This global pandemic has affected us all — individually, organizationally and societally. As normal business concerns are mounted with additional challenges, a more comprehensive, communal leadership approach is needed – one that focuses on serving others.
US President-elect Joe Biden is the kind of servant leader Americans want right now. He is gifted in his ability to connect with the millions of people who have experienced deep loss and uncertainty during COVID. In his victory speech, Mr. Biden promised to lead with compassion and character, and heal the nation’s soul.
“I sought this office to restore the soul of America.
To rebuild the backbone of the nation — the middle class.
To make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home.”
The Servant As Leader
As a revolutionary bunch, servant leaders believe in serving employees as they explore and grow by providing them tangible and emotional support. However, their humility and servant leadership doesn’t imply that they adopt an attitude of servility. Rather, they work towards increasing the ownership, autonomy, and responsibility of followers. According to a recent McKinsey & Company research, “servant leader” mentality and disposition enhances both team performance and satisfaction.
Here are three things that can help you become a better servant leader during the COVID-19 times:
1) Ask how you can help employees do their own jobs better — then listen
Servant leaders tend to help empower employees to get the work done in the most efficient way. By giving employees complete freedom to offer ideas and allowing them to try new approaches to improve work, they encourage their team to bring more of themselves to work.
And let’s face it: people who do the actual work of your organisation most often know better than you how to do a terrific job. Most importantly, when employees are empowered, they manage to create partial or complete solutions on their own. This strategy allows for long-term efficiency as the natural ebb and flow of each team member increases their individual contributions over time.
So instead of telling employees how to perform their tasks better, start by asking them how you can help them do their jobs better. While this seems deceivingly simple, the effects of this approach can be quite powerful. As a servant leader, you should devote more time to identify goals, provide guidance along the way and offer support as opposed to micromanaging daily staff activity and behaviour.
2) Ensure employees and their families are safe
All servant leaders believe that employees should be the focus. And their job is to take up the challenge of ensuring employees work effectively.
They know that it’s easy to be a leader when things are going well, but much more difficult to lead when things are going awry – like in the current COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine.
This is why, now more than ever, employers need to make it known to their employees that their own safety and their families’ are important to the organisation. If an employee is struggling between protecting their family and meeting the work demands – and feels the company doesn’t care, it’s highly likely that they will gradually lose commitment to company work or to achieving company goals.
3) Create an environment of continual communication
During these times, people are seeking certainty and safety, looking to leaders for how they should respond.
In an article “The Psychology Behind Effective Crisis Leadership,” Gianpiero Petriglieri champions the need for having the ability to soothe distress and help others make sense of a confusing predicament. As a servant leader, it is your responsibility to offer reassurance and present a clear direction to your team. Engage employees in finding solutions and share positive stories of your organisation to build resilience. Effective communication will also ensure that you catch and rectify employee errors and performance issues before they aggravate.
Learn how you can take your leadership teams through a growth model which will help them mature on a personal and professional level by following me on LinkedIn and subscribing to the Keijzer Community.
Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.