Imagine this scenario: You are applying for a management role within a company that embraces servant leadership. What questions might the interviewer ask to determine whether you have what it takes to succeed as a servant-leader?
Here are four that might come up:
- Do you believe it’s your role as a manager to care personally about the people you supervise?
- What’s your responsibility for your employees’ personal growth and development?
- As the boss, do you see it as a sign of weakness to meet the needs of those who report to you?
- What’s really driving you: Is your main attraction the perks, power, and privileges that come with this position?
What is it that the interviewer is trying to learn about you? What do these questions have to do with your success as a servant-leader?
According to Robert K. Greenleaf, the founder of the modern servant leadership movement: Everything!
Here’s how Greenleaf described what’s needed to succeed as a servant-leader in his 1970 essay, The Servant as Leader.
The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.
Where does the natural feeling that one wants to serve come from?
The feeling that one wants to serve others comes from what the Germans call Weltanschauung — what we might call “worldview.” It’s your fundamental understanding of how the world works and where you fit in it.
Robert Greenleaf contrasted two extreme types of leaders: the “servant first” and the “leader first.” These two types are at each end of the spectrum. Between these two, exist myriads of blends and combinations that account for the infinite varieties within human nature.
Greenleaf says that servant-leaders are those who naturally cluster towards the servant first side of the spectrum. The interviewer is trying to figure out where you fall on the spectrum. Do you more readily identify with the servant-first or leader-first perspectives?
There are no right or wrong answers to the questions. It’s a matter of fit. Are you a good fit for the organization and its servant leadership culture?
Questions 1 and 2 explore your willingness to care for people and commit to serving them and their needs. If you care for people and are committed to their growth and development, then you probably fit the organization and its culture.
Your answers to questions 3 and 4 provide insights into your understanding of power and your preference for maintaining hierarchy. They also explore your motivation for wanting the new position.
Whether or not you’re hired for the position is beyond our control. However, we hope pondering these questions might help you better understand what it means to be servant first.
If you find yourself being drawn to serving others, then you’ve already begun your servant-leader journey.
We welcome you as a fellow traveller and want you remind you that servant leadership is a lifelong journey – and the journey of a lifetime! It’s a process of growth and maturity. There are no perfect servant-leaders among us, yet we keep aspiring to improve the way we serve and lead.