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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Leadership Styles and Skills

Servant leadership

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In management & leadership, servant leadership means: A leadership approach in which the leader's main role is to serve the team, by supporting people's growth and removing obstacles, rather than to control them.

In Turkish: hizmetkar liderlik, hizmet eden liderlik

How it is used

The term comes from Robert K. Greenleaf's 1970 essay 'The Servant as Leader'. It appears in leadership books, training and agile teams, where the manager's job is often described as clearing the way for the team.

Example sentences

  1. Servant leadership means asking your team what they need from you, not the other way round.

  2. Her style is close to servant leadership: she spends most of her day removing obstacles for others.

Common collocations

  • practise servant leadership
  • servant leader
  • principles of servant leadership
  • servant leadership approach
  • leadership styleThe typical way a person leads others, including how they make decisions, give instructions, share information and involve their team.
  • transformational leadershipA leadership style in which leaders inspire people with a shared vision and their own example, encouraging them to look beyond their own interests and achieve more than expected.
  • lead by exampleTo guide people by behaving in the way you want them to behave, rather than only telling them what to do.
  • empowerTo give people the authority, confidence and resources to make decisions and act on their own, instead of waiting for approval at every step.
  • coachingA way of helping someone improve their skills and performance mainly by asking questions and guiding them to find their own answers, rather than telling them what to do.

More terms: Leadership Styles and Skills

Practise with graded reading

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