Five Principles for Servant Leadership

We’ve all heard someone with a prophetic lift in their voice on stage or from our car stereo speakers proclaiming,

“To be a great leader, you have to be a great server!”

After all, it’s biblical.

But how you interpret “service” can make or break your pathway to effective leadership. Does service mean shining shoes, carrying trays or bags or doing things for others until they want to do things for you? Or does it mean serving other leaders so that you are learning from them so you can teach to others? Or is the definition of a servant leader simply being a world class “helper” by being everywhere for everyone?

The answer is: if coaching is part of leadership, then the definition of servant leadership is none of these things.

Consider these Five principles for Effective Servant Leadership (from a coach’s perspective):

• Don’t confuse intention with outcomes. As a leader, you are

compelled to believe in what people are telling you they want to do. And endeavoring to lead by example, you are compelled to declare your intentions before you get into action. But, whether it is those you are leading or you, yourself, spouting the intention –

just keep in mind that there can be a very deep and dense “black hole” that all good intentions fall in to.

At the end of the day, the only thing that counts is outcomes, not intention.

If you allow others to rest on intentions without taking the necessary action to produce an outcome – long or short of their intention – you have failed as a leader. And more importantly, if you allow yourself to rest on intention, declaration and “bloviating” rather than action that produces measurable outcomes – well, you have lead your team right into the black hole of inactivity and over-hyped pretending.

• To empower success, relentlessly remove obstacles. The biggest cause of in-action, frustration and (eventually) attrition in your networking business is perceived obstacles. As a servant leader, your #1 job is to look for and remove those obstacles continuously and relentlessly. Ask questions; penetrate to the source of anxiety and paralysis. Don’t rest in sweeping obstacles, real or perceived.
• Example is the only truth. In network marketing, once we achieve virtually any level of achievement we are readily “promoted” to stage time for testimonials and to “tell our story”. As good as this is, it is all about the past.

As servant leader, don’t confuse reporting on the great things you have accomplished in the past with demonstrating your ability to execute what you are teaching IN THE PRESENT.

Telling old war stories and assuming that is “leading” is really a dis- service.

• Lead by Influence – not by “position”. Leadership guru and best- selling author John Maxwell says, “Leadership is Influence. Nothing more and nothing less.” Many leaders confuse their “pin” or “level” as permission to exert authority. This is news that you may not want to hear, but here it goes: Your level of accomplishment doesn’t represent authentic leadership. It does demonstrate that you were a good example (emphasis on “were”) but your historic accomplishments won’t influence like-behaviors from those you lead.

You must seek to find diverse ways to influence: encourage, promote, celebrate, create incentives, learn everyone’s unique “motivation language”. All of these activities are about influencing – not asserting your position.

• Trust yields faith and faith yields action. Be careful as you climb your ladder of success that puts you in a position of leadership. You can unconsciously begin to believe that because you have joined an exclusive club of attainment, that others that you lead are “not yet capable” or “still need to grow” to get to your level. Not true! Most, if not all, of the people you lead are as (or more!) capable than you to achieve as much (or more!) than you have attained. Their only missing piece is someone believing in and trusting that they can!

As a servant leader – trust the capabilities of everyone you lead. Serve them with belief, faith and trust. Action – and achievement – will follow.

Five principles – five accountabilities. Servant leadership is an important responsibility.

Steve Dailey is the Founder of PrimeFocus Coaching and AchievementBridge, Inc. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Science from Colorado State University, Steve Dailey launched his first career as a professional swimming coach. During what he calls a "laboratory experience in human performance, psychology and motivation" he built "feeder" programs for aspiring national level swimmers in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, South Carolina and Texas. Though rewarding, swimming offered limited financial opportunity so Steve followed his entrepreneurial urgings to launch a business in the field of Sports and Recreation management. Starting with less than $200, he grew that business to a multimillion-dollar enterprise in only 2 years. Leveraging team building skills, organization development insights and coaching techniques learned on the pool deck, his business grew to serve tens of thousands of customers and employ over 300 people annually.

This success was soon recognized in the local business community as other entrepreneurs began to request Steve's insight on business building strategies. Responding to this interest, he began to market services as a "Business Development Coach" noting that coaching high level athletes and coaching goal-focused business people had many parallels. Soon, the concept attracted entrepreneurs and business leaders from a wide variety of marketplace segments, business models and stages of growth. Through the process, Steve rapidly honed an array of essential achievement principles that positively influenced success in virtually every business environment. Not incidental to this broad exposure were lessons learned in observing both "best practices" and "lethal errors" in leadership, sales and marketing, strategic business development, human resource management and motivation, financial planning, career advancement, predicting and responding to business trends, corporate ethics and innovation.

As the technology "boom" rumbled to the forefront of the marketplace, Steve then narrowed his niche to coaching early stage technology companies. His coaching model offered valuable input, collaboration and direction to eager executive teams, the new executive talent they were attracting and the venture capital companies that were funding them; all in maximizing opportunities in an extraordinarily fast paced time in business history. Again, more insight was gained - this time in defining critical factors that influence success and failure in high velocity/high risk business environments.

Most recently, Steve has focused his passion for coaching in developing high-yield achievement systems for Sales Professionals, Business Executives and Entrepreneurs that include web-based tools, leading edge coaching methods and executive "coach mentoring" programs where business leaders learn to be effective coaches to their own teams. You can find out more about that at his website: PrimeFocusCoaching.com Coaching Philosophy Over 20 years practicing the "art and science of coaching" Steve has truly been on the leading edge of the development of business coaching as a profession. His philosophies have helped shape other professional coaches and coach teams, as well as the success trajectory of the hundreds of clients he has served. The essence of Steve's approach to coaching can be defined by his emphasis on "achievement" rather than simply "personal development".

Steve says, "True achievement is attained only through the experiences one has in producing tangible results while developing new habits in the process. When a person then learns to build and leverage a broad scope of resources toward specific intent, they will win at everything they pursue. A coach's value is defined by the degree to which they can build these attributes into their clients as permanent, reusable tools." Personal Steve resides in the beautiful hill country of Austin, Texas with his wife and son. He ranks in the top 10 in the country in Masters Swimming and, having eclipsed the 50-year mark, thoroughly embraces the second half of life as the "better half".