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The Principal’s Role as a Leader of Service
The Principal’s Role as a Leader of Service
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Critical Element Paper #2
Presented to the Department of Educational Leadership
and Postsecondary Education
University of Northern Iowa
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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the
Master of Arts in Education
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by
Annette Rena Maier
West Monona Elementary School
Onawa, IA
September 1, 2013
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DeWitt Jones
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“The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to
serve, to serve first. The conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” (Greenleaf, 1977) This
quote from The Servant As Leader describes my path pretty accurately. I became a teacher out
of the desire to help students, families, and communities better themselves. The strong teachers
and administrators of my childhood inspired me. They were great role models that I wanted to
emulate. I told myself I never wanted to be the principal, I wanted to stay in the classroom and
inspire my students. As I taught in my first district, I saw a wide variety of administrators come
through our doors. Seven leaders in four years! This lack of consistency and support drove
many of us crazy. As an observer by nature, I saw many strengths and weaknesses in those
leaders and started to relate to them. I began thinking of ways to improve upon their weaknesses
or how to add on to their strengths. In relating to them, I started to see skills in myself that I
never thought I had. I had great conversations with the administrators who were willing to listen,
and learned from them. One day I decided, enough thinking and talking, just do it! Why not
take what I have learned and observed and put it to good use? That has led me here.
Robert Greenleaf identifies ten principles of servant leadership: listening, empathy, healing,
awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of
people, and building community. The first skill, listening, may seem easy enough, but Greenleaf
clarifies it for a servant leader by saying, “Servant leaders seek to identify and clarify the will of
the group. They seek to listen receptively to what is being said (and not said).” (Greenleaf)
Next, a servant leader must show empathy, or the acceptance of others for their uniqueness and
their good intentions. Then we move to healing, not only for yourself but also for others around
you. This healing can lead to transformation and integration. Awareness is the next principle
and is a powerful skill that helps you learn about yourself and the environment around you.
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“The opening of awareness stocks both the conscious and unconscious minds with
richness of resources for future need. But it does more than that: it is value building and
value clarifying and it armors one to met the stress of life by helping build serenity in the
face of stress and uncertainty. The cultivation of awareness gives one the basis for
detachment, the ability to stand aside and see oneself in perspective in the context of
one’s own experience, amidst the ever present dangers, threats, and alarms. (Greenleaf,
1977)
A servant leader needs to use persuasion to convince others and build a consensus with those
around them. Next is conceptualization, the ability to look beyond what is going on a daily
basis. It is having that bigger dream to work towards, while still maintaining the daily tasks
needed to get to the dream. A servant leader needs foresight in order to learn from the past,
value the present, and plan for the future. It is this ability to look ahead into the future that keeps
the leader in the lead. “Foresight is needed to form the vision and the plans that generate the
momentum that will make that future a good one.” (Keith, 2012) Next is stewardship in caring
for the institution. Not just from the leader, but also instilling in others their role in caring for the
institution. Servant leaders must be committed to the growth of all individuals in their care.
They must be committed to their growth professionally, personally, and spiritually. Last, the
servant leader must build community. They must use their awareness to sense the shifts within
their environment that could affect those around them. When all of these skills are developed
and utilized, you can become an effective servant leader.
Many of these principles can be connected to the Iowa Standards for School Leaders. One of
the biggest beliefs of servant leadership is working together as a team and empowering those
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around you. This belief alone connects to all of the Iowa Standards and makes servant
leadership a more desirable style for school administrators to utilize.
Although servant leadership connects to all of the standards, there are two that stand out to
me the most. The first huge connection is with the first standard, shared vision. The very notion
of servant leadership is to create an environment of cooperation, where everyone is valued.
Through listening, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, stewardship, and commitment to
growth we help to create a shared vision for our staff and school. If the servant leader uses these
skills properly, all staff can be a part of that shared vision which will make the school more
successful. The second one I see a strong connection with is standard 5, ethics. In my research I
found frequent references to the ethical side of servant leadership. Dr. Kent Keith presented
multiple slides on the ethical side of servant leadership stating,
“Servant leaders are ethical because they try to meet the needs of others-to be of service.
