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Creating Customer value through Servant Leadership   ‘This is ridiculous!’ Very often this is the thought that runs in our head, sometimes even speak aloud –  as we run into a wall trying to get a solution,  process a claim or service something  The service person gives you a vibe which could mean any of the following “I need to play it safe about my job. Your pain comes next if at all” ‘The person who issued this would have told you’ ‘This is what the system says..’ ‘Let me call my manager’ ( I know he can’t do anything about this either!) One gets the feeling that the ‘house always wins’ and now I have to pay more or convince more people to solve the problem’.  As a customer, there is a sense that you have been denied what is rightfully yours. Ken Blanchard calls it the duck syndrome, where everyone who you contact in the hierarchy says quack, quack, and pushes it to the next level up.  How does it happen? Organizations want to reduce variability of responses in the final mile.  Systematized response ensures predictability of the cost of business or service and guards against any potential exploitation. Organizations believe that all admissible responses to a customer have to pre-exist in the defined manual. Over time this codified customer interaction actually ‘trims’ away the grease of good customer service and adds to the cost of business and risks losing customers. Good Customer service relies on the intrinsic human quality of empathy and the willingness to help resolve any genuine and logical issue in the best possible manner.  Perceived lack of ownership and the capability question Most pyramidal hierarchies believe that the level of ownership and decision making capabilities is weak at the lower rungs. Therefore actions have to be guided and clearly defined for the organization to be successful. Not true. Many organizations have generated phenomenal customer value with a distributed model of  individual or team ownership. Google would not be in a position to conceive  and pursue so many ‘moonshots’ if there were no microcosms of risk taking, experiment and accountability. Southwest airlines pride themselves in empowering employees to do what is right. Ritz Carlton creates a culture where any employee will say “I will take care of it” immaterial of which function the problem belongs to.  The Fear Factor Organisations end up creating a culture of fear, that if the processes are not followed to the letter, their jobs are at risk. So instead of trying to “serve” the customer, employees are obsessed about following the written down procedures and policies. Added to this, a leadership which thinks that “they know the best” do not ever ask for feedback from the people who are actually dealing with the real stuff. Of course, no one dares to volunteer feedback because of the fear factor.  Servant Leadership as a lever of resolution Servant Leadership behaviour is defined as a set of 7 unique behaviours called DEEP BHC and it is a measurable and actionable process. It helps create an idea generative organization, a reductive approach to processes that enhances speed of response, and thoughtfulness that improves customer delight Servant Leadership recommends that organisations invert the traditional pyramid and let the employees at the “bottom of the pyramid” do what is best when it comes to customer issue resolution. Two specific behaviors of Servant Leaders,  mentioned below, can help build ownership and enhance customer value through better engagement and service Empowerment:  Building the confidence that all employee feedback  is welcome and will receive a thought through response from the organization. Recognizing that people are capable of decision making and it is most likely in the interest of the organization Creating some wiggle room for decision making, that is not codified. Let the employees know that every situation cannot be codified and employees can use their grey matter based on the situation, as long as it is in line with the organisation’s vision, mission and values. Encouraging peer learning from customer feedback and encouraging response in real time.  Helping others grow and succeed: Success for the frontline executive is about making themselves and the organization look good in the eyes of the customer.  Taking a holistic approach to their (frontline) development and not viewing everything through the lens of revenue alone can be a key differentiator for the leader and the organization. Encouraging them to ask questions and find answers, training them to build not just their service acumen but also their business acumen,  creating an atmosphere that encourages initiative and acknowledges effort, are some aspects that will make them well rounded contributors.   According to a research paper by Robert Saxe and Barton Weitz on a ‘Measure of the customer orientation of salespeople’, Salespeople with higher levels of customer orientation truly care about customers, and thus engage in actions that customers value, such as listening to customer feedback and solving customer problems. Salespeople who demonstrate higher levels of adaptive selling adjust their sales strategies in ways that better fit customers’ needs and preferences (Spiro and Weitz 1990). Together then, customer orientation and adaptive selling lead to win-win outcomes because customers are served in better, more individually relevant ways, producing higher levels of success for the sales force and the organization.    A flip on the traditional leadership model, Servant Leadership invigorates people at various levels through trust and care, and by default inculcates better ownership and accountability. It is an approach that has been successfully implemented by organizations who have ‘flipped’ conventional thought and built successful and robust businesses. Google, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Tatas to name a few. (A edited version of this article also appeared in the Enparadigm Blog in June 2021 https://enparadigm.com/blog/creating-customer-value-through-servant-leadership/) ________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or contact him here. 

