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 s

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.