The Path to Servant Leadership: A 12-Month Guide to Implementation
()
About this ebook
Susan has 30 years' experience coaching leaders and business owners in the fields of financial services and real estate. She is an leadership consultant and adds value to her clients as a Change Practitioner.
She brings her wisdom, expertise, and experience to help entrepreneurs and business leaders transition from a top-
Susan Renni Anderson
Susan has 30 years' experience coaching leaders and business owners in the fields of financial services and real estate. She is a John Maxwell International Coach, Speaker, and Trainer. She adds value to her clients as a Change Practitioner. When an organization undergoes a big change or transition, a change management model outlining the process can be helpful and often makes the difference. A change practitioner has a positive impact on staff, team members and supervisors whose roles are important for successfully implementing company changes.
Related to The Path to Servant Leadership
Related ebooks
10% Better: Taking Organisations from Ordinary to Excellence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeadership Breakthrough: Leadership Practices That Help Executives and Their Organizations Achieve Breakthrough Growth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot Your Average CEO Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLead Like a Pro Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLead With Value: How Leaders Unleash Their Vision, Empower Others, and Evolve Their Business Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFollowership Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeadership Course Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDriven Not Drained Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE PERFECT LEADER: The Key to Influential Leadership Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrinciple-Based Leadership: Driving Your Success as a Leader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings!nspired Too: More Performance Coaching Insights from the Front Line Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Leadership is For Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPreparing for Leadership: What It Takes to Take the Lead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe 7-T Success System Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTeam Leadership: 3-in-1 Guide to Master Leading Teams, Business Management, Leadership Development & Lead at a Distance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRedRock Leadership Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmooth Scaling: Twenty Rituals to Build a Friction-Free Organization Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLearning Leadership: Tools, Techniques and Tips to Become the Best Boss You Can Be! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCareer Advancement: Time to Move Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need (HBR Guide Series) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leadership For The New Female Manager: 21 Powerful Strategies For Coaching High-Performance Teams, Earning Respect & Influencing Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeadereliability: Where Leadership, Culture, and Profitability Collide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking It in Management: Developing the Thinking You Need to Move up the Organization Ladder … and Stay There Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pro-Achievement Principle: Cultivate Personal Skills for Effective Teams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Guide to Recruiting Your Next CEO: The Executive Search Handbook for Nonprofit Boards Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/52600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals: Ready-to-Use Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How CEOs Get Projects Done Successfully: The 12 Secrets of a Rapid Transformation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeadership Excellence: Creating a New Dimension of Organizational Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Pursuit of Legacy: Three Keys to Enduring Leadership Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Management For You
The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 20th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Get Ideas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: 30th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Principles: Life and Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The Laws of Human Nature: by Robert Greene - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leadershift: The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spark: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win | Summary & Key Takeaways Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 360 Degree Leader Workbook: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Company Rules: Or Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the CIA Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Malcolm Gladwell's Blink The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Emotional Intelligence Habits Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Revised and Updated: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Lead When You're Not in Charge Study Guide: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Managing Oneself: The Key to Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First-Time Manager Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Developing the Leaders Around You: How to Help Others Reach Their Full Potential Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 12 Week Year (Review and Analysis of Moran and Lennington's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Path to Servant Leadership
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Path to Servant Leadership - Susan Renni Anderson
Copyright 2023 by Susan Renni Anderson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is the intellectual propert of Susan Renni Anderson.
Logo, company name Description automatically generatedMountainside Publishing
Susan Renni Anderson, LLC
7380 Spout Springs Rd #265
Flowery Branch, GA 30542
ISBN (paperback): 979-8-9870904-2-8
ISBN (ebook): 979-8-9870904-3-5
Book design and production by www.AuthorSuccess.com
This book was printed in the United States of America.
Order additional copies of this book from Amazon.com.
Quantity Sales: Special discounts available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, non-profits, and others.
For details, contact the publisher at address above.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Month-by-Month
Management is What We Do. Leadership is Who We Are
Benefits of Doing the Right Thing
It’s Time to Ask . . . Are You Sure You’re Ready for This?
OVERVIEW
Let’s Bring Some Clarity to What Servant Leadership Is
The Original Servant Leader
Robert Greenleaf
Ten Qualities of a Servant Leader
What Servant Leadership is NOT
Servant Leadership in the U.S. Military
Four Reasons to Be a Servant Leader in Your Small Business
Four Ways to Become a Servant Leader in Your Small Business
A Shameless Plug
THE FIRST THREE MONTHS
Flip the Organization Chart
Aspects of a Person’s Job You Can Impact
Diffusion of Innovation: Maloney’s 16 Percent Rule
SWOT Analysis
How to Perform a SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Careful Not to Put the Cart Before the Horse
Change Readiness Assessment
What is a Change Readiness Assessment?
Assess the Change
Assess the Organization
Considerations in a Change Readiness Assessment
What are the Benefits of Using a Change Readiness Assessment?