We all have heard the proverb “No pain No Gain”. I am not sure if you have given it much thought. But if we give it a thought, we might have differing opinions about it. In the context of doing hard work to progress in life this sounds great. But how do we apply this or translate this in the current context of the pandemic, where we have lost our loved ones, or lost our livelihoods? How do we react when we go through suffering and mental pain for no apparent fault of ours and for no apparent gain that we can foresee soon? I must confess that I have no answer for those questions. But what I would like to attempt to do is to examine this aspect of pain and suffering and see how we can cope with it better. In an earlier blog, I discussed the victim mentality that some of us get into when faced with pain and suffering. We ask questions about why me, why now etc, and feel defeated and stay defeated.  That is certainly not going to help anyone. So what can we do when we are going through pain and suffering? I offer two suggestions that can turn around our reaction to pain and suffering. Consider pain and suffering as an opportunity (God give opportunity, if you have a spiritual bend of mind) to count your blessings, count what you have and develop an attitude of gratitude.   Arthur Ashe was the first black man to win a Grand Slam. He is believed to have got infected with HIV/AIDS during a blood transfusion during a surgery.  When it became known, people all over the world started asking questions on why him? The questions reached him and his response was this. “The world over — 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD ‘Why me?’ ” Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong, Sorrow keeps you Human, Failure keeps you humble and Success keeps you glowing, but only Faith & Attitude Keeps you going..” Consider Pain as Gift No, you didn’t read it wrong. I mean it. It is a gift that tells us where to draw the lines and how to enjoy the pleasure of life responsibly. Let me illustrate this with a medical study. Dr Paul Brand (1914-2003) worked amongst and studied leprosy in India.  He establishes the fact that what lepers suffer with most is not because of the decease per se, but because the decease acts as a very very strong anesthetic and takes away their sensation of pain. They cannot feel pain and thus they end up hurting themselves (without feeling anything) repeatedly. They put their hands in fire because they cannot feel the heat.  They walk on broken glass because they cannot feel the pain when glass pierces their feet. Even common activities like holding a mop or turning a key, or working with a screwdriver could damage their skins and muscles, because they just cannot fathom how much pressure to put on those things. Simple shoes can cause infections because they do not know when the shoe hurts and causes bruises. Imagine a nail piercing your foot when you walk and it is staying there, and getting more and more deep into your flesh because you did not feel the nail piercing your foot. Imagine not being able to itch when a mosquito bites you, imagine waking up with your toe missing, because a rat chewed it off and you didn’t feel a thing. It is difficult for you and me to fathom this, because we take these things for granted. And we are able to take these things for granted because we can feel pain. Pain helps us to stop doing things that could damage us more permanently. Pain warns us to stay away from activities that could be harmful. Pain tells us when to stop. That is why Dr Brand boldly states “Thank God for inventing Pain. I don’t think He could have done a better job. It is beautiful.” Dr. Brand knows the value of pain, because he raised and spent millions of dollars  to design and manufacture gadgets like special gloves, special shoes, special audio devices etc, to enable lepers to be able to “feel” pain artificially.   Are we ready to use pain and suffering for developing an attitude of Gratitude? Can we consider pain as a gift given to us? Servant Leaders are able to cope with pain and suffering better, because of the behaviour of Emotional Healing that I wrote about in an earlier blog. Servant Leaders put the need of others above their own, as we discussed in a previous blog on putting others first. So instead of focusing on their own pain and suffering Servant Leaders focus on others pain and suffering and ask the question “what can I do to alleviate someone else’s pain today?   What is your response going to be?  Join the Servant Leadership Movement, manage your pain gainfully and help others manage their pain. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or mail him here.