They continue to do this even if they are not as successful as they might wish, or people
do not appreciate their efforts. They know there is no moral justification for shifting to
the immoral responses of ignoring others or exploiting them.” (Keith, 2012)
The principles of putting others first through building empathy, listening, healing, stewardship,
and building community create a leader who, would typically, follow their ethical intuitions.
My principal shows many characteristics of a servant leader. I have watched my principal
juggle the crazy schedule of being in two different buildings. She always puts the students and
staff first and will, regardless of her schedule, go to any building she needs to if something
arises. She doesn’t favor one grade or building over another and values each teacher for our
individual skills. She is willing to step into someone’s classroom to teach and this year has even
taken a recess duty to ensure that we have enough people to cover. Whenever possible she gets
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numerous opinions before implementing new ideas and her door is always open to all staff
members. It has been a great experience to see this team oriented style of leadership. To have us
in one building will take a lot of situational stress off of her this school year.
Looking ahead to my future as a leader I see some definite connections to the servant style of
leadership. I view some of my strongest traits to be listening, awareness, conceptualization, and
foresight. As I said above, I am an observer by nature. I am well aware of what is going on
around me and I listen and take in those things, then process and act accordingly. I do not claim
to have all of the answers, but by listening to the thoughts and opinions of others, we can
combine ideas to come up with the best course of action. Allowing others to be involved gives
them a sense of ownership, which will typically, lead to a more successful outcome.
A few of the areas that I know need improvement are empathy, persuasion, and building
community. I know I can empathize with people well, but it is when someone has let me down
that I have a hard time trusting that person again. “One must assume the good intentions of
coworkers and not reject them as people, even when forced to reject their behavior or
performance.” (Greenleaf) This statement is absolutely true, but is not always easy especially
depending on their actions. Greenleaf also advises that to accept a person we must be able to
tolerate imperfection. Moving past their behaviors or actions is not always easy, but it is
necessary.
Persuasion and building community go hand in hand. Both of these are skills that I know
require some fine-tuning and can be very situational in nature. For example, this school year we
are combining our two elementary schools. Building community has been very interesting
among the staff and the students. We had two very different environments in the separate
buildings and combining them into one has been an interesting process that I’m sure will
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continue over the course of the school year. However, if you were coming into a wellestablished building where everyone is close it can be an easier process. It is more about
integrating you into that community and then combining your vision and beliefs with theirs.
This is where the persuasion piece would definitely come into play.
Servant leadership is just one of many leadership styles that exist. This style makes a lot of
sense for school leaders to adopt because, in the end, it is not all about the principal. In a The
21st Century Principal blog, J. Robinson writes, “…what keeps people from becoming servant
leaders is ego.” (Robinson, May) The principal will not, singlehandedly, make the school
successful. Each person in the building has a part to play to make the school a success. The
servant leader has to acknowledge, foster, nurture, support, and allow each person to play out
their role to the best of their ability. “One does not awaken each morning with the compulsion to
reinvent the wheel. But if one is servant, either leader or follower, one is always searching,
listening, expecting that a better wheel for these times is in the making.” (Greenleaf, 1977) This
mentality is definitely a large change for some, but for others it is second nature.
The Principal’s Role as a Leader of Service
References
Greenleaf, R. (n.d.). Ten principles of servant leadership. Retrieved from
www.butler.edu/volunteer/resources/principles-of-servant-leadership/
Robinson, J. (May, 2011 12). [Web log message]. Retrieved from
the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-servant-school-leaders-do.html
Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant leadership a journey into the nature of legitimate power and
greatness. Paulist Press. Retrieved from
http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/The Servant as Leader.pdf
Keith, K. M. (2012). Being A Servant-Leader: Four Ethical Principles [PowerPoint slides].
Retrieved from http://www.akpsi.org/admin/document.doc?id=363
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What actions have I taken as an aspiring leader that demonstrate my functioning as a
leader of service? How will I build on these actions as a leader?
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