Servant Leadership Narrative Essay

For a person to become a servant leader, one needs to be a servant in the first place. This is an idea that was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970.  One has the edge to take care of other people’s needs first and he/she is characterized by the desire to serve. It does not necessarily mean to be submissive but they want to help others. Servant leadership is all about realizing the workmate’s, society and customers’ needs and finding ways to solve them. Robert derives this concept after reading a story by the name Journey to the East written by Herman Hesse. The story was a servant by the name Leo who served a group of travelers and did their daily chores and even sang for them. One day Leo went missing and the travelers had to cut short their journey (Greenleaf, 2013). Leo was considered as a great and noble leader while working as a head of the order.

Understanding of the fellow servants and having ability to solve a problem is a principle that a servant leader should possess. Since servants are humans and are prone to mistakes. The servant leader should look for the best way to solve the problem arising from the mistake in servants and customers interest in heart. An example can be derived from Matt Peterson story of a server at a restaurant who makes a mistake with an order and does not apologize. The client launches a complaint to the manager. The manager called the server and together they wrote a note apologizing for the mistake (Peterson, 2017). The next day the guest was back to the same restaurant and the server apologized. In this, the manager does not fire the server but helps him to rectify his mistake.