These are troubling times for all of us. Several of us are perturbed by the pain and suffering that is going on.  Where can we go for comfort? Where can we find solace? How can we comfort others? You must have heard the saying “ You can’t live on love and fresh air alone”. The underlying assumption behind this saying is that they are the only two things that are available free. Let us look at it in the context of today. Newspapers and social media are full of heart wrenching stories of people gasping for oxygen, something that is supposed to be available freely in fresh air. The air pollution in Delhi, India, for quite a number of years have taught us that we cannot take fresh air for granted. COVID has just reaffirmed that. We cannot take fresh air for granted. How about love? Is it free anymore? Is it available when we need it the most? Whatever your answer is for this question, the good news is that each one of us can make an effort to make the answer positive for others. Yes, if we turn around the question to “Do we love freely anymore? Is love our first priority in life? “ The picture will change for sure. I define Servant Leader as “A Servant Leader is someone who invests in the life of another person to the extent that the other person becomes better, bigger, wiser, richer, healthier, wealthier, happier, more famous than the leader themselves.” This should not be limited to formal leaders. This can be applied to each and everyone of us, immaterial of whether we hold a formal leadership position or not.  Let me suggest a few practical things we can do to take our love to this level Stop chasing success and start pursuing Significance. I have written about this in an earlier blog . Significance is when we use our success to add value to others. When we use our wisdom to lift up the foolish, when we spread our knowledge to educate the unlearned. When we use our wealth to help the poor, when we use our health to care for the sick, when we use our network to be able to help someone in need get the precious gift of an oxygenated bed when they most need it. If we just chase success alone, we will forget the people around us, and will be very busy achieving things one after another . but will not have time and inclination to use anyone that for someone else’s benefit. Look for opportunity to lift someone else above you. In an earlier blog, I spoke about the little child who could not see the festivities around her till the time the father decided to lift her up above him. There are a lot of souls around us today who need that uplifting. Smile at someone. Ask another person, how you can be helpful. Just lend a listening year to someone who needs to pour out their troubles. Mourn with someone who lost a loved one. Pray for them. Provide for them as much as you can. Don’t let distance and lockdowns hold you back. Understand and practice the deeper meaning of forgiveness and grace. In my blog on Emotional Healing, I spoke about the true meaning of Grace.  Don’t get caught up in the prison of unforgiveness and entitlement. Let us learn to let go and be willing to give others a second chance (and a third chance and an umpteenth chance). We are all messed up. Let us cut some slack for others to make their mistakes and learn from them. And if you are working professional, start by rewriting your job description. If your job description is all about results, and goals and projects, it is time to rewrite the same to include love for your employees/ team members in your Job description. In the podcast Key Mental Shifts for Servant Leadership, by Pete Mockaitis, available in LinkedIn Learning and lynda.com, the presenter describes a case study in Walt Disney Parks. As all of us are ware, Disney prides themselves in providing a magical experience to all their guests. They started getting complaints that the housekeeping staff was being rude or not responsive to several Guests. The analysis revealed an interesting fact. The housekeeping staff’s job description was to keep the park clean. They were focused on their job description to such an extent that when they saw a client throw trash all around it made them antagonistic to the guests. And if a guest who was throwing trash on the road, comes and asks the housekeeping staff for directions, the natural response is going to be, “I don’t know, I am just a janitor.”  They are thinking inside, “why I should I help this person, he just made my job harder by throwing trash on the road”. Once the leadership realised this, they changed the job description of the house keeping staff as “To create happy guests, to contribute to the happiness of our guests. How do you do that? Well, you provide them with directions when they need it. You give a kind smiling face when they ask you questions” and by the way, as an additional duty you also keep the park clean. This simple but definite switch to the Job description made a world of difference to the way the housekeeping staff treated the guests. The message is this. Change your job description to something that you can look forward to. Add love to your job description. Make the first sentence “ My job is to take care of the people I am entrusted with, to care for their wellbeing, to motivate them, to develop them, to help them grow and succeed ”. Don’t worry about the HR drafted job description that might remain in the HR systems. Go ahead and change the Job Description that you will live every working day of

