Servant Leadership Isn’t Self-Sacrifice—It’s A Self-Aware Strategy
When leaders take care of themselves first, they create the stability and resilience needed to lead … More
Leadership styles come in all shapes and sizes. Successful leaders learn how to apply different approaches based on the situation. Over the past decade, the servant leadership style has become popular. Introduced by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, the philosophy outdated traditional hierarchy; here, leaders exist to serve their team. It’s a model built on listening and putting the needs of others first. Based on a ScienceDirect article, organizations practicing servant leadership outperform others in employee engagement and retention. The study also noted servant leadership significantly boosts innovation self-efficacy, highlighting its crucial role in fostering a culture of innovation.
But how can servant leaders attend to others when they put their needs last? That’s the paradox. Servant leadership is seen as self-sacrifice. While that may be true, sustainable leadership requires more than mental stamina; emotional capacity must also be aligned.
Nectar recently reported that employees estimate that only 59% of leaders are actively engaged, and 64% say their work experience is impacted when other employees are disengaged. According to DDI, roughly 4 in 10 stressed-out leaders have considered leaving their leadership roles to improve their well-being. This strongly indicates leaders must first take care of themselves before fully supporting their team members.
Why Self-Care Is Not Selfish In Servant Leadership
A servant leader’s natural instinct is to give more. One of the foundational qualities of this leadership style is emotional intelligence. They hold space for others’ challenges. However, chronic self-neglect leads to poor decision-making.
Consider the flight safety reminder to secure your own oxygen mask before helping others. The same principle applies to leadership. For instance, leaders who invest in personal growth showcase healthy behavior for their teams.
Servant Leadership Starts With Self-Awareness
Servant leadership starts with knowing your limits. You need to identify what drains your energy and then create strategies to minimize it. Physical wellness also matters. Exercise and sleep aren’t luxuries; they’re leadership essentials.
Dan Albaum, a partner at Market Impact, emphasizes that self-care is essential to sustaining a servant leadership style. “You’re in no position to be a supportive leader if you’re not taking care of yourself,” Albaum shares. He credits his daily physical wellness routine with maintaining the energy required to empower his team. “You’ve got to eat right, sleep right, take care of yourself and seek the right balance.”
Servant leadership isn’t an overnight fix. It’s a gradual transition. Albaum began his leadership transformation by actively listening and giving his team autonomy. The partner built his company on the mindset that a leader’s growth is directly connected to the development of the other team members.
“I’ve always linked my personal career goals with the kind of measurable outcomes that I could point to saying that I actually had some role in or ability to contribute to,” he explains. “As much as we talk about technology and process and organization, I’ve always found that so much of those resulting outcomes are ultimately going to be driven by relationships and people. So, for me, [it’s important] to play a very visible, active role as a catalyst to ensure that the team dynamic within that given marketing team is healthy.”
Outdated systems and rigid performance tools leave servant leaders carrying the emotional weight … More
How Systems Can Support Servant Leaders
Doug Dennerline, CEO of Betterworks, offers a different perspective rooted in system design. “I don’t believe that servant leadership causes burnout,” he states, “outdated performance systems do. Too many leaders are doing the emotional labor of showing up for their people while relying on antiquated tools and processes that were never designed to support human-centered leadership. That’s an exhausting contradiction.”
Dennerline argues that when leaders lack the structure to align teams, they’re left alone with the emotional weight of performance management.
He recommends setting purpose-driven goals and providing regular feedback. Frequent recognition and unbiased performance calibration are also key to supporting servant leaders. He explains further, “Burnout doesn’t come from caring too much. It comes from caring deeply and having nothing in place from a performance side to support that care.”
Ultimately, servant leadership is a framework that uplifts others. That kind of presence requires self-maintenance. The more nourished a leader is, the more capacity they have to support those around them.
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