A Catholic Leadership Style: Servant Leadership
“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Is there a Catholic leadership style? I believe the answer is “Yes.” It is called servant leadership—the leadership approach used by Jesus, and now Pope Francis, in which we are called to be a servant to others.
The term “servant leadership” was coined by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s to describe a leader who puts the needs of their followers above their own. Greenleaf judged a leader as a servant leader if they helped the people who report to them by encouraging and supporting their personal growth and development—not only as employees but as persons.
5 Elements of Servant Leadership
According to Craig E. Johnson’s book Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership, Greenleaf identified five key elements of servant leadership:
Stewardship: The servant leader espouses the concepts of collaboration and persuasion rather than coercion and control.
Obligation: The servant leader believes it is her mission to create a workplace that encourages clear values, a healthy workplace culture, maturity, effectiveness, and civility.
Partnership: The servant leader sees her employees as partners, not subordinates, and nurtures a work environment that espouses equity and justice.
Emotional healing: The servant leader takes a personal interest in the lives of her employees and supports them as they manage traumatic experiences, hardships, or emotional difficulties. She encourages a sense of wholeness in the personal lives of her employees.
An elevating purpose: The servant leader believes in worthy missions and seeks to encourage all employees to understand their purpose in the organization and seek a high moral objective in life.
Supporting a Catholic Workplace
The servant leader creates a work environment where employees can grow and become the best of themselves, fulfilling the higher purpose for which God created them. Such an ideal supports Catholic social teaching, which includes the dignity of each person and the dignity of work. According to Anthony Esolen’s book Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching, work is multi-purposed: It is for family, for neighbors, for rest and celebration, for play, and for God.
Additionally, a servant leader encourages human freedom, and Esolen argues that “liberty without virtue is a mirage. Virtue sets man free.” A workplace led by a Catholic must be virtuous and support the dignity of work and the liberty of the human person. The leader is a servant to all, creating a culture that encourages and celebrates the achievements, both personal and professional, of all its employees. Such a work environment is uncommon, because the focus of many organizations is monetary success. The Catholic model of leadership believes monetary success must come second to successful, happy employees, who are led by a servant leader.
Furthermore, in his book Leadership: Theory and Practice (5th ed.), Peter Northouse explains that a servant leader has a social responsibility “to be concerned with the have-nots and to recognize them as equal stakeholders in the life of the organization. Where inequalities and social injustices exist, the servant leader tries to remove them.”
It is not uncommon to see servant leadership discussed alongside the concept of ethical leadership, which focuses on community, respect, service, justice, and honesty. And, in the Gospels, we have countless stories of Jesus’ compassion and mercy toward the suffering, as He offered His miraculous help to alleviate and resolve their pain and misfortune. In the same way, a servant leader is a shepherd who looks out for her employees and understands that her responsibility as a manager is to provide an ethical, moral, supportive work environment for her employees. In fact, she would not feel that she did her work well if she did not care for the people who work for her.
While it is difficult to determine the number of companies led by servant leaders worldwide, Rick Conlow, CEO and founder of Rick Conlow International, cites a study conducted by Sipe & Frick (authors of the 7 Pillars of Servant Leadership), in stocks from the top 500 public companies averaged a 10.8% pre-tax return, while the servant-led companies’ returns averaged 24.2%. In other words, servant-led companies did more than twice as well as other companies.
For us Catholic leaders, we must not only focus on our stock market standing to consider ourselves successful. We must also focus on mission and purpose. As Claire Dwyer writes in a recent Catholic Women in Business article, “God has entrusted us with a mission, and it is our job to communicate it with both humility and magnanimity.”
That is the description of a servant leader: humble and magnanimous.
There is, in fact, a Catholic form of leadership. As servant leaders cultivate their employees’ unique talents and skills, they also show confidence in the abilities and gifts these employees bring to the workplace to help the organization thrive. In addition, they contribute to a happy, healthy culture for their employees (remote or in person). The workplace cultures led by servant leaders, in turn, impact our broader culture in positive and holy ways.
Kate Walsh-Soucheray is a wife of 42 years, a mother of three adult, married children, and grandmother of six beautiful, active grandchildren. She is a former Catholic high school Religion teacher and a former Christian Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Dr. Walsh-Soucheray writes a monthly column for the Catholic Spirit, the Archdiocesan newspaper of Minneapolis and St. Paul, called Simple Holiness. She is now retired and writes and speaks for Catholic women’s groups, Cana Dinners, and leads retreats for Catholic groups about integrating holiness into our everyday lives. Find her daily reflection and encouragement for Catholic women on LinkedIn.