Permit me to ask you to do an exercise. Please do pardon me if you feel uncomfortable doing this exercise. Grab hold of a piece of paper and a pen. I would like you to think for a few  moments and write down all the major things you did during this year of the pandemic. All of us had a difficult year and at the same time, the year has opened up opportunities for several of us. We have adapted to several things during the year. Write it down.  It might be that your learned a new skill, you published a book, or It might be as simple as baking a cake, it might be buying cloths, it might be decorating the home or whatever. Think and write down please. If you have finished writing it down, go through the list and put a tick mark on the items that were done for others. If you baked the cake for the family, it counts. If you bought cloths for your wife (if she ever allows you to do that; my wife doesn’t trust in my taste, and I admittedly do not have any, in cloths) it doesn’t count (I am kidding, it does). Now, look through the ticked items and identify what you did for your immediate family, immediate relatives, and put another tick mark against the items you did for people outside your family circle.  Now sit back and reflect on the items that have the double tick marks. The year is coming to an end with the Christmas being over, Holiday Season coming to an end and a  Grand Finale of the New Year celebrations. This is a season of Joy and celebrations, especially as we are bidding goodbye to an arguably most difficult year this generation has faced. All of you know that I evangelize Servant Leadership in corporates, and other Organisations. That is my passion, that is my mission and that is the only legacy that I wish to leave. So, when people ask me to define a Servant Leader, I give them this definition. “A Servant Leader is someone who invests in the life of another person to the extent that the other person becomes better, bigger, wiser, richer, healthier, happier, wealthier, more famous than themselves.” All participants in my workshops are impressed by this definition of Servant Leadership, but soon the “Practical aspects” of  this definition starts raising its head. Does it mean that I will need to promote my direct report to be my manager?  Does it mean that I give an increment to my team member that his/her salary becomes double that of mine? Practical questions. So, I do have a practical definition, and I do provide a practical definition, so that they don’t get put off by the ideal definition of Servant Leadership that I had articulated above. But in this blog I want to intentionally keep away from the practical definition of Servant Leadership and ask that we embrace the concept of Putting Others First, in all its original intent. May this be our resolution for the new year. Putting Others First. Putting Others First is one of the 7 DEEP BHC behaviours that I had written about in an earlier blog.  My research shows that this is one of the lowest scoring behaviours in the 360 degree survey that we run before our SLAM workshops. Let us look at a true story. The story is true, but some of the interpretations are mine in the narration that I have given below. Picture Courtesy:  Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a Sudanese child and a vulture,   downloaded from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_vulture_and_the_little_girl#/media/File:Kevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg) Several of you have seen this picture before. This is a picture taken by photographer Kevin Carter in 1993. This is a picture of a famine stricken Sudanese child who was trying to reach the UN feeding center just half a mile away. The child (initially published as a girl, but later believed to be a boy) was exhausted and could not carry on and the vulture was waiting for its feed. Kevin took the picture and it was published in the New York Times. The horror of the famine that was prevalent in Sudan came alive through this picture and this picture alone brought international attention to the situation in Sudan and significantly increased the donations for relief work in Sudan. Kevin Carter went on to receive the Pulitzer prize for this picture. But the story does not end there. Questions were asked about what did Kevin do actually, after clicking the picture. It is reported that he remarked to his wife that he did chase away the vulture. Yes, chase away the vulture but left the child where he was. Kevin did not think it was necessary, or possible for him to help the child reach the feeding center. The situation in Sudan was very volatile and they had limited time (it seems) and their priority was to click photographs. That was the job that Kevin was charted for. So he did his job and certainly was rewarded handsomely for the great job he did. No one really knows for sure whether the boy survived or did really reach the feeding center finally. Kevin certainly did not know. The guilt and the horror of what he saw and what he did not do, weighed heavily on Kevin Carter and he committed suicide four months after receiving the Pulitzer prize. This is a sobering story for us to remember this holiday season. In our hurry to celebrate the season, have we missed someone’s urgent need? In our eagerness to do a great job at what we have been assigned to do, have missed noticing the need of another person? In our eagerness to protest against the restrictions we have had through the year about gathering, partying, worship etc, have we missed actions that could edify (build up) others? When we rejoice in healing that we or a loved

