Leading for a Better World

Combining the principles of servant-leadership and situational leadership to build and sustain happy, effective nonprofit teams

Leaders who serve first

The philosophy of servant-leadership was first coined by Robert Greenleaf, an internal AT&T consultant in the 1970s.  According to Greenleaf, “a servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the ’top of the pyramid,’ servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.”  Source: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership

Becoming a true servant leader is hard.  It requires looking inside yourself first to find and heal the broken places and remove much of your ego from your leadership style.  Serving others first does not always come naturally, and it feels counter cultural.  “I am the boss. I know best.  Do it my way.” Even today, these are all too often common messages from our leaders.  

The problem with the traditional top-down approach is that it is not very effective at motivating teams of people, especially younger people who have zero tolerance for being “bossed around.” No one really likes it at any age.  A study done by Randstad US in  2018 supports this idea: “58 percent of workers say that they’d stay at jobs with lower salaries if that meant working for a great boss. The Founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, proved that deeply caring about your employees and treating them like valued customers is both effective and profitable.

How can you become the boss everyone wants to work for? Demonstrate that you deeply care about their personal lives, not just their performance. Bring them coffee and bagels from time to time and arrange a one-on-one lunch with each team leader.  Really engage your team in solving problems and brainstorming new ideas - and listen deeply to what they have to say. Be humble and ask them for advice.  Seek out the best in your staff.  Lean into their strengths and successes and downplay their weaknesses and failures. Recognize that no one is perfect and remember that we each bring different gifts to the table. These are some ways to lead by serving your team.  The by-product is a high-functioning and happy team.

Situational Leadership

Lead by serving your team first. Results will follow.

It turns out that just striving to be a servant leader may not be enough to manage a team of people unless they are all high performing from the start.  You need a few other tools in your tool kit.

Situational leadership was popularized by well-known management consultants, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  To summarize, they posit that just as one shoe does not fit everyone, supervisors need to manage people in different ways based on their differing levels of motivation and skill, as well as the situation facing the organization. 

How to Apply Situational Leadership

As a leader/manager, you adjust your approach to both the current context or reality facing the organization, and the skills and motivation (“will”) of each member of your team.  Here is what it looks like on a 4x4 table:

Skill = expertise needed to complete the current task in the current situation.

Will = willingness or desire to change, grow, learn new skills to meet the current and evolving situation facing the organization.

This 4x4 grid, first conceptualized by Blanchard and Hershey, gives the manager a simple tool to assess what they need to do to support each individual team member based on their level of skill and their level of motivation or will.  

For example, a new staff member might be in the lower right box with plenty of motivation (high will) but still learning the job (low skill).  After 2-3 years, that same person ideally should be in the upper right box, very capable (high skill) with plenty of motivation in the tank (high will).   At 10-20 years in the same role, that person may be facing a little burnout, shifting to the upper left (high skill / low will).   Or perhaps new funding direction or change in technology has changed the nature of the work.  That same person might start to move toward to the lower left hand box if they start to get burned out, or their skills no longer fit the needs of the organization.   

As a leader, you have different actions you can take to support your staff at each stage of their professional development with your organization. For a high skill/high will staff member (upper right box), an ideal combination, you want to continue to support them by letting them run with their well-developed skills.  These are your top performing people so don’t micro-manage. But also continue to give positive feedback and check in on a regular basis.  

On the opposite side of things, individuals with low skill/low will (lower left box) may need more direction from you with clear very goals and expectations.  If their performance does not improve, you may need to have a heart-to-heart conversation with them, suggesting they find a role better suited for their current interests and skills.  It serves no one’s interest to have unengaged people on the team who cannot do the job. 

The other two boxes are likely to be where you spend most of your time coaching and motivating your team towards the high skill/high will corner.  

The current situation facing the organization shapes how you use this tool.  Take an extreme example: if the building is on fire, this might not be the time to worry about motivating or coaching people to exit safely. They need to get out. Period. The person who knows how to get out, whether they are the Vice President or the mail room clerk, is in charge and should direct. Similarly, if the organization is facing a serious financial crisis, that will color how you look at this tool. However, even in challenging situations, stop and take a breath. If you have built a high performing team, use them to find creative solutions.

Combining Servant Leadership and Situational Leadership

Coupled together, these two approaches provide both a powerful philosophy with a practical tool for managing people in different situations. Ideally, you always try to operate as a person who wants to serve your team. This is the case even when you need to help someone leave the team so they can find a better fit for their skills and interests. Your default setting is serving your team, even when it gets hard.

Final Thoughts: Leadership is both simple and challenging

Step one:  “Get the Right People in the Boat,” to paraphrase author Jim Collins.  Spend the time and energy you need to hire well.  Do NOT short cut this process because you think you do not have time to invest in hiring carefully.  Short-cutting the hiring process is a mistake you may live with for a long time. Everything you do next is predicated on getting the right team of people in the boat with you.  One person who consistently rocks the boat in the wrong way will disrupt your entire team and cut your productivity dramatically.  On the other hand, building the right team will make your role as a leader much easier and frankly a lot more fun.

Step two: Practice being a Leader who Serves First.  Remind yourself every single day: “This is not about me.”  Become a leader who serves your team first. Show them every single day that you care. Find the time to practice MBWA (management by walking around) to ask questions and offer encouragement. If someone on your team is not in the High Skill/High Will box, address it directly by motivating, coaching, or directing. This way you will quickly move your team members to the High Skill/High Will category. You will find that happy people are productive people, and it is a joy to come to work every day.

Step three:  Set broad direction, but also provide space to grow. Let’s be honest: this can be hard. You must deal with our very human desire to control things.  Remember, you now have an effective, hand-picked team. Yes, you still need to set a broad direction, but avoid the temptation to micromanage how the work gets done.  Doing so will wear out your highly motivated staff very quickly. Give them space to grow and learn by trial and error. Don’t get hung up on the small mistakes; do celebrate each success that moves the boat in the right direction.

Finally, remind yourself every day: “It is not about me.  It is about my team and the mission we serve.” 

It is not about me.

It is about Us.

And it is about the mission we serve.

About the Author:  Brian Backe, MBA, is an aspiring servant leader who provides coaching, training, and organizational consulting to emerging leaders, nonprofit organizations, and social enterprises. He has 40 years of management, leadership and board experience in national nonprofit organizations including Catholic Relief Services, Growing Hope Globally, the National Governors Association, The Support Center (for Nonprofit Management) and SERRV International (a fair trade nonprofit enterprise).  You can reach Brian at brian.backe.cnl@gmail.com