4 ms·

Makes me think of the phrase servant leadership that was batted about at my corporate job. Not everyone in charge has to be some hard charging loudmouth. That'

Makes me think of the phrase servant leadership that was batted about at my corporate job. Not everyone in charge has to be some hard charging loudmouth. That's basically style, not substance.

mise_en_place 5y ago
The VP of engineering I work for is very much a servant leader. He is always around to support the team, unblock people, and makes sure things are moving along smoothly. As opposed to previous leaders I've had who were aloof/absent and typically not available after 4 pm. As an aside, I am deeply suspicious of people who assign letters to their personality or pronouns to themselves. We are all humans first and foremost.
- vba616 5y ago
  >I am deeply suspicious of people who assign letters to their personality "Professor Evelyn Algernon Valentine Ebsworth CBE, PhD, MA, ScD, DCL hc, FRSC, FRSE" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-nominal_letters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-nominal_letters
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I think GP meant more like 'I am a Type A' and similar (cf. OP). Might be wrong though.
    - JackFr 5y ago
      Ordo Praedicatorum?
      - OJFord 5y ago
        'OP'? No - the 'Original Post', i.e. the submission title is also an example: 'as a Type B Introvert' https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/OP#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/OP#Noun (def 4 at time of writing)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hitekker 5y ago
I think of "Servant Leadership" as a buzzword. Useful for "nice" managers who conceal their authority behind a veneer of IC empowerment. I've worked with two self-described "servant leaders" who claimed to give their engineers independence and then later smashed the same engineers at the first sign of defiance. I've also worked for a manager who embodied the supposed ideal of a "servant leader", who mentored me, watched out for me, and sacrificed for me. Yet he never even for a moment called himself a "servant leader", nor did anyone else call him a "servant leader" or use a lazy, feel-good on him. I think the buzzword persists because we all want managers who cannot hurt us, belittle us, or fire us. But a positive illusion is a poor substitute for knowledge about power dynamics.
- vincentmarle 5y ago
  A true “servant leader” would cringe at calling themselves leader in the first place. I also have one of those self-proclaimed “servant leaders” on my team, he’s the only manager who has a 10-page README on himself. Also the only manager who I regularly have to argue with before he “serves” me.
kqr 5y ago
I dislike the phrase servant leadership. I have a mental link between that and curling parenting, where parents anticipate any problem and sweep the way for their children. The drawback of servant leadership in the workplace (and curling parenting in childrearing) is that the servant leader quickly becomes (in my experience) an overworked single point of failure, and once they leave there is nobody else who knows how to handle the obstacles they've moved out of the way for everyone. In the worst cases, they leave behind a group of people who have been completely isolated from the rest of the organisation, and has no idea what their purpose is and how to fit in with the rest of the world, once the leader leaves. I would like to invent my own buzzword: transparent leadership. In my book, a good leader - coaches people, - connects people, - teaches people methodical problem solving, - explains values, principles, and other fuzzy values to aid people in making aligned decisions on their own, - creates direct links between supply and demand (instead of deliberately making themselves a middle man), - allows their direct reports career growth by gradually taking over leadership responsibilities, - continuously trains their replacement (related to the above), and - generally makes themselves redundant. Ideally, transparent leadership has a side effect: it gives the leader more time to work on technical problems, keeping their skills fresh, which gets them more respect in the eyes of their direct reports too. Note that servant leadership/curling parenting feels really good for the direct report/child... until it doesn't. TL;DR: Parenting and leadership is very similar. Teach a man to fish etc.

Makes me think of the phrase servant leadership that was batted about at my corporate job. Not everyone in charge has to be some hard charging loudmouth. That's basically style, not substance.

mise_en_place 5y ago

The VP of engineering I work for is very much a servant leader. He is always around to support the team, unblock people, and makes sure things are moving along smoothly. As opposed to previous leaders I've had who were aloof/absent and typically not available after 4 pm. As an aside, I am deeply suspicious of people who assign letters to their personality or pronouns to themselves. We are all humans first and foremost.

vba616 5y ago
>I am deeply suspicious of people who assign letters to their personality "Professor Evelyn Algernon Valentine Ebsworth CBE, PhD, MA, ScD, DCL hc, FRSC, FRSE" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-nominal_letters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-nominal_letters
- OJFord 5y ago
  I think GP meant more like 'I am a Type A' and similar (cf. OP). Might be wrong though.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    Ordo Praedicatorum?
    - OJFord 5y ago
      'OP'? No - the 'Original Post', i.e. the submission title is also an example: 'as a Type B Introvert' https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/OP#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/OP#Noun (def 4 at time of writing)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hitekker 5y ago

I think of "Servant Leadership" as a buzzword. Useful for "nice" managers who conceal their authority behind a veneer of IC empowerment. I've worked with two self-described "servant leaders" who claimed to give their engineers independence and then later smashed the same engineers at the first sign of defiance. I've also worked for a manager who embodied the supposed ideal of a "servant leader", who mentored me, watched out for me, and sacrificed for me. Yet he never even for a moment called himself a "servant leader", nor did anyone else call him a "servant leader" or use a lazy, feel-good on him. I think the buzzword persists because we all want managers who cannot hurt us, belittle us, or fire us. But a positive illusion is a poor substitute for knowledge about power dynamics.

vincentmarle 5y ago
A true “servant leader” would cringe at calling themselves leader in the first place. I also have one of those self-proclaimed “servant leaders” on my team, he’s the only manager who has a 10-page README on himself. Also the only manager who I regularly have to argue with before he “serves” me.

kqr 5y ago

I dislike the phrase servant leadership. I have a mental link between that and curling parenting, where parents anticipate any problem and sweep the way for their children. The drawback of servant leadership in the workplace (and curling parenting in childrearing) is that the servant leader quickly becomes (in my experience) an overworked single point of failure, and once they leave there is nobody else who knows how to handle the obstacles they've moved out of the way for everyone. In the worst cases, they leave behind a group of people who have been completely isolated from the rest of the organisation, and has no idea what their purpose is and how to fit in with the rest of the world, once the leader leaves. I would like to invent my own buzzword: transparent leadership. In my book, a good leader - coaches people, - connects people, - teaches people methodical problem solving, - explains values, principles, and other fuzzy values to aid people in making aligned decisions on their own, - creates direct links between supply and demand (instead of deliberately making themselves a middle man), - allows their direct reports career growth by gradually taking over leadership responsibilities, - continuously trains their replacement (related to the above), and - generally makes themselves redundant. Ideally, transparent leadership has a side effect: it gives the leader more time to work on technical problems, keeping their skills fresh, which gets them more respect in the eyes of their direct reports too. Note that servant leadership/curling parenting feels really good for the direct report/child... until it doesn't. TL;DR: Parenting and leadership is very similar. Teach a man to fish etc.