Leadership and Power has always been bed-fellows. We cannot think of one without the other. If we go with the definition that “Leadership is Influence”, then no one is really exempt from being a Leader. Does that mean everyone has some sort of power of otherwise? Researchers agree that we all have power, immaterial of whether hold positions or not. Social Psychologists John R. P . French and Bertram H. Raven conducted a remarkable study about power in 1959 and classified power into 5 separate and different forms. Susan Fowler and Ken Blanchard in their book, Self-Leadership and the One minute Manager speaks about 5 Points of Power that Self-Leaders need to be aware of. As they put it “Not realizing your own power could be your greatest assumed constraint.” In my studies about power, we have seen that each power that we have as an individual or as a leader can be used appropriately or can be misused. History records more of misuses than right uses of power. That is what prompted T S Eliot to say “ Half of the harm that is done in the world is caused by people who have power and want to feel important.”  I am sure we nod our heads in agreement at the quote by T S Eliot. We can reel out names of dictators and military generals and politicians who have proven this right, and many continue to prove this saying right even today. Corporates are not devoid of this malady either. It is an accepted norm for “Leaders” to have a bigger office, a reserved parking space, priority seating and servicing at office cafeteria etc. We have come to accept them as part of the office culture and normally do not worry about it. On a lighter note, we might have a laugh if we see an executive rest room in the office premises. Simon Sinek, in his book, Leaders eat last, talks about the former Merrill Lynch    CEO Stanley O’Neal. Stan’s story is a true rags to riches story that Ivy League Management Schools drool over. He did make it really big. He made it to the top position at Merrill Lynch in 2002. In his own words “Whatever I have achieved in life has been the result of the unique combination of luck, hard work, and opportunity that can only exist in this country. My grandfather, James O’Neal, was born into slavery in 1861.”  In the same year that he took over the CEO position at Merrill Lynch, O’Neal was named the “Most Powerful Black Executive in America” by Fortune magazine. Further instances show that he used that power in a very self-centered manner. He had his own private elevator to go to the 32nd floor and he restricted entry of employees to the floor. He used his  power to feel important, and thereby became secluded. This infiltrated into the leadership culture of the organisation. The New Yorker reports that some staffers were referring to the firm’s leaders as “the Taliban” and to O’Neal as “Mullah Omar.” Stan is known to have kept away from the employees and was in touch with only a handful of “faithful” ones. Many analysts believe that this was one of the major reasons for his downfall. He was forced to retire in October 2007, due to the pathetic performance of the company. The legacy that he left was not pleasant.  Jim Cramer, the host of “Mad Money,” on CNBC,  wrote  “This man was Wall Street’s Wicked Witch, a much-feared, totally unrespected hatchet man who appeared to be beloved by his troops but in reality didn’t have a friend in the joint. . . . I swear you could hear the cheering from downtown after he left.” On the other hand, Herb Kelleher, who founded the Southwest Airlines, had a very different idea about Power. He said “Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.” And several analysts agree that he was not faking anything. Terry Maxon of Dallas Morning News reports “Whether it’s hugging and kissing co-workers at a meeting or making a 2 a.m. visit to a maintenance hangar, Mr. Kelleher is not happy unless he’s talking with employees.” And what legacy did he leave? Apart from leaving behind the worlds’ most profitable airline company, he also left several thousand employees raving fans of himself. Take a look at what the employees did to thank him. And that legacy did live on in Southwest. Collen Barret , another rags to riches story, and the first woman to have headed a major airline company, took over the President role from Herb. Colleen says “85% of my time is spent on employees and delivering  pro-active customer services to employees.” Closer home, Girish Kuber, who wrote the book “The Tatas – How a Family built a Business and a Nation” narrates the story of Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata , more popularly known as JRD. One of the first actions that JRD did was to take away the special privileges of officers in Tata Steel Plant at Jamshedpur. This included the special reserved lift for the Managing Director, Special dining areas for officers, and special toilets for officers. If you think this was no big deal, think again. This action was taken in the early 1940’s, when such privileges’ were considered absolutely normal. It was the time of British Raj and sahibs in India. JRD used his powers to make everyone equal, instead of seeking importance for himself or the others in office. It is not the absence of power that differentiates Servant Leaders from Traditional Leaders. It is the conscious choice that they make to use the power that they have for the benefit of the employees. Shakespeare knew it well. He said in his Sonnet No 94 They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold,

