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ABSTRACT
Applying the principles, values, and practices of Servant Leadership to teaching can make a profound difference on the impact of learning and in the learning experience of both students and teachers. Ten key attributes of Servant Leadership are defined and explained, and translated to the education context, introducing the notion of the "Servant Teacher." The paper compares and contrasts the more typical / traditional lecture and course format with one that embodies servant teaching. It is argued that the more conventional education approaches reinforce the "teacher-student" status quo. Continuing to teach in ways that replicate command and control, hierarchy, and power disparities that promote dependence, compliance, and passivity rather than autonomy are antithetical and counterproductive in a time when flexibility, initiative, responsibility, ownership, self-direction, creativity, empowerment, and teamwork and collaboration are more essential than ever.
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
This paper makes the case that applying the principles, values, and practices of Servant Leadership (Greenleaf, 1977; Spears, 1998; Carroll, 2005) to management education can make a profound difference on the impact of learning and in the learning experience of both students and teachers. This is particularly important as it has been discovered that traditional classroom activities fall short of equipping students with crucial career and life skills (Day, 2001). Developing leadership capabilities in young people is an area that has been particularly underemphasised and where conventional classroom management activities fail (Grothaus, 2004). Not only do we miss the mark in terms of preparing students for the work world, we may actually undermine their development, as discussed below. Servant Leadership, popularised by Robert Greenleaf (1977)) intends to invert the hierarchy (Blanchard, 1996; Coulter, 2003), empowering employees, students, and citizens, and emphasising the roles of service, support, stewardship, and facilitation in leadership.
The paper translates ten key attributes of Servant Leadership, as distilled from Greenleaf s work by Larry Spears (1998), CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, to the education context, introducing the notion of the "servant teacher." The attributes, including empathy, commitment to growth, stewardship, and building community, are defined and explained, and narratives are provided that exemplify how these attributes of Servant Leadership are applied in the classroom and other educational contexts. These narratives are extracted from student reflective learning journals,...