Employer Engagement in FE: A research project from Runshaw College
AuthorJen DeakinCategoriesTeaching, Leadership
Can principals be servant leaders?
Back
Date7th Jun 2021AuthorGuest AuthorCategoriesLeadership
Does anyone enter the teaching profession with a burning desire to attain the ‘top job’?
I harboured aspirations of becoming a senior leader but felt I’d probably stop when I reached Vice Principal level. However, it was when I attended a Developing Top Leaders training course, run by the excellent Promoting Excellence, that I began to seriously think about becoming a Principal.
That was in 2014. And it was whilst doing this course that I had one of life’s ‘lightbulb moments’ – one of those occasions where everything seemingly clicks into place. This was when I encountered the concept of Servant Leadership – the leadership theory of Robert K Greenleaf. It was then that I realised I wanted to be a Principal.
The theory is about 50 years old and champions that a leader’s central motivation is built on the concept of service to others. It’s a challenging concept – how can a servant be a leader? Or rather, how can a leader be a servant?
It might be useful to explain why I felt this theory kickstarted the ambition to take my leadership journey further. It links fundamentally to how I see Sixth Form education and the stewardship of it.
I was a low achiever at school – in fact my school was so bad it closed down the year I left – but when I joined my local FE college to resit my O Levels, I was encouraged to be myself for the first time. I revelled in the sense of community at College and the more personalised, holistic approach adopted by the teachers. This left a lasting impression on me. I’m sure many of you reading this may have had a similar experience.
When I entered the teaching profession, these were qualities I tried to instil in my classroom and, as my career progressed, in the teams that I managed. By the time I had become Vice Principal, I was working in a Catholic Sixth Form College where values associated with community and nurturing others, building blocks of a culture of servant leadership, felt to me to be more pronounced.
I should say at this point that I am not a Catholic and nor should any religious connotations be applied to this theory—indeed, Greenleaf’s idea was not made in explicitly religious terms. It’s just that my own personal ‘flight path’, including through a college with a strong Christian culture, seems to chime with what Greenleaf has espoused.
To summarise, the tenets of servant leadership include a fundamental desire to help others, as opposed to exercising power for one’s own self-interest; encouraging people to be who they are; establishing a sense of community in order to enable the organisation to achieve its objectives; and nurturing a participatory, more empowered workforce.
These central themes are reflected in a number of attributes, including being an effective listener; displaying empathy towards others; showing awareness; exercising gentle persuasion; being prescient of what will happen in the future; encouraging others; and building a community which unites all the individuals in the organisation.
Hmmm, hang on a second. Aren’t these the qualities we want of every Sixth Form College and of every leader who works in Sixth Form education? Why do these attributes need to be ascribed to the theory of Servant Leadership?
This is a fair point. Among the criticisms levelled at Servant Leadership is that it is grounded in a philosophical debate, not a functional model of organisational leadership which can be validated by empirical evidence.
I have encountered criticisms that Servant Leadership is either too spiritual or moral in tone for it to take into account the high level of accountability that is inherent in current-day education. I have also read that the theory is fundamentally collectivist in nature and fails to consider the differing performance of individuals in an organisation.
There’s a fascinating gender discourse about Servant Leadership which argues that from a gendered perspective, ‘serving’ (listening, empathising, individual growth, etc.) is predominantly associated with feminine socialisation and ‘leading’ (foresight, awareness, persuasion, etc.) with masculine socialisation.
And fundamentally, is it really the role of a Principal to be a Servant Leader? Aren’t Principals meant to lead, not serve?!
I’ll put the debates aside and relay to you that I happily espoused that I was a Servant Leader in the first meeting I had in front of the whole staff when I became Principal of Greenhead College in 2016. Five years on and it’s difficult for me to judge whether I have lived the vision and values articulated in Greenleaf’s theory.
As with any Principal, there have been tricky situations to navigate over the last few years – ones that have required an individual lead from me, rather than having been resolved through the collective views of the workforce.
So, was my announcement to the staff that I saw myself as a Servant Leader a hostage to fortune? That’s difficult for me to assess and I’m unconvinced that one can appraise the success of an organisation or one’s stewardship of it through Servant Leadership. Aren’t we measured on more tangible, measurable sources of evidence – performance tables, balance sheets, etc., rather than the climate and feel of the places we lead?
In summing up, that lightbulb moment I had in 2014 still chimes with me. But perhaps there’s something about Servant Leadership which simply can’t be measured at all but links to how a person sees the world and how their previous experiences have shaped their values, principles and purpose?
It’s something I would encourage all Principals and aspiring Principals to reflect on.
Simon Lett is principal of Greenhead College in Huddersfield.
For further information, Robert Greenleaf has published ‘On becoming a Servant Leader’ (1996) and ‘The Servant as Leader’ (1991, originally published in 1970). There are numerous scholarly articles on Servant Leadership and for this piece I consulted ‘The Leadership Theory of Robert K Greenleaf’ by Carol Smith (2005) and ‘Servant Leadership as Gender-Integrative Leadership: Paving a Path for More Gender-Integrative Organizations through Leadership Education’ by Kae Reynolds (2011).