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for acceptance of Servant Leadership in corporate circles is the belief that Servant Leadership is an oxymoron. Critics of Servant Leadership often ask the question “How can one be a servant and a leader at the same time?”. The original definition given by Robert Greenleaf that “A Servant Leader is a servant first…” did not make it any easier for the concept to get acceptance in wider circles. This apparent contradiction in the term is what made Servant Leadership acquire an esoteric nature for quite a long time after it was propounded by Robert Greenleaf in 1970. Several Leadership gurus have tried to break that oxymoron nature of Servant Leadership recently. Notable among them are the works of Ken Blanchard.  Ken dives into the two leadership roles of Vision and Implementation to explain how Servant Leadership fulfills both the roles with a difference. In this blog, let us look at the first leadership role, viz; visioning. In a previous blog I had described the DEEP BHC Behaviours. You will notice that the first behaviour that we have listed there is Demonstrating Conceptual Skills. This is the behaviour that helps a Servant Leader to set a vision for self and the team and/or organisation. This essentially requires two skills viz; Conceptualisation and  Foresight. Conceptualisation is the skill to dream Big Dreams. Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to “dream great dreams.” But what does this actually mean? The ability to look at a problem (or an organization) from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-to-day realities. While we must focus on day to day realities, we should be able to look beyond them and see beyond what is there today. As children we do this intrinsically. As we grow up, we tend to lose this ability to dream big. History shows that  leaders who dreamt big made a difference. Martin Luther King had a dream and that changed the US society. Mahatma Gandhi had a dream that made India achieve independence through non-violence. Nelson Mandela had a dream that changed Africa. Walt Disney had a dream that made Disney Land a preferred place for everyone. Herb Kelleher dreamt of an airline that will give its customers more for less . Let me quote Herb “One of the things that people, I think, didn’t understand is that we started out saying we’re going to give you more for less, not less for less. We’re going to give you new airplanes, not old airplanes. We’re going to give you the best on-time performance. We’re going to give you the people who are most hospitable.”. This was a crazy dream way back in 1971, in one of the most competitive and difficult industries to be in. Chasing dreams at any cost, without boundaries can be dangerous. Servant-leaders must seek a delicate balance between conceptualization and day-to-day focus. That is where the second skill of Foresight comes on. Foresight is the ability to learn from our past experiences, our current realities and the possible consequences of our actions in future. This is what defines the boundaries of what an organisation will do to go after the big dream that they have/had. Several organisations with big dreams flounder and fall through the crack, because they chase their dreams, not paying attention to boundaries. The cases of Enron, or Exxon, or Satyam or Kingfisher Airlines are classic examples of chasing big dreams without foresight. Successful organisations use their foresight to channel the process of chasing the dreams within certain boundaries. Walt Disney did it with their set of values. So did Southwest Airlines. The story of Tata as a group is an interesting study of this aspect too. Let me quote Ratan Tata “Business, as I have seen it, places one great demand on you: it needs you to self-impose a framework of ethics, values, fairness and objectivity on yourself at all times.” Integrity is the top value at Tata Group and that makes them one of the most respected business houses of all times. So this combination of conceptualization and foresight is what results in the behaviour of Servant Leaders Demonstrating Conceptual Skills. This  bursts the oxymoron nature of Servant Leadership. Servant Leaders dream big and have the foresight to avoid the pitfalls of chasing that dream without boundaries. Servant Leaders take on the responsibility of Setting the vision, mission, values and goals for the organisation, and the employees respond to such a vision.   Come Dream Big and join the Servant Leadership Movement. Develop the behaviour of Demonstrating Conceptual Skills We will discuss how Servant Leaders make a difference during the implementation of a vision in the next blog. Watch this space. __________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can contact him here. _________________________________________________________________________________ If you would like to know how to develop this behaviour of Demonstrating Conceptual Skills and be a Servant Leader, come and join our SLAM workshops or contact us here.

