The dimensions of servant-leadership intend to provide us with insight into ourselves through discovery of understanding the “Why? How? What?” of servant-leadership.
howThe dimension of ‘How’ examines the means and methods of how we are – our ways of being. How we conduct ourselves in our various roles determines how we can affect others and whether we are helping those we serve to grow as persons. Law enforcement officers can develop their capacities in various areas which will enhance their abilities as servant-leaders. Some of those areas include awareness, presence, availability, empathy, listening, intuition, and foresight. At the most basic level, these capacities are necessary for officers to develop to be successful in the course of their career. As servant-leaders, an officer’s ability to increase their capacity in these areas increases their ability to be stewards to their communities; role models for children; healers to crime victims; change agents in incidents requiring their leadership; and builders of community policing structures that are driven by care and compassion.
whyThe ‘Why’ defines our motives and intentions regarding why we serve. The basic premise for why those in law enforcement serve is to answer an initial calling to serve. As officers become more involved in law enforcement they are met with challenges which can compete with this calling and cause them to seek other “Whys” to serve. These can be in the form of assignments to special teams, recognition, material gain, or promotion.
To return to the call to serve which brought them to law enforcement to begin with, officers need to examine themselves and begin to care less about themselves and more about others; they need to become citizens of a community greater than their own and care for everyone who would be affected by their service - now and in the future. whatExamining ‘The What’ in servant-leadership rounds out the last dimension with an understanding of the overall goal as it explains the ends and the outcomes of servant-leadership in practice; it is measurable by reviewing Greenleaf’s ‘best test.’
For law enforcement, the perfect end result would be no crime, no oppression, no victims – “the world works for all.” In reality, the closest law enforcement may come to this is to promote a safer, more meaningful community for those they serve, encourage social equity among the members of their community, and consistently behave in a manner which exhibits balance and fairness. Means and methods can also be expanded to incorporate the organization. In a law enforcement setting, this would require a dramatic change in the current culture and hierarchical structure of a police organization; it requires a change in the system. Moving from a control and command power structure to one which allows for teams and partnerships to operate equally in command settings is one way to advance servant-leadership on an organizational level. The calling to serve has greater depth at this level; encouraging change not only within the servant-leader, but also in the system. |
© 2015 by Kim Edmondson, MA Organizational Leadership - Gonzaga University