How to Conduct a Change Readiness Assessment
Tips for Conducting a Change Readiness Assessment
MONTH FOUR
Mission, Vision, Values
How to Create a Mission Statement
Vision Statement
Core Values
Five Reasons Core Values Matter
Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility
Values Based Recruitment
MONTHS FIVE TO NINE
How to Change
How to Manage the Human Side of Change
Prosci Change Management Methodology
Phase 1—Prepare Approach
Phase 2—Manage Change
Phase 3—Sustain Outcomes
ADKAR Methodology
Awareness
Obstacles to Building Awareness
Comfort with the Status Quo
Credibility of the Sender of the Message
Circulation of Misinformation or Rumors
Desire
Creating Desire
Knowledge
Factors That Influence Knowledge-Building
Tactics for Building Knowledge
Ability
Potential Resistance Forces and Challenges
Reinforcement
Building Reinforcement
Tips for Building Reinforcement
CLARC—People Managers
Communicator
Liaison
Advocate
Resistance Manager
Coach
Master Change Management Plan
Core Plans
Sponsor Plan
People Manager Plan
Communications Plan
Training Plan
Extend Plans
Resistance Management Plans
Additional Extend Plans
Putting Together Your Change Management Plans
Resistance to Change
Three Tips to Managing Resistance to Change
Resistance Phase 1
Resistance Phase 2
Resistance Phase 3
Identify the Root Cause of Resistance to Change
Engage the Right
Resistance Managers
Senior Leaders
People Managers
MONTHS TEN TO TWELVE
Building Your Team
Team Effectiveness and 6 Essential Servant Leadership Themes
The Great Resignation
Fifteen Tips to Reduce Follower Turnover
Your Cost of Turnover
Reducing Turnover Starts with Hiring
Employee Engagement
Seven Things You Must be Doing to Create a Happy Workplace
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Gallup’s Q12 Employee Engagement Survey
Gallup Engagement Hierarchy
The Values of Strong Workplace Ethics
The Foundation of Any Relationship is Trust
Three Common Challenges Businesses Face Getting To Customer-Centricity
How Gratitude Can Transform Your Workplace
Why Gratitude is So Revolutionary
Gratitude As a Gateway Drug
Four Keys to Gratitude at Work
WRAPPING UP
Introduction
chapter_ornamentAccording to Goodreads, there are more than 36,000 books on leadership and just over 450 on Servant Leadership. When I searched Implementing Servant Leadership,
I found only two titles currently in print. I own both books. They were helpful, but they were more of the what and why
of Servant Leadership. I could not find what sounded like a book on how
to implement Servant Leadership in an existing enterprise.
So, I wrote what was missing on the bookshelves. This book is a step-by-step, month-by-month path to implementing Servant Leadership in your enterprise. Just keep in mind that I speak of implementing Servant Leadership at a high level because no two companies are ever exactly alike. No two companies have the same executive team, the same toxic manager, the same size and shape and culture.
This book will resonate especially with entrepreneurs and corporate leaders in mid-size companies; 50-500 employees; revenue of $10 million to $1 Billion; the age of the business is five to ten years. That’s pretty specific, I know. I’ll explain why I niched down so much.
The company has to be larger than a mom-and-pop, but smaller than one that requires a board of directors. Too small and the business can change simply because the boss said so.
Too large and there are too many layers of approval to be agile.
Revenue should be sufficient to be able to afford to do it right.
And lastly the age: Decisions in a start-up rest solely on the founder’s shoulders as they build their new enterprise. As the founder adds on VPs and department heads, a pyramid develops with the boss
at the top and frontline workers at the lowest level. The top-down, autocratic approach to leadership begins to lose touch with those followers who have the most contact with the customer. Communication becomes top-down, and leadership doesn’t have their thumb on the pulse of the organization and employees feel undervalued. This breakdown happens about five years in. The company is agile at this point and can make changes relatively easily. Over the past ten years, however, we see see that things have been broken for so long that change is challenging. Problems have rusted in place.
Change is possible but takes a real commitment.
This is not to say that organizations outside my niche aren’t well suited to adopting a servant-led approach to leadership. I speak from experience about the ideal.
Companies outside the parameters just have to prepare for a bumpier ride on The Path to Servant Leadership.
This book is probably not the first that you have read on Servant Leadership. If you have been considering implementing Servant Leadership in your organization, you probably have read quite a bit about the "what and the why" of Servant Leadership. You might have viewed video presentations on Servant Leadership. You probably have taken the pulse of your senior management team and found that they recognize the need for change.
Servant Leaders work towards minimizing or removing systemic dysfunctions through selflessly helping their followers. This sounds admirable, and it is. But it isn’t easy to do and requires the leader to have exceptional people skills at all levels. Putting yourself out there for the greater good is the sign of a Servant Leader. If you are taking the pain away from the team, shouldering the criticism when things go wrong, winning a following, and helping the team to find great ways to excel—you are a Servant Leader. And the really good news is that you’ll get better as time and dedication go along.
Servant Leadership:
Creates a safe environment where people aren’t afraid to fail.
Builds a culture of trust. Without trust, everyone will be focused on survival rather than success.
Inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.
Millennials and GenZs are drawn to this leadership style, and they make up 46 percent of today’s workforce.
For more than thirty years, I coached financial services and real estate professionals. As a real estate sales manager, I grew the company from one office of twenty-six sales associates to two offices of sixty-five associates. I positioned the company for sale. The company sold to our largest competitor, affording the owners a comfortable exit strategy. I credit my success to Servant Leadership.
I’m a certified Maxwell International coach, trainer, and speaker. My success with Servant Leadership was one of the reasons I aligned with John C. Maxwell. His shift into a servant-leadership role happened when he started to change his leadership focus to empowering others to do what he was doing.
With this book as your guide, you will have the bones
of a successful implementation. You will have a timeline and the basic steps to change your corporate culture and your leadership to a culture of Servant Leadership. This book will give you what you need to put in place an environment where everyone in your organization—leaders, managers, and employees alike—believe in the power of Servant Leadership as a path to business success.
Month-by-Month
My private clients work with me within a twelve-month framework to transition from an autocratic leadership style to a Servant Leadership approach. This book is a companion to my coaching program. The Path to Servant Leadership isn’t organized in the usual chapter mode. Instead, it follows the timeframe of an average implementation.
The book begins with THE FIRST THREE MONTHS. Covered in this section is the discovery of your company’s current situation. You can’t progress to a future point if you don’t know where you are starting from. Here you will learn how to conduct a SWOT Analysis and a Change Readiness Assessment.
Next comes Month Four. This section walks you through your mission, vision, and values. This isn’t a box-ticking exercise. All organizations must write a mission, vision, and value statement. All stakeholders need to know what you and your company stand for. If you get clear on your core values, it will be a game changer.
Incredibly valuable, the next section is MONTHS FIVE THROUGH NINE, which walks you through the actual change itself. Included are managing the human side of change, Prosci Change Management Methodology, ADKAR Methodology, Master Change Management Plans, and dealing with resistance to change.
These five months are the actual step-by-step "How" to change your organization’s leadership.
The last section, MONTHS TEN TO TWELVE, is all about building Your team. With the extraordinary help of this book, if you are very committed to transitioning to Servant Leadership, if your senior management team is totally on board, if you use this book as your true north, you can implement Servant Leadership on your own.
Management Is What We Do. Leadership Is Who We Are.
There is no one universal definition of leadership. If you work at it and find joy in leading others, you’ll define your own style of Servant Leadership.
People often mistake leadership and management as the same thing, but in essence they are very different. The main difference between the two is that leaders have people following them, while managers have people who simply work for them. Leadership is about motivating people to comprehend and believe in the vision you set for the company and to work with you on achieving your goals, while management is more about administering the work and ensuring the day-to-day activities are getting done as they should.
For small business owners to be successful, however, they need to be both a strong leader and a manager to get their team on board with working towards their vision of success.
Therefore, leadership and management must go hand in hand. Even though they are not the same thing, they are closely linked and complementary to one another.
For any company to be successful, it needs management that can plan, organize, and coordinate its staff, and leaders who are inspiring and motivating them to perform to the best of their ability, even if those distinct roles are played by the same person.
Employing Servant Leadership doesn’t happen in a moment—it is a movement. Implementation in an existing enterprise—under a different leadership expression takes time and resources. The decision to embrace Servant Leadership is just the very beginning!
Benefits Of Doing the Right Thing
What do FedEx, Aflac, Costco, Starbucks, Southwest, Balfour Beatty, TDIndustries, Marriott, The San Antonio Spurs, REI, Nordstrom, Popeyes, WD-40, Zappos, and Whole Foods have in common?
If you didn’t answer, Servant Leadership,
you’re in the wrong room! These are all very large companies with layers of administration and organization. Why did they choose a Servant Leadership business model? I’m repeating myself here, but it’s that important! Write this down . . . Highlight this in yellow:
6 percent higher job performance
8 percent increase in positive customer service ratings
50 percent higher staff retention rate
Creates an atmosphere of trust and respect
Adds value and improves morale in employees
One of my favorite books on Servant Leadership is Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder, former CEO of Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. She writes:
Popeyes’ performance in 2007 couldn’t have been much worse. Every data point that we measured was going the wrong way. Sales were declining. Guest satisfaction was worst-in-class. Restaurant profits were down in absolute dollars and in margin. Morale at the company was negative. Franchise owners were mad and ‘sick and tired’ of bad results. Investors were disappointed in the stock performance and wanted answers. The board was tired of hearing promises that did not materialize.
Those were the conditions at Popeye’s when Cheryl stepped in as CEO. By the end of 2016, Popeye’s restaurants experienced:
Eight straight years of growth
Market share grew from 14 to 24 percent
Profitability doubled in terms of real dollars
Profit margins up from 18 to 23 percent
Stock price grew from $13 to $61, up nearly 500 percent
What is the secret to Popeye’s turnaround performance? Servant Leadership.
ZAPPOS
Tony