It is quite some time since the term “Individual Contributors” made an entry into the Corporate HR jargon. We assumed that almost everyone starts off as an individual contributor and then grows in the organisation to take up leadership roles and responsibilities. Thus, the term Individual Contributor came mostly to be associated with the bottom of the pyramid in the corporate hierarchy. Then companies started realizing that there might be value in encouraging Individual contributors to stay in that role, especially if they are experts in some field or technology. Companies like IBM even created curated career paths for them, so they don’t have to ever take up managerial positions to grow up the corporate ladder,  but can reach senior positions without taking up management positions at all. Studies reveal that developmental efforts for Individual Contributors is focused more on their technical or task-oriented skills and might be for specific roles. Focused investment in “Leadership Development” of Individual contributors was not a focus. Jack Zenger in his article in the Forbes Magazine (way back in Feb 2014) claimed that Individual contributors are “Forgotten Leaders” in investment from organisations on Leadership development activities. Several Organisations ask, “What has leadership development got to do with Individual contributors?” That led me to the question. How about Servant Leadership? Can an organisation really develop a Servant Leadership Culture by focusing only on who we traditionally call leaders? And the answer is “no”. A Servant Leadership culture requires that we focus on this group of “forgotten leaders” as much as we focus on traditional leaders. All individual contributors are “leaders” if we go by the definition “Leadership is Influence”. That is why I refer to Individual Contributors as Self-Leaders. What do these Self-Leaders need to do so they can take the best advantage of a Servant Leadership culture in the organisation? What attributes or mindset changes or behavioural changes do they need to embrace so they thrive in a Servant Leadership Culture and make the organisation successful? My studies show that there are three areas where they need to develop. (Ken Blanchard and Susan Fowler articulate this better in their book “Self-Leadership and the One Minute Manager”) Understand and overcome one’s Assumed Constraints: Susan Fowler speaks about the Elephant syndrome in several of her writings to explain Assumed constraints. The fact is that several of us end up assuming that there are several constraints that prevent us from becoming the best we can be. A significant Self-leader will strive to understand ones assumed constraints and look for ways of overcoming those. They will break the “permission paradox”  (a felt need to have explicit approval of someone before taking any action) and climb up the Freedom Ladder/ Autonomy ladder to become empowered employees and team members. Understand and use “Points of Power” the right way: Everyone, immaterial of any position or seniority, has some powers. As history proves repeatedly, it is not the absence of power that differentiates infamous leaders from the excellent ones. It is how they (choose to) use their powers. A Self-leader will understand his/her own points of power and the points of power of their team members. Once they have this understanding, they will then use this knowledge to bring fulfilment to self and success to the team. Self-leaders aware of their points of power will use such knowledge to collaborate rather than for conflict. Understand what you “need” to be significant: Self-leaders need to understand that chasing success is not the right thing to do. Individual success might bring in some temporary happiness, but it is in adding value to others that we find fulfilment. This is what we call significance. Self-Leaders will know what they need to be significant and they will know the right way to ask for the same. This awareness of your own “significance needs” will help you understand the current development stage that one is in. This will help in prioritising your goals so you can focus on the most significant ones. These are the building blocks for Self-Leadership. So let us not forget the “Individual Contributors”. Let us invest in them and make them significant Self-leaders. This will speed up the spread of Servant Leadership culture within the organisation. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can contact him here _____________________________________________________________________________________ If you would like to know more about how Servant Leadership can be made practical for Individual Contributors, do get in touch with us .

  All of us have heard the cliché “ What can be measured can be improved”. One of the several myths associated with Servant Leadership was that it is a nebulous concept which cannot be quantified and/ or measured. This myth was strengthened by the views of the early proponents of Servant Leadership who were not in favour of “measuring” Servant leadership attributes. The focus was on experiential understanding of the concept. Don Frick, who wrote about Robert Greenleaf, was probably referring to the father of the term himself when he said that it was believed that if servant leadership was reduced to a collection of admirable qualities and learned skills that were displayed in organisational settings, it was all too easy to forget that servant leadership was, first about deep identity.  Another apprehension was that we may feel guilty and frustrated for not measuring up to this set of leadership ideals and that we may even project these ideals onto others; expecting them to do what we could not attain ourselves. Due to this, most of the early writings on Servant leadership have been based on anecdotal observations, personal testimonies and reflections. However, a body of researchers argued against this view and attempted measuring Servant leadership attributes. In the early 2000’s many researchers came up with scales that measure Servant Leadership behaviours. Picking up on this research, and banking on a scale that was developed and validated by Dr. Robert C Liden, I developed a scale called the Menorah Servant Leadership Assessment (MSLA) , as part of my doctoral studies. Making it part of the doctoral studies ensured that the scale went through rigorous validations tests and can relied upon. So, the good news is that Servant Leadership behaviour can be measured. The MSLA measures Servant Leadership against seven distinct behaviours we call as the DEEP BHC behaviours. Let us look at them briefly MSLA measures these seven behaviours as a 360 degree assessment. It gives an opportunity for the leader to compare own perception with what others actually see. It also gives an idea of how the  leader stands with respect to a global population and/or his/her organisation. MSLA is a great tool for self-awareness for all leaders. You can get more details about the MSLA here. So, Now that you know that Servant Leadership is  measurable, it is no more considered a nebulous concept. Come, take the MSLA assessment and be a great Servant Leader. Your Servant Leadership journey starts with a 360 degree assessment. _______________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar, PhD is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can contact him here.

