Servant Leadership
To black South Africans, the Springbok rugby jersey was one of the most hated symbols of apartheid. So when Nelson Mandela, the symbol of black suffering, appeared before a worldwide audience wearing the notorious green-and-gold jersey at the 1995 World Cup, he united the nation. In that moment, Mandela also declared his servant leadership credentials to the world. Credentials built on the belief that the most effective leaders strive to serve others, rather than accrue power or take control.
Servant leaders working with children and young people create organisational cultures where the whole community shares a strong set of values which drive everything they do. They strive to see things from the point of view of children and young people. In so doing, they shape services that genuinely meet their needs and in the process build trusting communities.
There are seven core principles behind this style of leadership and they are to:
honour others before yourself;
inspire a vision before setting a course;
be unerringly ethical;
empower others;
put people first;
balance focus with flexibility;
serve with humility.
These are principles that as founders of TAC access, we have held to through long careers in educational leadership. We formed TAC access to support our colleagues and their communities in meeting the soaring mental health needs of children and young people. We wanted to open our contact book, so that anyone needing to source expert help could do so quickly, safely and affordably. While it may seem a scarce resource in many spheres of public life today, Servant Leadership is a natural approach for many working with children and young people.
How can leaders ensure they have the skills to be a "servant leader”?
As a leader, colleagues come first. It’s through their work that children and young people learn and thrive. Values are always the starting point. Listening to colleagues, children and their families gives the best understanding of their beliefs and perspectives. Hold your own beliefs dearly and share them through stories, activities and discussion. It’s not all about you as the leader but the consistency with which you act on the values you share will be what you are judged on. That in turn will determine the fidelity of your team to the shared mission.
How can leaders practically embed the concept across their organisations and encourage middle managers and frontline staff to be "servant leaders" too?
This is about more than a team day or an annual staff jolly. If you are serious about dispersing leadership and trusting and enabling your colleagues to lead on the important work you do, your values need to be embedded in your culture. Staff in our school used to describe us as, “The Cult of Education.” Every staff meeting focused on children and their families and everything we did individually or collectively was held up to our values for quality control. As a servant leader, you learn with and through your team. You are honest, transparent and consistent. Although you are there to serve, it’s these characteristics which breed loyalty and though that loyalty may appear to be to you, it’s really loyalty to the vision you share.
How do you involve children, young people and families?
Young people know when you are interested in them. They can sniff out insincerity at a hundred paces. They have a keen sense of justice and invariably respond well when we listen and explicitly share what we want to achieve. Like most of us, they love a story. Watching the footage of Mandela and Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar will get them talking and sharing. They’ll soon draw the modern parallels or lack of them. Let them know that they can be leaders, ask them what they would like to achieve and help them to do it.
The quality of the connection you have with children and young people matters to their families and carers. They’ll be interested in what you’re trying to do. Reach out to them, invite them in and get the young people to help you share the story. Your approach may be very different to the one they remember from their own education. Invest the time in families. It will pay you back. At our school, we’d been working with staff and pupils on “Growth Mindset” for some time. Running a parent workshop turned out to be an emotional occasion for some who realised they’d been missing some simple strategies to build their child’s confidence.
How do you measure success and know that "servant leadership" is making a difference?
You know when you know. It’s not like results day. When you hear your organisation’s stories coming back to you from unexpected sources, it’s a hair on the back of the neck moment. Like the time when “Ofsted” quoted one of our boys who’d told them, “everyone’s worth something here.” It’s there mostly in morale and there are plenty of signs when that’s going well. Attendance is strong for one thing- and that means staff as well as children and young people. It’s there in behaviour and when colleagues show their willingness to take on responsibility or offer support to one another in difficult times. Parents and carers won’t shy away from telling you when things are going well either. So imagine how rewarding it was when a group of parents who’d attended our mindset workshops offered to lead discussion groups with other families!
Servant leadership may start with you but when it’s well established it’s about many leaders serving one cause- Children and young people. You don’t have to have Mandela’s charisma but being courageous and holding firm to values is something we can all do and it’s easier together. Servant Leadership has been a hallmark of our education careers and it’s a founding principle of TAC access- a service for children and young people and for those who support them in whatever capacity that might be.