do next.

Read the servant leadership guide, or start with the free excerpt of Servant Leadership Stories.