By now, you must have heard it a thousand times. We are living in unprecedented times. We are going through trials. We are preparing for the Future Shock or a new normal. The world is not going to be the same again etc etc. We cannot escape the reality of the pandemic that is still raging out there. But we are also encouraged by the fact that life is slowly limping back to normal. Most of us are learning to “live with” the pandemic. In this blog,  I will ask us to turn the attention on us, on our responses, on how we respond to such trying times. And what can we do as leaders, to be a lot more effective in such situations. Recently I had the privilege of listening to the author Don Phin, and then read his book, the 40-40 Solution. Don Phin talks about three roles generally all of us audition for viz;, Victim, Villain or Hero.  The book inspired me to think about these three categories in a different context.  My studies show that these three are the standard responses of people to troubles. Come to think of it, you will see these three roles in any Hollywood or Bollywood movie that you catch on Netflix or Amazon prime or Hot-star or wherever you see movies during the pandemic. Let us look at each one of these three and see which one fits us more. The Victim response is probably the most familiar one to all of us. When faced with troubles the Victim will feel that it is unfair. The victim will feel singled out. The victim will think the entire world is conspiring against him/her. Their conversation with friends will be about how hard life is. They will strongly feel that others are more blessed than themselves. They truly believe that others do not know how difficult his/her situation really is. They will blame others and/or situations for their suffering and troubles. They think no matter how hard they try, their situation will not change. They find it difficult to get over the past mistakes and failures, and they perpetually live in guilt. You can add on to this list, but I am sure all of us have felt some of the above sometime or the other. Victims are people who feel some of these often. Psychologists opine that Victims, as and when they can get out of the victim state, end up becoming either a Villain or a Hero.  The Victim to Villain transition is very natural..  When one gets fed up with staying in the victim stage, a victim will start planning actions that can hurt others. That is when the Villain is born. A Villain will take revenge. A villain will become aggressive, violent, and will hit back at others with whatever he/she can. A villain will not worry about public opinion. A villain will soon start enjoying the role so much that he/she will fall in love with themselves in that role to the detriment of others.  Many of us might not be explicitly getting into a villain role, but think again. We are taking the villain role, when we scream at someone, we are taking the villain role when anger gets the better of us, whether it is at home or outside. Sometimes we get into a villain role without even realizing it. A more positive transition is the one from Victim to Hero. A Hero does not have to come out of a victim. Heroes emerge otherwise, too. A Hero wants to save. This is what psychologists call the Savior’s Complex.  Someone with a Hero Mentality will swoop down on a suffering victim and do all that is necessary to save him/her. At the outset, you may think there is nothing wrong with being a Hero. But think again. All that the Hero might care about is saving the Victim. A Hero might not seek the Victim’s permission or acceptance before getting into the saving act. He/ she might not enable the victim to get over the situation. The Hero might not bother about making the victim self-sufficient. The Hero might not bother about their own safety and/or well-being while doing the saviors act. The Hero will sometimes even endanger himself or herself and many around them, including their own families to perform the rescue act. Let us pause for a moment and ask ourselves this question in the middle of the pandemic we are in. What role are  we auditioning for? Do we feel like a victim of the situation around us? Are we tempted to take on the Villain role, so we can take revenge or we can “pay back” for the sufferings we have gone through? Or are we donning the cape and taking the role of a superhero, trying to save everyone who is suffering, not bothered about our own safety and the well-being of the ones who love us? There is a fourth option, an option of being a Leader. We don’t have to be stuck inside the Victim-Villain-Hero Triangle. So what does the fourth option entail?  What does “Being a Leader” mean in this context? Being a leader as the fourth option here means we demonstrate the behaviour of Emotional Healing that I wrote about in a previous blog. It means Leaders who practice  the four habits that I wrote about in another  blog. It means we seek to add value to ourselves with the explicit purpose of adding value to others, as described in yet another blog on significance. It means being a Servant Leader. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Chief Consultant and Servant Leadership Evangelist at Leadyne. You can contact him here.