Servant Leadership: Operationalising an Oxymoron

Of the numerous forms of leadership propounded by commentators and scholars, none is as elusive as the servant variety. Although, in general terms, there is agreement that it is focused on followers, rather than leaders, much less clarity surrounds how it might be put into practice. This chapter considers possible approaches to the operationalisation of servant leadership as a school improvement strategy. It begins by examining such features of servant leadership as listening skills and empathy, before putting it into the context of other common leadership styles. Transformational leadership is looked at, as is distributed leadership in both its formal and informal modes, the conclusion being that servant leadership is a potentially valid approach for both principals and those at other levels of a hierarchy: informal teacher leadership is seen as a particularly promising ‘home’ for servant leadership. The chapter ends by proposing that professional learning communities, informed by distributed teacher leadership, offer a solid practical basis for leaders of different types to put the servant style into practice.