Leadership traits and leadership trends for the 21st century are totally integrated - different sides of the same coin. The traits of servant leadership are critical to develop the trend.

Transparency and trust helps develop relationships and creates an environment for behavior modeling to occur.  But, how does behavior modeling relate to servant leadership?

Behavior modeling begins when a team member or individual starts to emulate their leader or mentor.  What does this look like?  Modeling can take the form of simply reflecting the same philosophy and approach their leader/mentor is using all the way to taking on similar physical mannerisms, characteristics and actions the leader displays.

Servant leadership is an attitude as well as a behavior.  You must think as well as act differently.  Remember, it’s not about the leader. It is about the leader assisting others to advance, to develop into greater people and to do greater works. In the long run, this is better for the organization, but it starts with a focus on people.

Servant leadership can spread rapidly through an organization, which is a very good thing.  As team members notice their leader is doing something different than they have experienced, they might not be able to describe exactly what’s different, but they like it and it’s working.

People will start to adopt the attitude of a servant leader.  They notice there is a different philosophy and a different "talk" coming from their mentor.  They see that there is a slightly different way their leader approaches problems and develops solutions.  They observe their leaders business conduct.  As the relationship grows and trust builds they will start communicating and acting with this new attitude, and that’s how the spirit of servant leadership begins to spread.

When a leader observes his or her team members starting to communicate outward with this new approach and attitude and notices changes in team members business conduct, then they can be sure that the roots of servant leadership are starting to take hold.

This is a very critical juncture in leadership development.  If the leader looses focus on the individual and the concept of servant leadership, a dark side driven purely by ego can emerge, which will kill all that has been gained.  I’ll focus on this aspect next time.

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