Leadership in the Wreckage
Discovering Servant Leadership Through Crisis: How Compassion and Service Transform Organizations
Imagine that you are fast asleep in your balcony cabin on deck six of Carnival Triumph. Around 5 am you wake up with a speaker system blaring: Alpha team to the engine room! You don’t quite understand the code, so you try to go back to sleep. Suddenly, it is deadly silent. No buzzing from lights or air conditioning systems.
You sleepily get up with a glimmer of sunlight and walk out on the balcony. You see smoke. You smell smoke. A friendly voice in a British accent comes over the system to calm fears and assure us that the fire has been contained. Those in the inside cabins have no light or air on the balmy morning and soon join those who were evacuated from deck one. It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, so initially people began to set up a tent city on the upper deck. Creative use of resources with intricate patterns of white sheets, pillows, and lounge chairs almost created a festive atmosphere. Having no power didn’t seem all that bad in the light of day. There was plenty of ice and cold cuts for lunch adding to the picnic.
But it was no picnic when the wastewater pumping system failed. Four thousand people went on scavenger hunts for a functioning toilet, often choosing to tolerate the stench and use facilities that did not flush. Rooms still had cold running water, and our Cruise director shared the solution of using our showers and red biohazard bags. The room Stewarts would pick it up in the hall.
It took a day for the engine room to cool enough to assess the damage. No tugs were called at that point, and I think we all assumed we would be slightly delayed and able to get to Galveston. But that was not the case. Once tugs were called, it took a day for them to arrive, and we had drifted off course 90 miles. The delay caused the situation on board to get worse.
Imagine seeing one lady sitting in her wheelchair on the 6th deck lobby for four days. Without the elevator, she couldn’t go on our picnic or scavenger hunts. Imagine those who had no flashlights, stumbling in the dark, trying to use a cell phone for light that couldn’t be charged. Imagine one grill being used to cook hot foods, with lines that could last 1-3 hours, and being told at the end of the line there was no more. Imagine the ice melting, supplies running out, babies without food or diapers, no more prescriptions, people with no clean clothes who walked around in Carnival robes. Imagine the worst. Imagine the ship listing and the toilet water soiling the carpets. Imagine the smell.
My husband of 40 years disappeared! I’m looking for him and find him in the casino where he has discovered that the cash registers have light = POWER. He begins coordinating with strangers to charge their phones so they can reach out to family when we get a signal and use it as a flashlight. We had balcony rooms, so we invited strangers to our rooms who had no sunlight or fresh air. Other leaders found medicines, diapers, and other items that people had run out of with the extended delay. Imagine the kindness of people bringing coffee or food to those who couldn’t stand in the long lines. Imagine crew members working continuously with little rest or food. Imagine making new friends and having friends and family near for comfort.
Instead of imagination, you see servant leadership in the wreckage.
What is servant leadership and why is it important for your organization?
1. It puts people first
2. It builds trust and collaboration
3. It leads by serving.
Servant leadership begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. The servant-leader is governed by creating opportunities to help followers grow (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Compared to other leadership styles where the goal is the well-being of the organization, a servant-leader is genuinely concerned with serving followers (Greenleaf, 1977). This person-oriented attitude makes way for safe and strong relationships within organizations.
Servant leaders go beyond self-interest and are motivated by something more important than the need for power. Servant leaders establish quality relations with their followers, empower them, prioritize their followers' learning and growth, behave in an ethical way, and put their followers' interests first (Chiniara & Bentein, 2016; Ehrhart, 2004; Van Dierendonck, 2011). In such a workplace, workers are unlikely to experience job insecurity (Niesen et al., 2018). Job insecurity inhibits effective job performance, erodes job satisfaction, and triggers turnover. Successful servant leadership practices lead to a pool of employees who are more engaged. This type of organizational culture is successful in women owned businesses.
I espouse servant leadership as CEO of the TECH Training Group and in my coaching business. I help adults reinvent themselves after divorce, retirement, or career change—so they can design a life that feels purposeful, powerful, and fully their own.
Imagine five couples from church, walking through the promenade and seeing a piano. They sat around the piano and began to sing; mostly hymns they knew by heart. Imagine hearing “Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” Strangers gathered, lingered, smiled, cried, took pictures, and sang along.
References
Chiniara, M. & Bentein, K. (2016) Linking servant leadership to individual performance: differentiating the mediating role of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction, The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 124–141.
Ehrhart, M. G. (2004). Leadership and procedural justice climate as antecedents of unit-level organizational citizenship behavior. Personnel Psychology, 57(1), 61–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2004.tb02484.x
Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. New York: Paulist Press.
Luthans, F., & Avolio, B. (2003). Authentic leadership development. In K. S. Cameron & J. E. Dutton. Positive organizational scholarship: 241-254. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Niesen, W., et al. (2018). Job insecurity and innovative work behaviour: A psychological contract perspective. Psychologica Belgica, 57(4), 174–189, https://doi.org/10.5334/pb.381
van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228–1261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310380462
